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Following my post about the deep cave dive push in france, here are some
news about the Fontaine de Vaucluse "Saga"...
First I will give you some background about Fontaine de Vaucluse situation.
The cave has been dived down to 210m by J.Hasenmayer. Due to the risk of
such dives, the local authorities control the access and do not deliver
diving authorization to avoid any accident. The explorations of the Fontaine
were carried out using ROV, and several ROV were send to explore the
Abyss... One imploded at 280m, a second unit (Called "Renault") was blocked
in 86 at 250m with his umbilical in place from 250m to 60m, this ROV is
still in place. Then a new ROV (called "Spelenaute") was used and the
bottom of the fountain was reached at 308m. The same ROV was again used
several time to explore the cave walls
Last september, the association leading the exploration decided to send the
spelenaute one more time to do some mapping of the cave. The ROV has a
camera and some sonar on it. Such an operation is the opportunity for some
cave divers to dive the fountain by helping the progression of the ROV at
the cave entrance. During the preparation of this operation, Sylvain
Redoutay (French) set up "discreetly" a deep dive and reached 195m deep in
the cave (see my previous mail). Local authorities were a bit upset because
they realized that they cannot really control the divers...
The day after Sylvain's dive, the ROV "spelenaute" was sent and get
entangled at 172m deep in Sylvain's line and the old "renault"'s
umbilical... Too bad for Sylvain who will not have any more authorization
for the fountain!
At this stage of the situation, the local association was looking for a
diver to recover the ROV. Olvier Isler was contacted but not selected. So
myself, Pascal Bernabe and J.P. Imbert proposed to set up a dive to recovers
the ROV. They selected our proposal but considered to first attempt
recovering the ROV with a second ROV(called "Achille") (from the COMEX)
equiped with a circular saw to deliver the spelenaute for economical reason.
And the Miracle did not happens! The "Achille" ROV got also entangled at
160m in the line and the "renault's umbilical". It was very embarrassing for
the local authorities and they call us to dive and recovers the two ROV...
We had 2 days notice before the dives took place and it was a lot of work
for the team to organize such a dive. The recovery operation was planned
over 4 days to prepare the gas mix, set up the decompression line with a
decompression habitat, perform two deep dives and set down the equipment. A
portable decompression chamber was on surface for safety. The team was
constituted of 12 support divers, Jean Pierre Imbert for the calcul of
decompression procedure, a surface manager, a surface team, a safety advisor
and the caisson master. Decompression line was installed for both divers the
same day starting from 80m deep to the surface.
I did the first dive to evaluate the situation and start cutting/cleaning
the Renault's umbilical. On my way down, I staged a bottle at 95m for Pascal
Bernabe decompression who was planned for the next dive. I reached 161m and
spent 16 min bottom time. I worked on the Achille ROV cleaning the place and
preparing the second dive. Decompression was OK with first stop at 105m and
pure Oxy at 12m, 9 m and 6m in the decompression habitat. Decompression
lasts for 8 hours considering 20min bottom time at 160m.
The day after, Pascal Bernabe did the second dive to 174m on the
"Spelenaute" ROV and worked 18 min cutting Sylvain's line, he left the
Spelenaute des-entangled hopping that the ROV pilot will surface it. On his
way up considering the Achille situation , Pascal decided to cut the
Achille's umbilical and bring it back manually to the surface. Pascal
surfaced after 8h30 decompression. The Achille's ROV was then recovered but
the Spelenaute could not ascend above 140m still entangled in something. The
diving team was very happy with the results as the two dives went OK and
that the situation greatly improved. We were all tired because of the
activities and the lack of sleep. So we proposed to set up another dive 2
weeks later to recover the last one.
Then the Saga continued, the local association decided to fix the recovered
ROV and send it back to deliver their toy (the Spelenaute ROV at 140m). I
know it seems very silly and stupid... And one more time the Miracle did not
happens...(:-) The achille ROV was again entangled at 110m this time. It
could have been a good laugh but we (the diver team) were very upset because
of the local association decision.
Finally last WE, we set up two deep dives. The operation took place in two
days. On Saturday, the decompression line and the decompression habitat was
installed in the morning. I dived early in the afternoon on the Achille at
110m, cut its umbilical and pulled it to the surface. Bottom time was 7 min
and decompression lasted for 3 hours. After my dive, Pascal Bernabe dived on
the spelenaute at 140m and applied the same procedure. He pulled the ROV to
the surface. His bottom time was 11 min and decompression lasted for 4.5
hours. On sunday, we removed all our equipment from the cave.
Finally it was a lot of fun for the team, despite of the "saga" and the
amount of work required. Decompression procedures calculated by J.P. Imbert
were nice, Pascal and myself felt in very good shape after every dive.
Gas mix used were the following:
Bottom mix for the 174 and 161m dive: O2 9% N2 20% He71%
O2 12% N2 20% He68% for deep decompression from 115m to 75m
O2 20% N2 30% He50% for decompression from 72m to 48m
Air for decompression from 45m to 33m
Nitrox 40% for decompression from 30 to 24m
Nitrox 50% for decompression from 21 to 15
Pure Oxygen for decompression in habitat from 12m to 6m
Equipment configuration was the following. (It is the french way and may
suscitate some reaction or flame but keep in mind that our environment is
different from Florida)
We had two 20L tanks at 240 bars back mounted (independent) with Tekstar
regulators (developed by COMEX for deep intervention), two other 20L tanks
(240bars) were chest mounted and kept on the diver at the bottom. Argon was
used as insulating gas and an electrical heater was used at the
decompression stops. Light are mounted on helmet. We used wings (diverite
or OMS) as buoyancy compensator and a neoprene dry suit (Northern Diver).
Water temperature was 13deg C (55 deg F).
I hope this long post was of interest for you. I am looking for a place on
the web to display picture or even AVI of the operation in the coming weeks.
If someone is willing to welcome some crazy french cave diver on this web
domain,contact me ;-)
Bonnes Plongees.
Frederic
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Ç @ @ D
______.oo0o_ º J º __o0oo._______________________________
| \_W_/ |
| .ooo0 Oooo. badier@cl*.do*.sl*.co* |
| ( ) ( ) Frederic (France) |
|________ \ ( _o0o_ ) /___________________________________|
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