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I've been watching the excellent video that Frederic Badier sent me, "L'etrange migration de l'homoaquaphilus", showing the exploration of the Marnade cave. It's as clear as you could want, lots colder than you'd want -- and as complex as you don't want, due to a couple of sumps along the way. My French is limited to such expressions as "Passez-moi le Chateauneuf du Pape" (Literal translation: "I'll take nine glasses of the red.") so my wife is translating as we go. But just watching the footage unfold gives you the story quite well. It convinces me that we here in the States have it comparatively easy. Having now watched videos of cave diving in England (Wookey), Germany (Aache), Austria (Miralucke), and France, it's clear that these skilled European cave divers would be "formidable" (Tr.: "ass-kicking") anywhere they chose to explore. Equipment configs are in the traditional European style, naturally,: subcompact euro-station wagons rather than large GM white vans,; a minimum of 2,000 pate-mounted watts each ;-) -- but, hey -- it works. From various conversations, I understand that in Europe running 2 primary lights at all times allows them the comfort level of never having a total black-out should one light fail. This might raise the question of whether your buds' lights wouldn't still offer some comfort/viz if you're running with just one and it fails. But unlike our relatively spacious caves, these folks are often/mostly diving virtually solo (necessarily single-file) in narrow, low-viz passages. I was wondering also why they haven't gotten more into using the goodman handles (perhaps they are now), which would still allow the use of their hands -- a constant requirement in the levels of flow they are usually dealing with over there. Then I realized that, considering how much the French and Italians speak with their hands, this could cause quite a lot of confusion underwater. ;-) More details after I've finished the vid -- and the wine. Christopher A. Brown The Technical Diving Video Library http://www.nettally.com/techvid (US & Canada): 1-800-373-7222 Outside US:904-942-7222 Fax:904-942-1240 Life is short -- this is not a rehearsal. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send list subscription requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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