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Don, you don't just drag a third man 18,000 feet, and the last third guy who had been diving with us for several years quit cave diving. JJ and I will be doing it two man from now on. It works wuite well, and I do not have time to give somebody new ten years of our experience. JJ and I have agreed that wehn we get in the water together, it is this or nothing, since any dive in our systems now is going to be so long anyway, that we might as well stay for the whole show each time, and just do less dives. Otherise, I have a dive partner for all my other dives and it will be that , or this, nothing in between. I have spent so much time teaching people to do this, and they just end up quitting or getting hurt. JJ and I are a satisfactory team for this, and it is a lot safer that way, trust me, I know , and I can not tell you why I know. Like they say in the Holiday Inn adds , "The best suprise is no suprise". Mcinnis, Don wrote: > > And this is just the warm-up dive? Why are you using two man teams instead > of three man teams on the way back in stuff. Is it easier logistically or is > there some other reason? From someone on in the stands though, helluva job! > > Don > > -----Original Message----- > From: trey@ne*.co* [mailto:trey@ne*.co*] > Sent: Monday, April 03, 2000 3:26 PM > To: techdiver@aquanaut.com > Subject: WKPP - 18+ Grand Again > > WKPP - 18+ GRAND AGAIN > > Apr 1,2000 was our ( JJ and my ) April fool's day , or so it seemed to > Surface Manager Dawn Kernagis when I answered her last question, "how > long is your bottom time going to be?" with "Six to seven hours". The > plan looked different: what we were doing is having an open circuit team > set up another open circuit team which would then leave a scooter each > for me and Jarrod at 4500 feet, and an open circuit team that would > leave a scooter each for John Rose, Chris Werner and Ted Cole at 3500 > feet. Werner's team would then leave 9 safeties and a scooter each for > me and JJ at 9,000 feet, while JJ and I would go in on three scooters > and deposit safeties at 7500 and 9,000 behind this team and then move > the others forward in 12-15 minute increments out to 14,000 feet, where > we wold begin exploring a passage we had found in 1998. I told Dawn, "If > we start adding at 14K, we will end up with the same kind of dive as > last time ( which was 18k). > > Not wanting to alarm anyone, Jarrod and I had not discussed this with > anyone, and only discussed it with each other when we both burst out > laughing as we saw each other for the first time that day. We both > knew. I had been driving along, talking to different members of the team > on their cell phones as I always do before the dives, and was talking > to Pina who was looking for Jarrod's phone number and I got out my > calculator by accident. That got me thinking about scooter burn times, > so I added up our fire power. We had would be leaving 9,000 with three 2 > ½ hour scooters. I told her I'd call her back and did not give her the > number so I could call first. Out of range. But later, he told me he was > doing exactly the same thing. > > Everything went fast. We were making great time out to 6500, the exact > time it had taken to put that line in on open circuit back in 1992. We > picked up the bottles there and moved them forward. At 7,000 feet, we > saw where Stone's Brits had tied the line back together where I had > broken it on our last 18K dive in 1998. I started laughing. The knot was > a mess. I was thinking, " at least the ungrateful bastards could have > put the line back up on the wall, but at least they were not weenies > like the rest of that team who cried to the Park Manager that we had > "sabotaged" them. All they had to do is read my story and know how the > line broke. The vis was so so, after having been brilliant in A and K > Tunnels. O was dark. We dropped the other safety and then at 8,000 we > passed the other team coming out, and I high fived Werner on the way > by. Only in the WKPP do you pass teams 8 G's back at 290 and think it > is normal. > > At 8+ I saw the lead we had sent Werner's team to hit. I had told them > the wrong place. My fist reaction was to yell in the reg at JJ, "where > is the T?", and I stopped to switch drive bottles on my rebreather, > dropping the first one at 1/2 plus 200, like that makes any difference. > I had talked to Rick Stanton on the phone, and he did not remember > seeing the T . That made me think it had come undone, since I passed a > huge passage ( an alcove now that I remember it) with no line. We do not > do much with line arrows way back, we go by knowing the survey. > > JJ and I picked up six of the safeties when we finally hit the T, and > started forward. We were 90 minutes into the dive, still making good > time. There was a reflective usdct buoy there and we were both curious > as to how far Stanton had gotten. I laughed out loud when I saw another > reflector off on the next T where we had added a bunch of line that > looped back on itself after going all over the place back to the north. > I was glad I had not put either of those T's on the map, and equally > glad when we passed their last marker a couple of minutes later - just > shy of our open circuit best, and just shy of all of the good leads. 90 > days of line following and they deserved every minute of their failure. > > We deposited the safeties as we went and checked the leads we had marked > in '98. One , near 13,000 feet, was amazing. All along we were just > cruising, relaxed and feeling our gear. Everything was perfect, but as I > saw my compass needle swing West, the adrenaline started pumping - we > were approaching the 14,000 foot T Room. On the surface we had agreed, > "Let's just see how we feel and how we are doing when we get to the T". > As I saw the needle swing and saw the walls disappear and the rock > began to look familiar, and we passed above the T on the floor and both > "ok'd" it with a circle of our HID lights, and banked into the turn > towards 18 grand, it reminded me of the time I came across a car fire on > Florida's Turnpike: I was the first car to get to the roadblock, and a > Trooper stepped out into the highway and stopped me. He said it would be > a few minutes. I counted fifteen Highway Patrol cars on the other side. > I looked at my toll ticket - 35 miles to the next exit. A few minutes > later he let me through. 35 miles with no cars and no cops. I went > through all six gears with the hammer down and held it that way at 170 > mph for 35 miles of pure adrenaline , feeling the car slide on dry > pavement at each little turn in the highway , windows down , engine > screaming and the road looking like a sidewalk in front of me. I was > getting that same feeling now. > > At 17 K we dropped some bottles, and switched and dropped our third > scooter, and went to our fourth with our fifth still in tow. I noticed > the good syphoning flow - nothing to be alarmed about, I told myself, > but I had to swim back to my bottles - just practice for Turner Sink. > At 18K, however, the flow was gone and the water, already dark for the > last 3,000 feet had really gotten dark. I ducked the roof a couple of > ties at the last second and was wondering what a catastrophic gas loss > at 18 K would be like in the fire drill category - like a long day . I > recognized the depth changes as we approached the end, and saw my line > arrow bunch hanging from the last tie off, with the note we had left > ourselves, which says "NUTS"... We tied in and started adding line, > immediately breaking our own record. The problem became that we could > not tell where to go in the dark water, so after a little while we tied > it off and cut it, and then moved back along the line with me holding > while JJ scootered the walls checking for a better passage. The one we > were in was not flowing suddenly. The problem was now that when JJ got > more than 30 feet from me , I could barely see his HID light. > > We got out the wetnotes and had a conversation. JJ said, "Do you want to > go get our bottles and scooters and check the leads and work our way > out?". "Yes". I was thinking that while everything was perfect now, it > might not stay the way if we stayed in the back groping in the bad vis. > We had 13 hour lights, an extra 250 minutes of scooter burn time over > what we needed to get out, we had gas everywhere, the scrubbers were > fine, and we were warm, but we have done this before. > > To be continued. > > -- > Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. > Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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