Mailing List Archive Mailing List Archive
A stock c-5 corvette will not run 170 in 6th gear. jim At 04:25 PM 4/3/00 -0400, you wrote: >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 >=BD 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.=20 > >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. =20 > >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'.
Navigate by Author:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Subject Search Index]
[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]
[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]