Thanks to everyone who helped this weekend -
what a clockwork operation. Maybe Dave Sweetin could
put out a list of these who were there.  Dave did a
great job running the dive, and the usual suspects,
Jerry Moore, Nanci, Heather, Ed, Dave Rhea, etc.
made it happen as always. Thanks to Cole, Hunsucker,
Rat, and Herve for retrieving our scooters and
drives from the cave. As Heather said, you only had
to go one mile at 285 .

    Jarrod and I got off before 8:00 am and out of
the water by 10:30 p.m. with a fast paced 6 1/2 hour
bottom time turnaround and a clean 8.5 hour deco.
Thanks to last weekend's setup, we made record time
out to 17,000 feet where we started adding line in P
Tunnel. After 2,000 feet of low and wide
interspersed with giant rooms and big tunnel, we
looped back through a low slot into the end of O
Tunnel, going 19,000 feet to get 18,000 feet. We
videoed the whole 2000 addition, as well as the cave
from 14,000 into 10,000, leaving only a small
section  to video before we have the entire cave
recorded. I videoed JJ adding line, he videod the
way out, including finding a giant new lead at
17,000 feet headed NW towards Leon Sinks. This we
did not see on the way in as it was beyond a
breakdown pile, but JJ was on the left wall coming
out and I was on the line, so we got it.

We left full drive bottles at 17,000 feet and
safeties every 1500 feet all the way out , with more
drives at 8,000 feet where we switch on most dives.

Deco started at 250 and we had our second
rebreathers at 150. I opted to burn mine all the way
out, JJ switched to the more comfortable no tanks
RB. My scrubber held up the whole time ( 10.5 hours
before I went to sidemount open circuit at 50 feet
so I could eat ) and I never got any water other
than condensation in the loop, which I drank. I used
160 cu feet of gas for the 400 minute bottom time,
and used one 80 each of 190, 70 and 20 gas, and a
half bottle of 120 gas and a half bottle of break
gas. I also used three scooters, one completely ,
and never touched two 3 hour scooters, never burned
out the 13 hour HID. A really smooth dive. I went
over and saw Ian at FSU afterwards.

We will only need a jump start to 4500 for
subsequent dives, but will now go ahead and replace
the safeties out to 4500 feet in a series of O/C
dives and run the other RB team on an M Tunnel
exploration. JJ and I will do support for these
dives. We want to use this opportunity to run some
new teams in the cave and to run video teams while
the main conduit is clear.

We appreciate everyone's help and want to be sure
that we get everyone diving while this place is so
spectacular, and it is easier to learn the routes.
We also want to get our other teams exploring some
good stuff. O Tunnel is stub city and not worth the
2 to 3 hour rides to blunt out , while M is wide
open , clear,  and as big as A Tunnel.

I guess if we do this enough times, they stop
calling us "heroes" and start seeing that we are a
team. Now, when JJ and I pass the A-45 buoy ( max
pen for the usdct ),  we feel good as we are almost
home, about the equivalent of going through the West
Palm tool booth on the drive back from Tally to
Lauderdale.

Another WKPP perfect team execution.



--
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]