How I spent my summer vacation

Tell us your tale of coming nose-to-nose with a 6 gill [--this big--], or about your vacation to turquoise warm waters. Share your adventures here!
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CaptnJack
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How I spent my summer vacation

Post by CaptnJack »

June 2012

Leaving the house at 4:15am I caught the 8 am ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria. From there I travelled up to Vancouver Island to meet up with my internet caving buddy Peter N. who lives in Vancouver. I met up with Peter and Dale at the Denman Island ferry store in Buckley Bay, about an hour north of Nanaimo. After some initial introductions we continued on to Campbell River for groceries and beer, then Sayward Junction for our last fuel stop. Camping near Port McNeill was cushy, bacon and eggs every morning, little or no lunch on the go, then a huge dinner with copious amounts of beer and hog fat at dinner too. Cavers stay in the woods in style with a woodstove and a huge wall tent. Also arriving at different times and staying with us were, Trevor and Nancy, Dennis, Dave, and Peter C. of VICEG.

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Dennis took us up to check out a cave called “Olympic Pool” that afternoon. It’s a 25m crawl down a narrow gap in the marble to the pool. Nice looking sump though. We then moved on to peek inside a nearby cave (on the other side of the road) called “Broken Bottle”. Broken bottle was a bit deeper but the sump (stream) in the bottom is suspected to connect to Olympic Pool and then continue further down the hill to a cave called “PK1”.

Day 2 we decided to put me in Olympic pool with sidemount lp45s to see if there’s even any human sized passage at all. I suited up at the truck while Dale and Peter N. graciously hauled an lp45 each down to Olympic pool for me. I donned my FL oriented cave SM rig and really had to wiggle to get down to the sump. The combination of the undergarments, CF200 suit, BC, soft lead on my back and suit inflator on my chest really made it a bit of a squeeze to access the pool.

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The floor of the pool was smooth grey marble at an annoying 45deg angle making both standing, sitting and kneeling awkward. I slipped under the ~48F water with 2 backups and a helmet mounted light, laying line as I went. I quickly discovered an “H” shaped cave with multiple shallow branches dropping down to the left and right. (Sketch)
I continued on in maybe 4ft of water to a T shaped fault or fold in the marble. I decided the right passage was the larger and more going one so I descend fairly quickly to 56ft where the small tanks forced me to tie off and thumb the dive. I surveyed the 375ft of line laid on my exit and also took this brief clip of the trout living in this underground stream, which at least during my dive had almost no flow.

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That night it rained maybe 0.5”, on the residue winter’s snow, blech. Flows were up everywhere. So we went exploring anyway. Off to another new cave called “Wide Open”. Here 150ft of stooped passage leads to a dome shaped room with a sizable tea colored stream gushing out of the floor. Not really divable…

So we trek off to check out some resurgences (springs) back by the bridge over the river. These are maybe 25m from the road and while clear their flow is not divable either. Good to know about them though. Again Peter N., Dale and I set off for another cave, not really to dive anything at this point, more just to find and see them. Unfortunately we have no real idea where we are going and eventually give up and return to our VICEG friends at Wide Open. They have found another new cave nearby and are busily enlarging the debris choked opening to allow everyone access while the thinner folks are already inside surveying. We slither inside and crawl around in the soft mud checking out the brilliant white marble formations and the potential for other sump dives. There are some maybes; Chipped in Marble probably connects Wide Open or the nearby creek somehow.

Upon hearing of our river swallet (siphon) confusion, Peter C. very generously drives up the river road to show us. Of course the river is still flush with rain and snowmelt so it’s raging.

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But the swallet is enormous and we quickly make tentative plans to reconvene in August to check out the diving options during lower flow.

Fast forward through a couple of phone calls and various emails to August…
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation - continued

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I broke up the 12 hours of travel by spending the night in Port Angeles before taking the 8:15am ferry to Victoria on Saturday. Dale lives on Hornby Island so he drove up a day earlier. I meet Peter N. at Buckley Bay 5 hours after leaving Port Angeles and we caravan up the Island together. This being my 3rd trip, this drive is getting familiar. Camp is half setup and we settle in.

The next day is sunny and HOT! (At least for the North Island). Peter C., Dave, and Dennis head off to finish the survey of some other cave while Dale, Peter N. and Alex head over to the river swallet. Our plan is to check out the swallet then hike down the presumably dry river bed to the resurgence which is rumored to be 1.2 to 2.8 km downstream (information was conflicting). We found the swallet flowing pretty well, this was certainly not divable.

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So off we go down the dry marble riverbed. Two hours and 2.76 GPS km later we find the resurgence and it looks VERY inviting. I had brought my mask and a light to look inside any holes we found.

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The dry rocky riverbed is hotter than Hades but the first ever dive in this cave is done! Max depth about 18”, time 12 seconds :p
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Looks like we have potentially going cave though, yay! Peter N. and I hike up to the road then the nearly 3km back the road to the truck. Dale and Alex relax a bit and then work on making a trail to the resurgence. With the truck down by the resurgence we hem and haw about since it’s late. We finally agree to put me in the resurgence with baby tanks (lp45s) to see if it really goes or not. Only putting one diver in the water in independent tanks is a reasonable thing considering the amount of work it takes to put a coldwater diver in a BC cave which may not even allow my fins to get underwater. I bring my parts of my suit and BC down while Alex, Dale and Peter N. haul down the rest of my gear. In about 30mins I am hurrying to zip up so I can at least dunk myself out of the broiling sun.

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We do a primary tie on a boulder and a secondary tie on bedrock right above the waterline of the resurgence. I slip inside and the cavern area immediately opens up. I also immediately realize that I have no gauges – they are back in my dive box in the truck. Well crap. I’m on really small lp45s with a tank factor of 1.7. There’s really little need for gauges on this initial poke my head in look anyway. Diving a little less than thirds on lp45s filled with 31% gives a pretty short dive regardless. So I continue in with a swimmable but fairly tiring current coming at me. On the right is a siphon I am pretty sure ends in a boulder strainer, so I stay out of that and head left and eventually pay out a little over 400ft of line into the brand new never been dove cave. This is way bigger than Olympic Pool and I’m guessing about 25ft deep. I tie off, cut the line and manage to exit without kicking in maybe 8 minutes for a total BT of about 25mins. No need to survey this little bit of line since we have a HUGE going cave and will certainly return tomorrow. I take a couple of short video clips to try to communicate the magnitude of this new cave.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/exJZ_oltSVk[/youtube]

Peter N., Dale and Alex are pretty psyched by my report of massive going cave upon surfacing.


Day 2, Monday
We decide to push onwards in big cave. Me in SM AL80s, Peter N. in my overfilled lp85s. Alex had to get back to work in Port Hardy so Peter C. and Dale help my and Peter N. haul enough for 2 divers today. I get the feeling that putting in 2 divers at once is a bit unusual, at least for Peter C. and Dale. Peter N. goes in first since he needed some help gearing up and had the larger amount of usable gas. He waits for me in the cavern zone. I try to hustle and drop as quick as I can; it’s not as sunny out but still hot enough to sweat a lot in a drysuit.

We’re soon cruising along my line from yesterday and I’m surprised to see that most of it is actually about 33ft deep, almost 10ft deeper than I guessed. It seems I’m pretty efficient on lp45s; I guess it helps that they are so tiny their drag in flow is miniscule. I tie in the reel at line arrow 2 (#1 is in Olympic Pool from a couple months ago) and we’re off into more virgin passage. Its maybe 4 to 6m wide and 3+m tall in most places. So by north Island standards this is a huge cave. You could certainly backmount in here if you could get them down the river bank.

Two hundred and 80ish feet ahead we cross a huge iron stained inclusion. This is the first place in the cave where the inclusions are not parallel to the direction of flow. Twenty feet beyond that we enter a space now called “the aviary” after Peter C.’s birding interests. The aviary is a large vertical 4m diameter borehole. It rises straight up to a tiny air dome in an alcove and drops straight down to a sand slope at 60ft depth. About a 25ft drop. I put another tie off at the lip and drop down the aviary. At the bottom I pick up some sand and give it a toss to check the current. It doesn’t seem like a siphon but I am being cautious. I proceed into the flow down the sand slope to 80ft. I’m in a 1.5m tall by 5 or 6m wide lens shaped passage with a mostly coarse sand floor.

I make additional tie offs at 81 and 88ft before hitting 1/3rds on my SM AL80s. 50cf of penetration gas goes fast with the flow and the depth. I survey the line on the way out, but almost immediately miss a station and realize my bearings and directions are correct but my station depths are offset in my notes. Oh well, can’t do everything all the time. I use 13cf on the exit. Total dive time 57mins, max depth 88ft, average depth 40ft, 63cf used. At the surface Peter N. is already raving to Peter C. and Dale about this HUGE new cave. They are used to sumps; this is a cave like Jackson Blue in FL, minus some of the branching. We haul maybe half of the gear up the riverbank and pack it in the truck. The remainder we leave at the river for tomorrow. We finally cap off the day by heading down to the local hamlet to get a few gallons of fuel for my truck ($1.68/L ouch!) and a beer. Peter C. sings us folk songs while we roast our feet at the campfire.

Day three (Tuesday) dawns still clear. We decide against a stage dive in the new river cave; we’re just going to do a simpler 1/3rds dive on my remaining 2 sets of hp100s. Peter’s not sure how to rig a stage on his Razor and we decided to fix yesterday’s survey, explore the top of the aviary to see if there’s a shallow bypass to the tunnel below, and then video on the exit. Since we are on comparable sized tanks today we both gear up in the entrance pool. Once we are good to go, Peter drops first and I follow. I fix my survey on the way in; seems correct so far. I reach the lip of the aviary where I drop arrow number four. I tie off the reel and ascend upwards. There’s a muddy slope above with a tiny 1ft x 6ft air dome in the back. I few rocks get knocked off on our retreat to the mainline silting up the aviary itself. The muddy silt just hangs in the water, gravity pulling it down and the flow pushing it up. I untie the reel and we agree to descend into the 3ft vis.
I now know I missed recording the depth at the bottom of the aviary yesterday. The survey is now fixed. As soon as we leave the aviary behind the water is again clear, visibility is back to the “normal” 75ft or so. I tie off to the end of yesterday’s line and swim off into more new passage. About 175ft later we hit 1/3rds and I tie off the line for the last time at 85ft with the passage still 6m wide and 2.5 or 3m high with a sandy bottom in between the higher marble slabs. The cave ahead is going up. I don’t bother to survey the few feet we added today but catch a few decent shot on video on the exit. Dive time 54 mins, max depth 90ft.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/p2v5R6ejH8A[/youtube]

There’s even more gear to haul up to the truck today, since us divers are headed home tomorrow; despite Dale’s protests and efforts to get me to call home and stay. Drawing up the survey in Ariane it looks like this relative to the centerline of the river.

Image

We hem and haw over a name for the cave. Peter N. has been dreaming of a huge flooded cave for 20 years. In honor of his imagination, we call the cave “Wet Dream”.
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by CaptnJack »

Heading back to push it with more of the right gear and plans soon. I had longstanding plans to dive a different North Island cave the first week of September, 2012. But this new discovery warranted switching to this cave instead. I discussed this with Peter N. and he was cool with that so I got to work convincing Kevin, Brian and John to switch our plans. With our plans changed we were good to throw a decent sized team with various skills and resources.

Early September, 2012
Kevin flies up from SFO on a Friday afternoon while Brian left Edmonton on the previous Thursday. John had to work so he flies into Comox from Edmonton Saturday. While Peter N. left from Vancouver on Saturday morning at about the same time Kevin and I leave for the Port Angeles-Victoria ferry at 4:45 am. We all meet up halfway up the island and everyone introduces themselves in a brewpub in Campbell River.

Caravaning up island we make a last fuel stop in Sayward Junction before heading into the forestry road wilds. Bonus, the stand next door has ice cream. 2-2.5 hours out of Sayward Junction we’re at the trailhead. Eager to see what conditions are like we all scramble down the riverbank. Yay! The river has dropped 18” or more, flows should have dropped as well. The trail is downright snazzy too, Peter C. has left his mark. We drive up the last mile of forest road to camp where we meet Peter C., the last member of our Wet Dream team :p

We put up some pop ups but the wall tent is at another cave this week. Figures, it rains the first night, maybe 0.1”. Sunday, dive day 1 dawns clear though. John has hurt his back on the flight or drive out. And Peter N. is organizing his Meg CCR. So Brian, Kevin and I arrange a familiarization dive to the EOL with scooters and a stage. Brian is diving his KISS CCR although, Peter C. helps us haul gear to the cave entrance.

After a few hours of hauling, we’re soon zipping along my line from 3 weeks ago. Less than 15mins later between the reduced flow and the scooters we’re at the EOL. What the hell, we all look at each other like “that was easy” so I whip out the reel and add about 150ft of knotted 18# to the line. Unfortunately the cave is going down so our OC 32% poses a fairly quick limit to our impromptu exploration at 110’ max depth. Some of our hauling.

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Me
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Brian
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The incomparable Peter C

Monday, dive day 2.
Kevin and I plan a double stage dive to just see if we can “duck under” the deep bit and see if the cave is trending upwards. Unfortunately that was not to be, the battery came loose in my borrowed Cuda and after fighting it for about 8 mins and way too much gas I grabbed Kevin’s rear D-ring and he towed me out. Peter N. and Brian had better fortunes swimming to yesterday’s EOL and proceeded to add another 175’ or so of line to a depth of 137’. The reported the cave was still going down, ugh.

Kevin and I had some conferencing and examined our available helium supply; an AL80 full of 3/91 and a full T bottle with 290cf of helium. It was only Tuesday, so I pondered how to maximized this limited resource and we agreed to try a double stage dive, one stage of 32% as a travel gas to 100ft, one stage of 21/35, 21/35 in Kevin’s lp85 doubles at 3600psi and 21/35 in my hp100 SM tanks. Needless to say, there was a lot of filling that night.

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We would do ratio deco 1:1 but using O2 from an AL40 due to the what was called the aviary being a poor place to start EAN50 deco. So a 3 stage dive for us OC people’s. The aviary got renamed on this trip to “the shaft” since that’s what we naturally kept calling this 40ft high vertical borehole. Brian came along on his KISS. I don’t know what dil he was using this week, but we dropped an AL30 of O2 at 20ft, an AL80 of air bailout at the top of the shaft, and he carried another AL80 of trimix bailout along with an AL63 of 32% bailout for this dive. Brian came with Kevin and I to try to get video of the EOL getting pushed. Here’s Brian entering with his camera.

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John decided his back was too sore to dive while Peter C. stole Peter N. to go survey a nearby dry cave. They named this cave Nunga Punga or “naked” in Urdu slang after the tiny Indian village in the Himalaya’s they discovered (after 20 years of friendship) both of their mother’s had been born in. While generally tough skinned British Columbian’s, both Peters quickly discovered they weren’t completely made of leather and Nunga caving was best avoided.

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Back in the water, we made fairly quick work of getting to where Brian and Peter N. had left off the day before at 137ft. Fortunately that was the deepest point for our dive too as the cave started gradually rising. As we passed 100ft ascending at a 45 degree angle or so, the percolation was rolling downhill as fast as our bubbles ascended. The floor had been wavy sand hinting that this was the way on, but the silt suggested maybe we were in a dead end? We made it up to 85ft before calling the dive and swimming down through the 3ft vis until it managed to clear enough around 110ft depth and we were able to scooter home. We did 12mins of O2 deco although our max depth of 137ft and average depth of 75ft with a dive time of just over an hour didn’t call for much more than 5 mins. A bit extra O2 time was prudent, the chamber is a long helicopter ride back to Vancouver.

Dive day 4. Kevin, Brian and I plan a 3 stage plus O2 dive. The plan was to scooter to 100ft and drop a 32% stage, then carry on through the deep section with a stage of 25/25 until we hit ~90ft on the inside, drop that stage, then survey in as we continued the penetration on 32%. To add to this complexity Brian was videoing this while I carried an AL80 of bailout to drop at 100ft for Peter N. Peter’s plan was to survey the deep section from the 137ft mark back to arrow #3 at the 830’ penetration point. So I had O2, 2x 32% stages, 1x 25/25 stage, and an air bailout bottom for Peter N. This plan proved to be a PITA and took forever to ineffectively execute. The fact that my borrowed Cuda’s reed switch was faulty added to the slowness, but it was really all the stages which were killing us timewise. Compounding the mess, the fancy survey sheets I had printed on waterproof inkjet paper proved to not accept pencil. I had imprints of notes but no actual pencil graphite would transfer to the page, grrr. Dive time 97 min, max depth 137’, average depth 80ft, 12 mins O2 deco. 3 stages with dry gloves, laying line, surveying, and video was all a bit excessively complicated of a dive plan in retrospect.

Learning from yesterday, Kevin and I plan a 2 stage dive + O2. The plan is to scooter to the EOL then recheck our survey. On the exit we are going to finish Peter N.’s survey from yesterday from 100ft up to arrow #3 at 830’ p. I used my personal CSI Sierra to avoid the Cuda issues which were plaguing my loaner. We also skipped any sort of 32% travel mix and just blasted in on less than ½ an AL80 stage of 25/25 with 21/35 for backgas. We killed one stage and used part of stage #2 on this 65 min dive, never touching backgas, although Kevin was in backmount and avoid switching from stage to stage so he used about 300psi of backgas per day. In SM 100s I was able to switch stage to stage without much excess drama and saved even more backgas, using maybe 150psi from one tank for buoyancy. Hauling doubles or 2x hp100s back up the bank to refill was not high on our list of vacation must dos. Al6s were fine for suit inflation on all our trimix dives. It took us about 17min to scooter to the EOL even as a double stage dive using a Sierra. The survey was successfully amended so today was a big success.

Video from today, its dark, but duh it’s a cave and I was mostly focused on correcting/checking yesterday’s survey.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/D6I5UiV8CXk[/youtube]

The final tally for 2012 was about 1900ft of virgin cave
In plan
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And profile
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Peter N and Brian spent some time today on the downstream (siphon) line. It’s only 100ft long or so, and predictably ends in a gravel strainer. Peter N. thinks the cave will continue with an hour plus of rock gardening, but Kevin and I didn’t close enough to look that well.

Day 6
Brian and John decide to haul gear to the road today, to get back to Edmonton by Sunday. Kevin takes a rest day to haul his doubles up to the car and camp. Peter and I decide to do a scooter demo dive in the cave. This is Peter N’s first scooter dive, although he played with the trigger in the cavern earlier in the week. We joked about how I’d give him a cave DPV card if he survived :P Apart from one little unplanned dil flush, he did pretty well for scooter attempt number one.

Image
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CaptnJack
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by CaptnJack »

Kevin has a nice synopsis video here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2ZmkTl ... edit?pli=1

I'll have Brian and John's linked soon.
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by Waynne Fowler »

I confess I haven't read the 'whole' report butt what I did read is very interesting and I'll be back to finish the read.... however... I did happen to scan the pix..... so when you all go out to the woods like that are you all going Au' Natural.... thank you for those strategically placed black boxes brother.... saved my eyes brother! kudos....
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by LCF »

That's a really cool story, Richard. There are so many interesting things about it, mostly related to the logistics -- the problems hauling gear, the problems of not being where you can get fills . . . and who in heaven's name brought a COMPRESSOR on the trip?

It sounds like an amazing summer full of hard work and great payoffs. But I'm still mad at you for monopolizing one of my favorite dive buddies . . . :)
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by Penopolypants »

Came for the cool story, stayed for the naked men. And the story.
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by Mortuus »

Sooooooooooooooooooooooo AWESOME!!!! Thank you for that trip report!! Just do me a favor and dont explore ALL the underwater caves on the island! Not just yet at least =P
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by Mateo1147 »

I read your report straight through and couldn't get enough. Very cool. I just relearned a very important lesson. Never say never. In the past I have said I would never dive in a cave, but............ yeah. Beer and adrenaline mix pretty well, just not at the same time! :partyman:
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by airsix »

:supz:
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by Norris »

Fun read, thanks!
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CaptnJack
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by CaptnJack »

Mortuus wrote:Sooooooooooooooooooooooo AWESOME!!!! Thank you for that trip report!! Just do me a favor and dont explore ALL the underwater caves on the island! Not just yet at least =P
There's at least 2.3km to go in this particular cave, and its only divable during a small window in the summer. So I don't think that'll be happening anytime soon. As on on-going project, I hope you can respect our decision not to discuss its exact location.
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by Tom Nic »

Freaking awesome.

Only had time to read a couple of the first posts and I'm on the run.

Freaking awesome.

Thanks for telling the story here.
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by Mortuus »

CaptnJack wrote:
Mortuus wrote:Sooooooooooooooooooooooo AWESOME!!!! Thank you for that trip report!! Just do me a favor and dont explore ALL the underwater caves on the island! Not just yet at least =P
There's at least 2.3km to go in this particular cave, and its only divable during a small window in the summer. So I don't think that'll be happening anytime soon. As on on-going project, I hope you can respect our decision not to discuss its exact location.
I certainly dont expect you guys to just hand out the location! Its your find, and you deserve as much unspoiled time with it as you want/need. Huge congratulations on the discovery by the way. Sounds like a hell of a cave! How did you guys deduce the distance it still has to go?
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by Joshua Smith »

Hardcore. And very cool. Congrats.
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by CaptnJack »

Mortuus wrote:
CaptnJack wrote:
Mortuus wrote:Sooooooooooooooooooooooo AWESOME!!!! Thank you for that trip report!! Just do me a favor and dont explore ALL the underwater caves on the island! Not just yet at least =P
There's at least 2.3km to go in this particular cave, and its only divable during a small window in the summer. So I don't think that'll be happening anytime soon. As on on-going project, I hope you can respect our decision not to discuss its exact location.
I certainly dont expect you guys to just hand out the location! Its your find, and you deserve as much unspoiled time with it as you want/need. Huge congratulations on the discovery by the way. Sounds like a hell of a cave! How did you guys deduce the distance it still has to go?
Its 2.8km (on a GPS) in a straight line between the swallet and the resurgence. We've done a little over 510m so far. The swallet is where the river goes into the ground. Its not divable at all, never, forgetaboutit. Even at lowest water its a 10+ft drop down into/through a raging waterfall siphon. The resurgence is obviously the other end. There may be multiple resurgences, there are quite a few other places we still need to investigate. The 3rd trip this summer we focused on pushing and documenting the big passage we knew about and could scooter.

I'm just saying that sometimes people ask for GPS coordinates of where caves or wrecks are. Usually the only people who ask are folks who don't really understand the etiquette in the first place. In the case of this particular cave, I am abiding by VICEG disclosure protocols via Peter N.and Peter C. We surveyed and that survey will be published shortly and eventually make its way into the larger BC cave survey repository. We may take qualified people there someday in the future. But we won't be putting coodinates on the internet. Caves have been trashed (Nunga Punga already has graffiti on its walls) and garbage left behind at caves more than once. Sad but true. Not indiscriminantly disclosing locations is just part of being a good steward of the dive site during our time here.
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by mz53480 »

Awesome! Thanks for the great report!
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by LCF »

I'm not up for the heavy lifting, but I would love to go along with a trip next year and contribute what I can. I can cook . . . and I'd be real handy if anybody got hurt :)
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json
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by json »

Wow awesome find!
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CaptnJack
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by CaptnJack »

LCF wrote:I'm not up for the heavy lifting, but I would love to go along with a trip next year and contribute what I can. I can cook . . . and I'd be real handy if anybody got hurt :)
Yeah not mentioned on the June trip, Peter Curtis nearly hacked off a finger in camp. I was the noob with the complete first aid kit to put him back together. Next summer is a long way off, I'm still settling back into normalcy from this last trip, so not sure what our plans might be like.

I am pretty sure Brian's short video will be up on the internet soon. And the 30 min version will probably be shown at the Tacoma show.
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Tom Nic
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by Tom Nic »

The geology of this cave fascinates me - very unlike most caves I have seen. Any further info on that or suggestions on some reading?
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rjw
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by rjw »

Great job. Looks like a lot of work. Thanks for the report.
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by spatman »

Sounds like a great adventure, Richard. Glad those sidemount lake dives paid off. ;)
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ljjames
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by ljjames »

Very very cool Richard et al.. Thank you for sharing!
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Re: How I spent my summer vacation

Post by CaptnJack »

spatman wrote:Sounds like a great adventure, Richard. Glad those sidemount lake dives paid off. ;)
Sort of. LOL

One stage is fine, 3 stages in sidemount with gloves turns me into quite a bumbler, which sucks up gas and time exponentially compared to the small amounts of time gained by bringing extra stages. Not really knowing where and how I wanted to put mine was an additional issue. I had never done a multistage dive in sidemount before. Kevin dove backmount lp85s so he did way better than me on stage/switch efficiencies. Diving only stages and reserving backgas definitely works better in backmount than sidemount. I have since worked out how I want to manage 2-4 stages for 2013, but need to practice with the 7 tanks (hp100s, 4 stages, Al40 of O2). If I can't get the practice in, I will switch to backmount. Its not really a sidemount cave, the hike in is just a bit much with doubles.
Sounder wrote:Under normal circumstances, I would never tell another man how to shave his balls... but this device should not be kept secret.
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