Intending to take his reel out with him, he cut the line. But he cut the wrong end. At that point his only guide out the cave was pulled as tight as a guitar string and went spiralling off into the dark. Only his vast experience enabled him to keep calm and chase the rapidly disappearing line. He finally caught the loose end and tied it off at the point we were headed for at about 60 metres deep and around 60 metres from the entrance. We can only assume that this time, because he’d not had time to do adequate build up dives, even his legendary ability to handle the narcs’ was almost not enough. Exley’s route takes a path through one of the few places in the cave where it’s possible to briefly touch two walls. It looks like a sort of up side down canyon, reaching a maximum width of not more than a few metres. Then suddenly the line drops you out of the roof and takes you along one wall for a short while, then out into open space, till you reach Exley’s final tie off at 63 metres across the vast abyss that is Boesmansgat. At this point our buoyancy is critical because the bottom is 200+ metres below us, with nothing in the way. Electing to do the dive on Trimix made it an experience I can recall with a real sense of awe at the sheer size of the cave. Looking back up from the end of Exley’s line I could clearly see Gareth on the main shot line a depth of at least forty metres and around 50 metres away from us. Looking down into the void, I shone my torch down the wall. In the crystal clear water I saw the wall sloping away from our position at 60 metres into the same intriguing starless night that attracts every cave diver. It occurred to me that Exley could not have chosen a more apt name for his autobiography than “Caverns Measureless to Man” (Exley, 1994). I was disappointed when Nuno signalled that our turnaround time had come and we began our methodical ascent back to the surface. By the end of this trip Nuno and Leszek had both done dives to 114 metres and 123 metres.
Leszek’s second trip to Boesmansgat
January 2003 saw the second “Polish Expedition” to Boesmansgat this time for Leszek to dive to a personal best depth of 157 metres. To give you an idea of the complexity of these dives, Nuno and Leszek used the following five gas mixtures to do their 157 meter dive: Air, Trimix 7/66, Trimix 10/50, EAN50 and oxygen. Also this trip we conducted some cave diving drills with Leszek and Witold. Nuno and myself were paired up with Leszek and Witold respectively and we took them down to 50 metres where we did a series of short excursions on reels alternating the role of reel man on each dive. We would demonstrate by leading on the first dive and doing all the tie-offs and reel-work then they would do it on the next dive. All in all I think they gained quite a bit from the experience. I know I did, I always seem to learn something from dives like this even if it’s a small observation that enables me to teach the techniques better next time.
Lightning strike at 6 metres
An interesting thing happened to me during one of the dives I did on this trip. We’ve all been warned about swimming when there is lighting about. Over the years I’ve been pretty good about this, but what is one supposed to do when you’re between six and three metres busy decompressing after a deep dive when the rain comes down and the fireworks start? Well, that is exactly what happened to Witold and I on this expedition.
We’d come back up from an exploratory dive to around 50 metres and had significant decompression to do. Even though we could see the rain start to pepper the surface of the water and even hear the thunder booming off in the distance somewhere, we could not move. Having both been in similar situations before we thought nothing of it. If fact we felt luckier than the rest of the team who would have been huddled under what little shelter we’d been able to bring down the hole with us. Being relatively shallow and in the limited daylight zone of Boesmansgat we’d already turned off our primary lights and had found ourselves a couple of comfortable ledges to wedge against whilst we watched the frogs and let the time trickle by till we could get out. It happened so quickly I think at first we were not sure if anything had in fact happened. But at the same instant we both looked up at the surface and then at each other to confirm that we’d both felt the jolt of energy that had surged through the water and us. Judging by Witold’s reaction and the way he was pointing at the surface I knew he was thinking the same thing as me. Lightning. We’d actually been struck by lightning whilst underwater! Even stranger, we were underwater at the bottom of a gorge. So much for lightning striking the highest point first.
Actually it had struck the highest point first. When eventually we did surface, it was to greet a slightly bemused group of people. They told us how the bolt of pure energy had struck the top of the gorge and how they’d felt a mild jolt through their feet. It seems as though the lightning had struck the mountain and then done what electricity always does, takes the route of least resistance to ground. Unfortunately the ground was by then saturated and worse the rock is pitted with small pools worn out by eons of rainstorms just like this one. I can only guess that all that rock in between the top of the gorge and us at six metres is what saved us.
This trip I did nine dives, two of which were in excess of 60 metres on air, and one of which was to 92 metres on Trimix (HeliAir). One very important lesson I learned again on this dive was not to change something if it works for you. I did my dive perfectly well and met Leszek and Nuno at 92 metres, although I was scheduled to meet them at 100 metres they were early due to a faster than expected descent.
Leszek Czarnecki(back) decompressing with Nuno Gomes in Boesmansgat after his historic dive to 194m. This dive made Leszek the deepest Polish cave diver and one of the very few divers to go below 150 metres.
For the first time ever, I had elected to take only one stage of Nitrox32 with me on the dive, whereas I normally take two. I usually do this to have a redundant supply of gas at all times. I did my calculations and determined that one cylinder should be enough and anyway I figured there was enough Nitrox on the decompression line that I could use in an emergency. So there I was decompressing at about twelve metres. At that point I was above all the staged Nitrox, but below the oxygen tree that was set at six metres. Also the next support diver had gone past me already on his way to Nuno and Leszek, which meant help was pretty far away.
Suddenly my Jetstream regulator became harder to breathe and free-flow slightly. I discovered to my distinct discomfort that my Nitrox tank was almost empty. And I mean finished. The regulator was not malfunctioning, rather, because it is a servo assisted second stage it needs a certain amount of air to keep the servo filled, this free-flow behaviour meant either a broken DV or too low a pressure in the tank to fill the servo at that depth. In effect the DV was giving me a short warning. On surfacing I had about 20bar left, I felt this was really a stupid thing to have done, and I still can’t really say why I went with only one Nitrox stage cylinder.
To my great good fortune, or good planning some might say, I had, as is my normal practice designed a very conservative decompression schedule and left my own oxygen cylinder at nine metres just above me. This meant that I was able to move up to nine metres almost immediately and go onto oxygen, or be it at a slightly elevated partial pressure of about 1.9bar. I decided there and then that I will, as every other Trimix dive I’ve ever done before or since, always have at least two sources of gas I can breathe at any point in my dive. Like the wise men say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
Deepest Polish cave diver
The final Polish Expedition came the same year, but towards the end, round September 2003. We understood that Leszek wanted to become the deepest Polish diver in a cave. So back to Boesmansgat he travelled for a third time, to meet with us and see if Nuno felt he could safely do his dive. Naturally Nuno and the rest of the team were happy to help. Nuno, Gareth, Pieter, Theo and myself set off for Boesmansgat once more ,particularly since Leszek had suggested that he would help Nuno mount his attempt at the 300+ metres mark in the Red Sea. This was great news because we were struggling to get enough sponsorship together. As a result the final dates for Nuno’s trip had not yet been scheduled.
My own personal issues kept me a little wary of doing Trimix this time, so Pieter did the deep support I decided not to do. This kind of extreme diving demands complete focus on the job. Since I felt I could not give that focus and I had no desire to be like so many unfortunate divers who’ve found out to their cost that they’ve forgotten some small but critical detail, I made the decision to do shallow support this trip.
A unique aspect of this trip was that in addition to our normal dive computers we were diving with ‘black-box’ dive computers supplied by DAN. We were doing this as part of a worldwide survey being conducted by the DAN organisation to try and get a better understanding of dive profiles and inert gas loads in divers.
Our dive profiles were of particular interest to DAN because our profiles constituted what is termed ‘reverse profiles’. As a general rule in sport diving, divers will do their deepest dive first and then any subsequent dives are shallower. The reasoning being that theoretically the diver will be out-gassing on any subsequent dive and therefore safer. But in technical diving it is not possible to do this because, as I’ve explained, we need to do build up or acclimatisation dives, so we do progressively deeper dives.
The DAN experiment called for us to dive with computers that had no display as such, but just recorded our dive profiles. Also, we as the divers could not alter the readings at all. In addition to this, Dr Hermie Brits, the trips medical officer and DAN representative was taking anonymous Doppler recordings off each of us after every dive. The total body of data would then give DAN a picture of dive profiles and the resulting bubble load in the divers tissue. The data was sent back to DAN Europe for inclusion in the survey. As of the time of writing we have yet to hear what the net results of the survey were.
As far as the diving went on this trip, I did seven dives with only three deeper than 50 metres. So for me this was a relatively shallow trip. My first dive this trip was on the 4th of September with Witold and Gareth and was down to 50 metres to check on the accuracy of the marked shot-line we’d just put into place. The marks or tags are very important since they have metal rings or loops at those tags allowing us to place decompression and safety tanks on the line. If they are too deep, or worse too shallow, the divers will not be decompressing accurately and face a very real risk of decompression illness. Since the line is run from the surface it generally requires some adjustment after divers have checked it against digital depth gauges. On this occasion we found the tags were three metres too shallow. Once we’d completed our decompression and surfaced, the team would adjust the line.
Our dive went very well except that Gareth managed to drop the DAN computer, so we’d have to go looking for it on our next dive. The 4th was mainly devoted to mixing gases and filling tanks for Nuno and Leszek’s upcoming dive to 184 metres. On the 5th we got in another 50 metre dive to look for the computer. Our dive was as usual down the main shot line, but this time we tried to scan either side of the line and look at all the ledges we passed on our way down, hoping to catch a glimpse of the small, black device. At about forty metres we had to move off the main line and follow the guide under the roof to our white drum marker beacons. From here the line goes straight down to more than 200 metres. I was not really surprised when we arrived at 50 metres not having seen it. Gareth and I exchanged the usual ‘okay’ signals. I tied on my exploring line and with Gareth at the beacon I set off under the roof to look around a bit. I remember looking back at Gareth and being struck again by the sheer size and clarity of Boesmansgat. After an all too brief excursion I turned around and slowly began winding in my line, all the while trying to take in as much of the vast space as my torch would allow. I retraced my route to Gareth. From there we headed back up to the main line and then the surface, naturally doing all our required decompression stops along the way. As luck would have it Pieter found the missing computer later that same day. It was pretty embedded in the silt on a ledge somewhere between twenty and forty metres.
My next dive was two days later on the 7th. My buddies this time were Craig and Hermie Kahn and we proceeded down the main line, under the roof and back to the drum Gareth and I had been to. Craig and I were helping Hermie do what I think was her deepest cave dive to that date. At the same time Nuno and Leszek were doing a build up dive for their planned 184 metre dive later in the week. They aimed to reach 70 metres on this dive down the main line. Hovering below the roof with Hermie and Craig we could see Nuno and Leszek far below us. As Nuno and Leszek moved up to the roof we in turn moved out from under the roof and slowly up the line. For me that dive was very relaxed. Later the same day I teamed up with Witold and Gareth and we did a dive to 60 metres. I found it a surreal experience to hang, perfectly neutral in the void with just the line and my companions for reference. We set ourselves the simple task of changing over regulators as we hung there. A very easy thing to do on the surface, but I’ve seen divers struggle with it even at 50 metres. This time I’m pleased to say we all did it well and all the regulators worked perfectly.
The next day I did another dive with Craig and Hermie. We headed back under the roof. After yesterdays 60 metre dive this was a relatively shallow 45 meters. The previous dive served very well to acclimatize me to the depth and I had time to tie off and do some exploring. I was determined to go as far as my bottom time would allow. I went in front so I could make the most of the time. I arrived at the drum with the loop at the end of my reel in my hand, ready to tie on. The tie-off went well and I was off in a new direction for me. The roof is an upside-down landscape of uneven crevices and shadows punctuated by small pockets of air no more than a few centimetres deep. Trapped there over the years of diving activity, the pockets shimmered and shone as I swept my torch forward from left and right. For a few brief minutes I got an appreciation of how other divers going where no other person has gone before must feel. This was the kind of cave diving I like most. I wished I could stay longer. But as always I had to turn and head back to Craig and Hermie. On the way back up the main line I remember thinking how I’d love to do another 100 metre dive here. Still I’d made my decision to do the relatively shallow support and I’d stick to that decision. As they say in the classics, better safe than sorry.
Finally on the 9th of September I did support for Nuno and Leszek from 50 metres up. Their dive was a long one and they were in the water for over five hours. When I met them at 50 metres they were as usual happy to be out of the extreme deep range but otherwise all was well. As I’d done so often in the past I took the stages off Nuno and Leszek and enjoyed the rest of that dive. I think I did a second stint later in the day but much shallower to check on them and give them some energy drinks. I remember when Nuno and Leszek finally surfaced, Nuno looked fine, almost ready for another five hours. Leszek on the other hand looked cold and exhausted. Who could blame him, he’d decided to do this very deep dive in a wetsuit. He felt that since all his very deep diving had been done so far in the wetsuit that he shouldn’t switch for this one. Although I have to say there is something to that viewpoint, having been very cold on much shorter dives I don’t think I would do such a long dive in a wetsuit. Even a thick custom made one like Leszek’s. In retrospect I think Leszek must have come very close to being hypothermic on that dive. If his body core temperature had dropped below 37º he could have gone into shock. If that happened he would have needed to be brought to the surface immediately and if that happened he’d face the very real risk of a serious decompression sickness or even possibly lost consciousness and drowned. Remember that Nuno and Leszek had reached down to 193 metres. In the process Leszek became the deepest Polish cave diver in the world. I’m very glad to say that Leszek has gone on to do some incredible cave dives around the world, including one that took him something like four kilometres into a submerged cave in Mexico. Yet another Polish cave diving record. I feel a twinge of pride when I think that in some small way I helped him achieve this.
On a personal note I think it was something of a testament to my experience an
d dare I say ‘self-knowledge’ that I elected to not dive Trimix this trip. I knew I’d rather someone else have the responsibility and accolades that come with the role of deep-support than try to do it myself and perhaps cost someone a life because of too big an ego. If for no other reason I think the trip was a success for me.
As far a deep diving goes, the rest of 2003 was pretty quiet. We did the odd trip to local sites, really just to keep ‘diving fit’. But I didn’t have very long to wait before my long time friend and women’s cave diving record holder, Verna van Schaik , started to talk about wanting to try and go deeper. After her last record dive at Boesmansgat in November 2001 Verna had spent a lot of time thinking about the possibility of diving even deeper than her previous best of 186 metres.
Into The Deepest And Darkest Page 8