In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
Basic Cave, Day One. Tom has left and it is just Doug and I to do Basic Cave, differentiated from Intro to Cave by the use of doubles.
I am on time, if not a bit early this morning, and enjoying a cup of coffee as we meet once more in front of the Ballroom stairs. But this time I am wearing the pink wristband of a Basic Cave Diver.
We have now shortened the cord, temporarily, on my can light as my arm is too short, and shortened the cord on my bungee necklace so my safe second is not in line with my dry suit valve. I am short ad my shoulders are not wide enough to keep all the gear from bunching in front of me, very frustrating. Sunny and Scubafi, how do you guys do it? Anyway….
We use the cavern of Ginnies Ballroom for more line work, more practicing air shares and not drowning in the process, some blackout air share exits and generally spend the morning in practice for the CAVES! The last drill was to go in and pull the reel. We turn and enter the cavern and my light goes out….. turn on my second light, signal my buddy and turn the dive….. good job ….. good drill…… except…… the instructor didn’t turn off my light…… Jeesh …… real life primary failure……and it still taint lighting… jeesh!!! I am not the only one with equipment problems as Doug has ripped his neckseal and pulled his rear dump off of his wing so far….. I hear it happens…..all the time ….
Except for one other small incident (OK I will spill….. you should not poke fish while waiting for Jim [the instructor No less…jeesh] to make the primary tie in, I spun upside down and my boots filled with air and I floated to the surface tucked in a ball trying to right myself BUT I gave the OK on the tie in the entire time)…..except for that incident we did exceptionally well and were deemed ready for a real cave dive. Devils Ear to be exact.
Our first dive there was to be a fun tour of the cave before doing some work. We parked about a mile away this time. Maybe not a mile but we had to pass by a perfectly good cave, Little Devil, to get there. And those stairs again….what is with all the stairs….. but once again we were in the unbelievably clear water.
My midget sized tanks are the ones everyone else sets their gas plan by as they are the smallest, and Jim feels we will make it to the Lips on this dive. In the river you can see some branches tangled and sticking out from the water…..and in front of them is a boil of water from a spring. Swimming out to this spot you dump all the air from your wing and dry suit and drop over the edge into a hole with the flow of water coming at you from the bottom. Pulling yourself along the rock wall you make your way down to the cave entrance and sneak behind a rock and out of the flow as the reel is tied in. While the secondary tie in is made you get your buoyancy set. I have been warned…..there is no touching the bottom here or the dive is ruined for everyone….not just us …. but everyone. I set myself as the tie in to the gold line is made and look around.
This cave is enormous. The ceilings rocket skyward and rock walls form a myriad of designs as they make their way into a blackness you don’t ever see on the surface. There is no ambient light from the surface and the cave exit is not illuminated in a bright blue glow as the Ballroom is. Your light plays off of the surfaces and you shine your light around taking in all the shapes and textures around you. The flow is strong and you pull yourself along the walls from one handhold to another to make forward progress.
We begin the cave near the ceiling, in the least of the flow and monitoring the gold line below. Smaller tunnels shoot off into the darkness and before you know it we are at the Lips. The Lips is a restriction resting about mid height in the cave. You dump your air and pull yourself along the floor and through this short wide hole in the cave, appearing into a new tunnel. We are good on air, Doug and I, and we swim past the Keyhole and are at the Park Bench when Doug calls the dive. We turn and make our way with the flow at our backs pushing us along. We have gone over 300 feet into this tunnel and have not finned once and will not before exiting. The flow carries us to the exit and at the tie ins, we scramble to drop all the air from our wings once more before being shot out the exit of the cave with the flow of water.
Again handholding on the walls of this chimney shaped hole in the river, we make our way up, this time trying to keep from being shot to the surface on a stream from below. At about 17 ft in this narrow hole sits a log, permanently lodged horizontally into the walls, the infamous ‘Deco Log”. Here we grab on and straddle to keep ourselves steady while doing our safety stop. And from there we make our way up and over the lip and back into the clear shallow waters of the river floating on the surface for ten or twenty minutes just talking and going over the plan for the next dive. The newbies are tying in and leading this dive and something is happening on the way out. Don’t get lost.
We make our way down again and Doug ties in while I crowd him, a common inexperienced caver mistake….paying attention Brandon? We move along in the cave once more admiring the scenery and then I have reached my turn pressure and we reverse our trail. I have adjusted my buoyancy admirably and have not touched a floor or ceiling and am riding the flow back in what I consider to be an ideal distance above the line when Jim grabs my fin tip. OK I realign my fins, I must be coming close to stuff, then he grabs my leg and points up……Ohhhh…. I should be higher and up I move without contacting wall or ceiling. Good job Cheryl! At this point Jim grabs my inflator and launches me up, plastering me against the ceiling and motions me to cover my light. I am now wedged in an indentation in the ceiling and in complete darkness except for the light bulb going off in my head…..Lost Buddy Drill….I am the lost buddy, Doh!
It is really really dark with your light covered…..really dark….and time stands still…… I wonder if I am running out of air and sneak a peek….. no….. plenty of air…… I wonder if my buddy notices I am gone yet cause I haven’t seen his light for a while…… hmmmm…..or Jims….. then I see the halo of light as my buddy comes back looking for me and ties off to check the side tunnel……hey I’m up here!!! .....remember me from yesterday….. the spider on the ceiling chick…… look up!!!!!.......Ahh, finally……
With the drill over, we make our way back to the tie in, collecting the reel in the wrong buddy team order……Brandon……hint hint….. and make our way back to the log and then on up
and over the rim and into the river. Here the fish are playing in among the river grasses and Oh yeah, you know I did, like poking fish in a barrel. And finally the stairs….. and then the Bataan March back to our trucks.105 minutes under the water and we done good. They couldn’t believe we made it all the way to the Park Bench our first dive in Devils Ear, we are good on gas….. even me with those itty bitty HP tanks they can’t get good cave fills into….. and we didn’t bounce and bang our way along, or silt anything, or get shot out through the eye like a pea from a shooter….. we sat on “THE Log”…. woo hoo! Now Peacock tomorrow……..
I just have to stop and get duct tape to cover my fingers which are getting a raw and cut up look to them….. that pull and glide stuff is deadly to the digits……