Deep cave diving

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emoreira

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Deleted.
I beg the administrator to delete this post.
 
Interesting article to say the least. The diver only extended the range by some 100 meters or so. Wonder why such a short dive.
 
Probably the logistics of getting to the water filled section. A hundred meters is rather far when you are exploring to see if it "goes."

Not sure if that is what happened but some caves are so hard to get into that carrying large tanks is not possible.

Garth
 
2.2km down in a cave is not an easy stroll. It surely consists of many steep slopes, and possibly SRT-pitches, maybe boulder chokes and crawls too. It can get very physical and technical. Imagine if you need to crawl on your belly while pushing the cylinders in front of you in a man-size wormhole. You might not want an 18L double set there :wink: I would assume that 7L tanks were used. And no, I have not done such trips. But I can tell you that 200m down is a lot too (without dive kit).

The dive might have been done in very bad visibility. Some sumps have near zero visibility on entry, and zero on exit. 100m is quite a long dive, and it's a lot longer on return journey, if your life depends on that single fragile thread some call a line.
 
2.2km down in a cave is not an easy stroll. It surely consists of many steep slopes, and possibly SRT-pitches, maybe boulder chokes and crawls too. It can get very physical and technical. Imagine if you need to crawl on your belly while pushing the cylinders in front of you in a man-size wormhole. You might not want an 18L double set there :wink: I would assume that 7L tanks were used. And no, I have not done such trips. But I can tell you that 200m down is a lot too (without dive kit).

The dive might have been done in very bad visibility. Some sumps have near zero visibility on entry, and zero on exit. 100m is quite a long dive, and it's a lot longer on return journey, if your life depends on that single fragile thread some call a line.

Not doubting the level of difficulty of getting gear into the cave, and the map of the cave proves it is very very steep. Multiple established camp sites, long vertical rappels and climbs, and tight passages. Still, the gear they brought in they measured in tons. And the exploration team was not shy of blowing debris out with explosives to enlarge passages.

Still, I imagine it'll only be a period of time before some dedicated explorer carts their rebreather down the cave and looks to extend the known distance a bit more. I'm glad he posted the link, I'll be keeping an eye on this one.
 
The diver only extended the range by some 100 meters or so. Wonder why such a short dive.

Based on the wikipedia entry the first penetration was to a maximum depth of 46 meters, with a one-way transit distance of 140 meters. A subsequent dive extended the depth to 52 meters, and therefore had a minimum one-way transit distance of 146 meters. That only sounds short because you haven't been there.

Subcooled is correct that there are numerous difficulties that would prevent most experienced cavers from even getting to the beginning of the dive. From what I can see on a much better map than the one in the article linked above, the difficulties include at least 20 pits ranging from small "nuisance drops" of 12 to 15' to multiple drops of more than 300'. There also appear to be 3 sumps that must be penetrated before reaching the final sump. The actual dive probably starts after a minimum of 2 or 3 days in the cave, and thanks to the first 3 sumps you're severely isolated from meaningful help.

I don't know what the submerged passage is like, but there's an extremely good chance that it's not overly spacious, and the visibility may be extremely limited. Because of restrictions and poor visibility some sump divers in the northeastern US (and probably elsewhere) may plan dives using a rule of sixths because thirds isn't nearly conservative enough. I'll guess that the "short dive" required a fair amount of deco. And then he had to spend at least a couple of days getting back out of the cave.

Here's a link to that better map:
http://www.link2universe.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mappa-Krubera.jpg
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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