Tom Falardeau
August 19th, 2007, 09:51 PM
This morning, three-quarters of the Ottawa River Rats Secret Society headed "up the line" into the wilds of the upper Ottawa River for some cave divin' canuk-style (i.e. cave diving the hard way: no viz, cool water, ugly fish and even uglier divers). Our friend JimC being off the roster for today, Marie and I picked up Marc at his gracious residence in our newly repaired truck, showing no signs of its encounter with a kinetic missile on Hwy 174 two weeks ago. A quick stop at Timmies for some coffee and miniature fruit danish, and we were off, Marc in the unaccustomed position of back-seat passenger in my far superior Dodge Ram (Have you driven over a Ford lately?). Along the way, we discussed many things but settled in for the laughs of Car Talk on the satellite radio. For those of you unfamiliar with this NPR radio show - it's a riot, and you get to learn some useful things to boot.
Winding our way through the wilderness, we got to the river-side lot where the landowner had given us free access to the water, to find his father-in-law in the process of hauling out some fairly sizeable logs. Ever mindful of maintaining good relations with landowners (and take notes here, kids - landowner relations can make or break dive sites), we volunteered to lend a hand, the gentleman being somewhat elderly and the logs pretty heavy. In the space of a few minutes, between the three of us, we had logs, several hundred pounds each, loaded on the gent's trailer, his trailer hooked up and ready to go, saving him probably a good hour or two of laborious work with an A-frame and several winches. Landowner relations, people... vital - and the permissions and restrictions landowners impose are sacred. After all, said landowners can turn you from trespassers into permitted acquaintances... and back into trespassers just as fast.
We are all getting into the hang of diving these caves and this time we each planned our own solo dive, discussing it with the others, so that we all knew who intended to go where and what the run time was to be. I wanted to prove the other side of the Sawatsky's Delight circuit, with a possibility of actually doing it, should I feel comfortable. I'd done the other part of the circuit two weeks ago and thereby proved that I could do that portion well within thirds.
We used our scooters for the short ride from the entry point to the resurgence, fighting long weeds along the way, said weeds having an unfortunate habit of wrapping themselves around the props. I felt the chill in the water quite quickly and realised that summer had already peaked around here - it was several degrees colder than it was two weeks ago, and as Marc confirmed, even five days ago. Seems like summer is coming to a quicker and colder end. It was 68F today, down from 73F a few days ago. Anyone seen that dastardly "global warming" that seems to be the current religious faith among the pedantic and supercilious?
I was first into the cave, wanting for once to be able to move at my own pace, and quite exhilarating it was. I had seven clothespins on my light, and went through the seven (marking seven t-junctions) in the space of 40 minutes against a fairly strong flow. I did a few side passages, but stayed on the mainline, through its many variations, until I turned the dive due to a) running out of clothepins and b) getting chilled. Some kind soul replaced a section of line by pool 2, and our thanks to him or her for the effort. In the near future (within the next year or so), we plan on replacing the first 1,200 feet of mainline with some new line, which should take the trepidation out of swimming past each new fix.
Just for giggles, I ventured a few hundred feet down the side tunnel leading to a shallow resurgence whose entrance we'd found in the river last year. As syphons go, this one was pretty strong, and I turned back to the mainline, not wanting to do the long swim from the resurgence back to the entry point. Back at the mainline, I met Marie who discovered that her seventh and last clothepin was busted, meaning she had reached her turn-around point as she was no longer able to mark the exit side of the t-junction with her personal marker. When you're diving solo in tight, low-viz cave, you don't screw around with the safety parameters.
Shortly after leaving Marie to her exit, I came on the junction with the line coming from Sawatsky's Delight tunnel, proving the circuit. At that point, I was cold and didn't want to face coming back the long way to recover my clothepins on a second dive, so I kept going up the main line, turning just short of pool 4, in the face of a mess of tree branches with green leaves still attached. I would have had to shift that mess to continue - and the fact that I would be going back with the flow and the branches, and that my colleagues were in the path stopped me. By then I was chilled enough anyways. Just before turning the dive, I crept up on a huge carp who didn't see me coming until my fingers were within an inch of tweaking its tail fin. It left me in a cloud of silt so dense that I could have sworn I was third up the mainline, not first.
After my turn, the flow pushed me out, requiring only the occasional steering fin kick as I came back through each successive t-junction, picking up my clothepin marker, noting as always the navigational features, such as they were and definitely realizing I was last man out since only my markers remained. Going with the flow, to coin a phrase, was nice - except that having stopped finning, I was no longer generating body heat through muscle work. Every silver lining has its cloud.
Once I picked up my last marker and was on the last few hundred feet of line out, I switched off my primary light and exited only on my weak LED helmet light. Quite the difference, even in this environment, and I reflected on the various tactics needed to ensure survival: navigation becomes so much more important than anywhere else: with the limited visibility, the old line - which we cannot assume to be utterly reliable - and the various t-junctions, it would be easy to get lost if a line breaks, lights fail in succession, etc. Of course, the ultimate fail-safe remain the pools along the path, if one absolutely needs to get out - however, these pools are in the woods, and one would be faced with new navigation challenges.
On my way back, I swam through several silt clouds, but being kind to my brethren, I operated under the assumption that they were caused by large fish or were my own stirrings travelling with me to daylight. Yeah, right :D
An hour and fifteen minutes after I submerged, I was back at the surface, greeted by my two comrades in caves, and we quickly stripped down our gear, loaded the truck and headed for home, accompanied by the wonderful sounds of the Big 80s on the satellite radio.
Although it felt more like September 19 than August 19 on this fine Sunday, a day cave diving is a day well-lived. For those of you who have been following my adventures, I did have my little Homer clipped off to my rig, and as I've said before, you're never alone if you have your Homer. D'oh!
Winding our way through the wilderness, we got to the river-side lot where the landowner had given us free access to the water, to find his father-in-law in the process of hauling out some fairly sizeable logs. Ever mindful of maintaining good relations with landowners (and take notes here, kids - landowner relations can make or break dive sites), we volunteered to lend a hand, the gentleman being somewhat elderly and the logs pretty heavy. In the space of a few minutes, between the three of us, we had logs, several hundred pounds each, loaded on the gent's trailer, his trailer hooked up and ready to go, saving him probably a good hour or two of laborious work with an A-frame and several winches. Landowner relations, people... vital - and the permissions and restrictions landowners impose are sacred. After all, said landowners can turn you from trespassers into permitted acquaintances... and back into trespassers just as fast.
We are all getting into the hang of diving these caves and this time we each planned our own solo dive, discussing it with the others, so that we all knew who intended to go where and what the run time was to be. I wanted to prove the other side of the Sawatsky's Delight circuit, with a possibility of actually doing it, should I feel comfortable. I'd done the other part of the circuit two weeks ago and thereby proved that I could do that portion well within thirds.
We used our scooters for the short ride from the entry point to the resurgence, fighting long weeds along the way, said weeds having an unfortunate habit of wrapping themselves around the props. I felt the chill in the water quite quickly and realised that summer had already peaked around here - it was several degrees colder than it was two weeks ago, and as Marc confirmed, even five days ago. Seems like summer is coming to a quicker and colder end. It was 68F today, down from 73F a few days ago. Anyone seen that dastardly "global warming" that seems to be the current religious faith among the pedantic and supercilious?
I was first into the cave, wanting for once to be able to move at my own pace, and quite exhilarating it was. I had seven clothespins on my light, and went through the seven (marking seven t-junctions) in the space of 40 minutes against a fairly strong flow. I did a few side passages, but stayed on the mainline, through its many variations, until I turned the dive due to a) running out of clothepins and b) getting chilled. Some kind soul replaced a section of line by pool 2, and our thanks to him or her for the effort. In the near future (within the next year or so), we plan on replacing the first 1,200 feet of mainline with some new line, which should take the trepidation out of swimming past each new fix.
Just for giggles, I ventured a few hundred feet down the side tunnel leading to a shallow resurgence whose entrance we'd found in the river last year. As syphons go, this one was pretty strong, and I turned back to the mainline, not wanting to do the long swim from the resurgence back to the entry point. Back at the mainline, I met Marie who discovered that her seventh and last clothepin was busted, meaning she had reached her turn-around point as she was no longer able to mark the exit side of the t-junction with her personal marker. When you're diving solo in tight, low-viz cave, you don't screw around with the safety parameters.
Shortly after leaving Marie to her exit, I came on the junction with the line coming from Sawatsky's Delight tunnel, proving the circuit. At that point, I was cold and didn't want to face coming back the long way to recover my clothepins on a second dive, so I kept going up the main line, turning just short of pool 4, in the face of a mess of tree branches with green leaves still attached. I would have had to shift that mess to continue - and the fact that I would be going back with the flow and the branches, and that my colleagues were in the path stopped me. By then I was chilled enough anyways. Just before turning the dive, I crept up on a huge carp who didn't see me coming until my fingers were within an inch of tweaking its tail fin. It left me in a cloud of silt so dense that I could have sworn I was third up the mainline, not first.
After my turn, the flow pushed me out, requiring only the occasional steering fin kick as I came back through each successive t-junction, picking up my clothepin marker, noting as always the navigational features, such as they were and definitely realizing I was last man out since only my markers remained. Going with the flow, to coin a phrase, was nice - except that having stopped finning, I was no longer generating body heat through muscle work. Every silver lining has its cloud.
Once I picked up my last marker and was on the last few hundred feet of line out, I switched off my primary light and exited only on my weak LED helmet light. Quite the difference, even in this environment, and I reflected on the various tactics needed to ensure survival: navigation becomes so much more important than anywhere else: with the limited visibility, the old line - which we cannot assume to be utterly reliable - and the various t-junctions, it would be easy to get lost if a line breaks, lights fail in succession, etc. Of course, the ultimate fail-safe remain the pools along the path, if one absolutely needs to get out - however, these pools are in the woods, and one would be faced with new navigation challenges.
On my way back, I swam through several silt clouds, but being kind to my brethren, I operated under the assumption that they were caused by large fish or were my own stirrings travelling with me to daylight. Yeah, right :D
An hour and fifteen minutes after I submerged, I was back at the surface, greeted by my two comrades in caves, and we quickly stripped down our gear, loaded the truck and headed for home, accompanied by the wonderful sounds of the Big 80s on the satellite radio.
Although it felt more like September 19 than August 19 on this fine Sunday, a day cave diving is a day well-lived. For those of you who have been following my adventures, I did have my little Homer clipped off to my rig, and as I've said before, you're never alone if you have your Homer. D'oh!