The Phreatic Zone

Having just got back from France, I thought I’d let you read about our fun.

The trip started off with a long journey from Glasgow – Wallesey – Stratford – Dover – Boulogne – Fressynet; over1400miles in total.

We arrived at the CDC to be met by Lynne who quickly showed us to our static caravan. Normally divers accommodate the challets just up the hill, but due to some debates between the owner and the CDC, Lynne has come to an alternative agreement with the local campsite owner just down the road, which in my opinion offers a better arrangement than the dated challets.

Onto the diving…

Day 1

Both myself and Andy Woodside arrived at Cabouy to find the water level pretty low and the apparent visability much the same, but we had the cave to ourselves. The heavens had opened the night before and were still depositing a much needed rainfall on the region, not much needed by us however!

Cabouy

We decided to kit up and have a look anyway. Having swam through the duckweed and scum to the downpipe we discovered vis  This was Andy’s first cave dive outside of training and without the comfort factor of having CLM in the cave he was a little anxious, which I think is always healthy to have as it keeps complacency away.

We dropped down the steep gravel slope to 30m where the cave really opens up and displays it’s light limestone walls and scalloped floors littered with erosion bowls.

I dived this cave twice before on Cave 1 but  didn’t really get a chance to look around as we were doing lost buddy and lost line scenarios, so I really enjoyed this dive.

Turning the dive on 6ths we returned to the base of the slope to begin our min-deco ascent.

We both surfaced with huge grins and began the debrief during our S.I

Dive 2 was much the same with added skills drills at the 6m stop. We then decided to hook up with John Kendal for a couple of dives in Ressel in the afternoon as previously arranged.

Having arrived at Ressel to find no cars other than that of John Kendal who had brought along his better half Rachael, we again had the cave to ourselves, albeit the rain was still falling quite hard.

After kitting up we entered the water and began the short swim to the entrance of the cave. We fully expected there to be quite a flow on in the river due to the rains but visibility looked great and the cave entrance could easily be seen from the surface.

Having completed our pre-dive drills we dropped down with Andy as Captain, me as #2 and John in the armchair. The dive went smooth and again I found myself noticing more of the cave than ever before.I believe this to be down to two reasons; firstly we used a staggered formation normally used in Haloclines but this seemed to make best use of our 3 HID’s to light up the oncoming cave and secondly using a little height from the line so that your seeing a little more of the cave giving better perspective than staring at your team mates crotch-strap!
We soon reached the first T and chose to take the shallow route having dropped our cookies and made it to within a few metres of where the cave floor opens to meet the 2^nd T, before I called the dive on gas.
We returned to the entrance to find rays of sunlight streaming into the cave through that comforting green hue. Having completed our deco we surfaced to find the sun shining, blue dragonflies dancing on the water and the church bells from the local town of Marciallac ringing…..all that was missing were pixies and cherubs playing hide and seek on the river banks….Perfect!

St George

Rachael had decided to take a swim in the river (13deg C) and met us on our drift back to the entry point…brave gal! John & Rachael decided to leave us to it on dive 2 as they both had a prior arranged fete to attend.Having re-calculated 6ths, myself and Andy re-entered the cave with the deep route in mind. We hit the drop at 22m before we hit our agreed turn time and headed out of the cave. With Andy as captain again we made an efficient exit when suddenly “the light was no more” from my primary. I quickly deployed my Heser to find Andy facing me and realising my failure he backed off the line as I moved into position 1 and we made on with our exit.
This is the first time I have used my Heser in anger and must say that it’s a whole lot nicer to exit with than a scout.
We surfaced without any more issues and exited the water. I checked over my light to find the bulb had somehow worked loose from the slug slightly; so rectifying the issue we packed up and headed for some food.
We decided to take a drive to Cajarc to re-acquaint ourselves with a local attraction and grab some food and a well deserved beer!
Having returned to CDC to fill our tins for the next day we retired to the comforts of the caravan at gone 0100hrs.
Day 2

We woke up the next day when we woke (no rush) and after breakfast we took a leisurely drive to some of the caves to check the conditions and show Andy a few of the sites. We arranged to meet John again at Ressel in the afternoon with the 18’s for a longer penetration.
We dropped in after our checks and again chose the shallow route in hope that we hit the 2^nd T. We set off well and again had a really enjoyable entry with good vis and before we knew it we hit the 2^nd T. It’s always really cool when you see new cave and ressel really changes a lot the further you get in.Truffe

We all dropped our 2^nd cookies just for the hell of it then retrieved them and called the dive although we all had plenty of gas left. We made our way back to open water without drama and completed min-deco.Although we all had enough gas to do a 2nd dive and would have loved to reach the 2^nd T on the deep route; we decided that the dive was a great high to finish the day on with a view to getting back to the CDC to blend our gasses and pack up in preparation for a quick departure on Sunday for our return ferry on Monday morning.

John and his family who have a holiday home (conveniently) very close to Pont De Rhodes kindly invited us both to dinner that evening, which we quickly agreed to and spent a night gabbing, schoffing and quaffing some of the local delights.

Day 3

We arrived at Lantouy to meet a certain Christophe Le Maillot who had agreed to join us on a pleasure dive before we shot off back to the UK. We also met Tom Karsch whom I have had a lot of correspondence with previously but never actually met. We also saw 3 unsuspecting female Cave 1 students who would soon discover CLM’s darkside!
It was great to meet the man again and we all had a good chat before heading off to Ressel again. Ressel The roadside was full of French cavers and the waterside very busy with families and photographers.

We kitted up in the normal manner and were soon joined by John again. Having ran through our pre-dive brief and drills we soon tied in our first and secondary tie-offs and set off into the cave.Visability was zero and you could hardly see your gauge, not an ideal environment to be in!The French cavers had made a real mess of the entrance to the cave and we all moved into touch contact on the line and progressed with our penetration.

Last night Rick and I enjoyed a nice dive on the Kintyre, here’s a few words about it. 

Entry
We wanted to get the dive out of the way this week but sadly that meant diving at low water. To compound the problem, we seem to be on a spring tide at the moment, which meant entry was difficult, especially due to the scooter and Al80 we each had.

However, with a bit of team work, we managed and I waited with all the gear in the water whilst Rick went back for his twinset.  We took 5 minutes to get our gear squared away, then dropped down and started the dive. 

The Dive
On the previous dive we had scootered out at about 45 degrees which put us on the pipe at ~10m; this gave us the impression the pipe was a lot further upstream from our entry point, but last night we kept the depth shallower, and almost immediately hit the pipe at 5m/6m. This helped a lot since there wasn’t anywhere we could tie off a reel.  Scootering down the pipe we were coming off the trigger occasionally to sort buoyancy (doing this on-the-fly needs more work). At 26m we found the jump line to the wreck, and without stopping we turned to the right and followed the line. Visibility was really poor at depth (like 1.5m), so we kept coming off the trigger and gliding for a bit in fear of approaching the wreck too fast! By minute 4 on our timers, we were at the bow at 30m. The scooters were locked and depitched, and we went for a swim. 

The bow is the most interesting area of the wreck with it’s attractive sprit, and ribbed structure (hull plates have fallen away). There’s not a great amount of standing super structure mid-ships, but parts of the engine and deck bollards, winches etc can be identified fairly easily.

Towards the stern the wreck ends except on the port side; we had planned to follow the port side of the hull down to the stern, but this is all but gone, so we turned at a max depth of 46m. Given better visibility we may have been able to see the stern area, but 1.5m really isn’t sufficient. 

We crossed from port to starboard and then came off the wreck for a moment. There was the odd bit of scrap lying around, but mainly squat lobsters! Turned left and the hull wall about mid-ships, then ascended to the deck level.  We slowly made our way back towards the bow crossing from port/starboard and back again taking in things we’d seen during the descent; given the very limited visibility and total lack of ambient light, even a small ship like the Kintyre needs close inspection. Arriving back at the bow I asked Rick to hold whilst I scooted round to the starboard side to take in the effect of him in backdrop to the ribbed bow, it was quite nice. Sadly the flood tide had started running so I immediately felt myself being drawn towards the wreck; it’s surprising how much cover is given by the wreck. Once back with Rick we signalled to ascent and begin deco.With the bow at 30m, we just did 3m/min to 21m for the switch to 50%. As mentioned the current was picking up and trying to keep position beside the pipe wasn’t comfortable during the switch. In hindsight, I think we should have drifted away from the pipe, switched, then scootered back at 21m. The rest of deco was uneventful, and we even had a little scoot during the 9m stop instead of using them to keep position.  Once back on the surface we chilled out for 5 minutes before moving our gear up the rocky shore.  In terms of life on the wreck there were quite a lot of small pollock, a few butter fish, scorpion fish or gurnards, an octopus and even a curious seal! As I said, lots of squat lobbies, and some large edible crabs. The area around the pipe has similar amounts of marine life, and lots of shellfish too. 

Thanks to Rick for a good dive but I wish the visibility could have been better and the current a little less, but it made the dive that little bit more challenging.

A good learning experience all round, and I got to do it after work on a Thursday  Stay tuned for more wreck shore diving madness…  Andy Bryson 

Intro
Rumored to be in 50m of water some 200m from the beach in the River Clyde at Wemyss Bay Nr Glasgow; The 94nt Iron Steamship Kintyre sounded like the perfect Tech 1 level dive to tackle one evening after work….from the shore!

History
Built by Robertson & Co of Greenock, owned by Cambeltown & Glasgow Steam Packet Joint Stock Company and launched in 1868 the SS Kintyre was said to be one of the most graceful steamers of her type and nick-named “The Cambletown Yacht” due to her raked lines and clipper like bow.

On 18^th September 1907 the Kintyre was lost in collision with the 3500gt steamer “Maori” four hundred yards south west of Inverkip. The Maori was undergoing speed trials on the Clyde and although both vessels exchanged signals a mis-understanding on the Kintyre resulted in the collision and loss of the steamship.

With the exception of the Captain and the engineer all the crew managed to scramble onboard the Maori to their rescue. The remaining pair tried to beach the badly damaged Kintyre, however 4 minutes after the collistion her stern began to submerge and twenty seconds further she slipped beneath the surface.

Captain MacKenzie had a miraculous escape after being dragged down by a piece of wreckage tangled around his legs, he managed to free himself and make it back to the surface. William Lennox the engineer was less fortunate having been thrown into the sea and could not be found after an extensive search of the area.

Team
My buddy for this dive was Andrew Bryson who had dived this wreck previously from a day boat and knew the whereabouts and background on this dive.

He is also the only other Tech 1 diver in Scotland!
 

Mission

Dive 1 Plan
To familiarize ourselves with the site and layout of the wreck we decided to do a 32% min deco recce dive to find the following information:-

Suitable exit/entry points
The whereabouts of the dis-used sewage pipe
Gauge visability and current
To check the line integrity and replace if need be
General familiarisation

The Dive
Having finished work on Friday 4^th Aug 06 we made our way to Wemyss bay and began to kit up. There are some make shift stairs which appear to have been carved by the sea over the years. We utilised these and dropped our scooters into the water.

We dropped down to 3m initially for bubble and flow checks then picked up the sandy slope which had a fair amount of kelp on it down to 12m in a Northerly direction with a view to pick up the pipe.

After a few minutes on the trigger we hit the pipe which was full of fish-life and orange and white plumose anemones. We followed the pipe gradually down the slope until we arrived at the end after a minute or so at approx 32m. 

Andy shone his light on a piece of rope which was flapping in the current. By this time, the light (ambient) had well and truly left us, visability was down to 1.5m and the current was fairly ripping through.

After a minute of briefly looking around the end of the pipe, Andy signalled to return the way we came, back up the pipe. Personally I thought this was the end of the dive but after a few seconds I noticed a second line running North West and signaled this to my buddy.

After another minute on the trigger we both saw the bow of the wreck come into view quite quickly. The bow was at approx 34m and a lot of the plates had fallen off leaving the skeletal ribs showing which again were full of anemones.

After a brief look around and keeping an eye on our MOD we thumbed the dive and headed back along the line towards the pipe and completed min deco.

De-Brief

We eventually surfaced about 5m south of our entry point having completed min deco to find quite a swell. The tide had also risen a fair bit meaning that our exit would be interesting. We got out without any problem but having read that quite a few people have been bent by exiting in rough conditions at this point. We have decided to lay line in order to assist our exit for the gas dive.

Dive 2 Plan
Lay line as a marker to aid our chosen exit point from shore to 12m due West. Once onto deco we will drop our scooters here and complete our stops resting for 5-10mins at the surface before dropping our stages.

These will be pulled in once we have de-kitted at a slow pace.

Explore the stern and depths, accommodation and engine room with 21/35 backgas & 50% deco bottle.

The Dive
Scheduled for Thursday 10^th August….To be continued with pics!