Lot/Dordogne 17th/24th May.

[malcolm smith]

It is 420 miles from Caen to Gramat, which is quite a long way
Add 370ish miles from Cumbria to Portsmouth in a car with a dodgy worn bearing on a front wheel, and it’s a hell of a long way! Overnight ferry with a few glasses of wine and a sleep made the journey OK though.

We stayed near Gramat this time, and got fills from Andres place in Gramat, which was a thoroughly pleasant experience. You could send a mission into space with all the filling stuff in his garage, never mind just flapping around in the caves!

It had poured down for 2 days before we got there, making conditions less than ideal, although our week just saw the odd shower and warm sunshine most of the time.

Truffe, water level in the pool was near the top of road, but not flooding over it. This dropped after a few days. Vis was good, except after a group exited having had a lets see if it’s possible to crap up the first sump contest-----it seemed like that anyway :-) This just left a section rather misty though rather than wrecking it. Nice to see John Kendall and party there, before the dive kitting up, and passing in convoy as we passed in opposite directions in the cave.

Landenouse, level in cistern, approx two thirds full and pretty good vis with little flow. My wife got soaked on the surface while I was staying dry in my drysuit on the dive!

Ressel, river levels fairly low towards end of the week and an easy swim up to the line. If you wish, there is now a clear unfenced path [it’s been trampled down, anyway] up to the line, so the upstream swim is no longer essential. Some flow in entrance, but easy to get in. Vis, my usually white lighted 10 watt salvo looked more like a dirty orangey-yellow glow worm in the cloudy vis. I turned not long after passing the junction with the shallow route cos all I could see was the line. The shallow route was little better.

St Saveur, saved this to the end of the week, and vis was excellent. Bit of a kick to get in, then nothing troublesome. Lovely dive on a very slow drift to my max. depth hugging the roof to try and lengthen the dive in the clear vis.

We did the walk from Cabouy to St Saveur for the first time, and it is a lovely walk, and only takes 20/30 minutes of gentle strolling.

All dives were solo side mounted. I took a stage and O2 bottle in a few times, but mainly kept the kit minimal with two 10s, with dive times and depth to match.

We stayed in a self catered farmhouse near Alvignac through Welcome holidays, which was good. Goes back to the 12th century, with walls that would stop a canon ball--------from some of the cracks in the walls, it looked as though maybe they had :-)

The two supermarkets do not give out plastic bags. Leclerc did not even have any on sale. The Shoppi supermarket, although not as well stocked, won the day by giving my wife a rose at the checkout on our last day, it was mothers day that weekend which was a really nice touch. Leclerc had no Monbazillac wine either to wash the wedges of foie gras down.

The Parc D’Anilamier at Gramat, was a lovely low key way to spend 3 hours. The Eagle/Vulture flying show at Rocamadour was also very good.
Be warned, if you take a none cave diving wife with you, this may happen to you as well :-)

It’s a great place to spend a week; the diving is lovely, scenery beautiful, and the wines etc, splendid!

[chrisch]

Glad to hear you had a good time Malcolm. I love the area and would happily spend a week there anytime. There was a cheese fair at Rocamadour when we were there but I couldn't persuade anyone to take a day off diving and go to that instead

Chris

[cgrosart]

Nice report Malcolm - cheers for the reminder about shopping bags - I get caught out EVERY time !! Just putting Tesco bag for life on my list as we speak.....got 3 weeks out there June/July with my own project for one week and being Rick's B!tch for th rest

[johnkendall]

Hi Malcolm,

Nice to see you again. By the time we got to the end of our trip we had dived Truffe and Landenouse and were expecting much the same, until a downpour on saturday washed everything out. Found a "new" cave though (Surveyed by the french guys, but not dived much) which was fun

Came home with a bunch of trimix and deco bottles unused, and 4 scooters tha only got wet when it rained. Just got home, it's a long way.

Thanks

John

[cgrosart]

When the weather plays up, there are plenty of other, less visited but stunning sites. The Emergence de Temporaire de Cregols (sump 2) is possibly the best bit of underwater scenery I have seen yet. The viz tends to be better here than anywhere else when it's pissing down. But I would not recommend diving it backmount due to the snuggish bit in sump 1. Also, passing gear up through the choke is much easier with seperate cylinders.
Also the Oil de la Doue is well worth the dive and you can just keep going forever in there - again, not washed out when other more popular sites are.
The weather was dreadful for us last June - all that resulted in was having to dive less popular but equally rewarding sites and some we'll be revisiting this year.

[NotDeadYet]

Nice report, Malcolm.

Originally Posted by malcolm smith

Overnight ferry with a few glasses of wine and a sleep made the journey OK though.

I've had many happy nights on that ferry! And you can raid the vacated cabins in the morning for leftovers I once woke up completely naked underneath the stairs where everyone waits to get back to their cars. Alternatively, the disabled bog makes a very comfy and cheap alternative to a cabin.

We stayed near Gramat this time, and got fills from Andres place in Gramat, which was a thoroughly pleasant experience. You could send a mission into space with all the filling stuff in his garage, never mind just flapping around in the caves!

It puts most fill stations in the UK to shame.

If you wish, there is now a clear unfenced path [it’s been trampled down, anyway] up to the line, so the upstream swim is no longer essential.

Is it an "official" path? The farmer who owns that part of the river bank is extremely sensitive about divers using his land, they threatened to close off the normal access area if the mayor received any more complaints from him.

We did the walk from Cabouy to St Saveur for the first time, and it is a lovely walk, and only takes 20/30 minutes of gentle strolling.

You can drive down from the main road... if you're feeling adventurous I sheared a strut on my Jeep the last time I did it.

Leclerc had no Monbazillac wine either to wash the wedges of foie gras down.

Leclerc's wine selection was rubbish when I was there in October as well, really poor. The hardware store in Gramat does however sell red wine by the kilogram(?) from a petrol pump type thingie for about a euro a litre. Jerry can not included... The Huit a 8 in Martel does really good wine but it's a bit out the way unless you're diving that way.

The Parc D’Anilamier at Gramat, was a lovely low key way to spend 3 hours.

It is good but not if you camp across the road. The wolves wake up before dawn, the wolves wake the monkeys, the monkeys wake something else... The showcaves are worth visiting too, Padirac especially. Pech Merle is really interesting too.

Originally Posted by cgrosart

Nice report Malcolm - cheers for the reminder about shopping bags - I get caught out EVERY time !! Just putting Tesco bag for life on my list as we speak.....got 3 weeks out there June/July with my own project for one week and being Rick's B!tch for th rest

I'm there last week in June so probably see you there.

Originally Posted by cgrosart

When the weather plays up, there are plenty of other, less visited but stunning sites. The Emergence de Temporaire de Cregols (sump 2) is possibly the best bit of underwater scenery I have seen yet.

Cregols is lovely, really nice cave. First time I dived it was in backmounts, it took me about 30min just to work out how to get through the entrance.

Also the Oil de la Doue is well worth the dive and you can just keep going forever in there - again, not washed out when other more popular sites are.

One of my favourite sites, absolutely beautiful cave, but it's a bloody long walk... exactly 1100 paces, I counted them to keep myself motivated. Last time I was there, as I was walking up the path through the woods, there was a guy lying completely bollocko in a clump of ferns with the biggest angry schlong I've ever seen in my life and teaching himself who was boss. I'm not entirely sure what the strangest sight was, him lying there or me walking past in full dive kit in the middle of a wood.

The weather was dreadful for us last June - all that resulted in was having to dive less popular but equally rewarding sites and some we'll be revisiting this year.

It's nice sometimes to get a wet spell because it gets you away from the usual suspects. There's a pair of springs near Lacave that are usually filthy mudholes but with a good downpour the vis gets up to about a metre The Finou is another one that's a good dive in the right conditions. Cacrey was another good wet weather cave, such a shame it's closed as it's another of my faves.

Cheers,

Stuart

[malcolm smith]

Regarding the 'path' at Ressel. I don't know if it's official, it is most certainly very well trodden though. There is a sign on a tree to the effect of, please respect the environment, or something like that.

Bad luck with the weather John, we drove through a downpour much of the way north on Saturday, it got better as we got further north, and the cricket commentary can be heard a surprisingly long way south in France to ease the journey though :-)

Cregols, I've always fancied that one------is there a lot of dry stuff to haul gear, or can you have a decent swim there?

Cheers, Malcolm.

[cgrosart]

Cregols is an easy carry to the entrance (5 mins from the road down a steep bank). Kit up in the cool resurgence (fairly shallow). It's about 100 ? m dive in sump 1 but there is a bedrock 'squeeze' (It is not a squeeze in the cavers sense of the word but back mounts would be a hindrance rather than a help) not far in. It is a wriggle with sidemounts but you do not need to take them off.
You surface at the foot of a boulder choke. We found VERY bad air (high CO2 levels) in this boulder choke and in the dry cave right up to sump 2. Severe breathlessness ensued. Both Mr westlake and Mr Farr were panting and unable to talk so I knew there was something amiss !!
You have to remove cylinders and pass them up through the choke and then climb through it and over some boulders. Best thing to do then is to re-kit and carry gear down the streamway (boulder hopping) for 250m of 'dry' cave until you reach sump 2 which is obvious and looks extremely inviting. There is even a 'rebelay' for the dive line, conveniently at 3m for decompression !!
Sump 2 is awesome. I went to -48m on a pair of 7s and just escaped deco but hung around a bit anyway due to the exertion required getting out due to bad air etc. Clive informs me that it is not always that bad though. We were just unlucky. It can be done in a drysuit but seriously ?? Just use a 7mm semi and wetsocks.
Next time I'll use a pair of 3s to get through sump 1 (overkill) and carry my 15s (they would need to be taken off and passed through the 'squeeze'. I think Mr Maneely is up for this one and Clive definately wants to go back, so give us a shout when you're out there. I'll post up some photos in a minute, though they don't do the best bit, such as the arches over the gravel slope, justice.
I've got a project in the north of the Dordogne during the last week of June, but if that gets called off due to weather, I'll come straight down to the Lot.




(I'm the one on the right !!)

[cgrosart]

Here are some more.

Assorted Riff Raff on a night out at the pizza place in Gramat...
IMAG0024.flv - Video - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Diving the Cregols
LotJune200700018.flv - Video - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

I swam home quickly so that I could film Clive surfacing after a dive in the Oeil de la Doue. You can imagine the tacky dialogue...

[NotDeadYet]

Originally Posted by cgrosart

Cregols is an easy carry to the entrance (5 mins from the road down a steep bank).

I'm a lazy sod, I rigged a pulley to the railings on the path over the entrance and lower/raised my kit from there

There is an easier way through the entrance choke if you come off the line and go off to the left, flopping over a big flat boulder. Looks like a dead end but it loops back on to the line. IIRC though the surface of the rock is out the water so you are dragging yourself and your kit over it with the full weight on you, much better in a wetsuit.

Cheers,

Stuart