DIR-UK France Trip October 2006: Ressel, Trou Madame, and St George

[And]

Introduction

I started my trip at 6pm on Thursday night by driving the 3 hours or so down to Al's parents house near St Albans, where Al, Fraser and myself were meeting up to pack the van. Fraser was flying over to Bergerac due to time constraints whilst Al and I were to take the gear on the ferry and drive down to Payrac in the South of France.

Packing for these trips is always entertaining but we managed to get all the twin 18's, twin 12's, and other gear in the van without too much trouble. I asked Fraser if he was putting his clothes in the van but he said he would take them on the plane (more about this later ) Al's parents were extremely hospitable and Al and I stopped over for the night before setting off at 6 am for the ferry. Luckily the M25 was not too busy and we arrived with 45 mins or so to spare and got on the ferry with no problems. The ferry crossing was comfortable and Al experienced the Sea France version of an English Breakfast for the first time. It is a strange phenomenon that no matter how many times I swear not to buy one, I always do, and end up swearing to never buy one again afterwards. Maybe there is some chemical in the air or something.

The drive to the Lot is usually about 7 1/2 hours, but as this was a Friday we got a bit snarled up in Paris and this delayed us by 1 1/2 hours, arriving at CD Clot at 9 pm, very tired and hungry. Lynne already had dinner prepared though and we tucked in, accompanied by Anne-Marie and Roel, who I believe are members of YD as well, and we soon settled down and were laughing and joking about YD and other forums, as both Anne-Marie and Roel were browsing the internet courtesy of the wifi broadband Lynne has made available to guests. There seems to be no escape anymore!

It was at this point that we started wondering when Fraser was going to arrive, as he didn't have any directions to the new houses (gites) and wouldn't get to Lynnes until midnight or so. Eventually we got a call from Fraser that he had landed, and that the airport crew couldn't get the cargo hold open and all the luggage was being flown back to the UK, and they would have to ring the airport the next day to see if it had come back! How we laughed Fraser eventually made it at around 2 am and his new nickname became planes, trains and automobiles. He had no luggage other than what he was wearing but luckily we had all his dive gear anyway. Lynne lent him some clothes and we said we could supply some washing supplies. I don’t think he washes that much, by the looks of his undersuit, which seemed to get in and out of the van all by itself!

Day One: Trou madame

I decided to start Al and Fraser off with an easy day at Trou Madame! For those that don't know this is a cave which is high up on the top of what was once a river, and you get to it by walking along a very small path, to a stream. Cross the stream and then climb up the bank to a rockfall. After climbing the 50 mtrs or so up the rock fall, you eventually arrive at the cave entrance, and from there you effectively crawl on your hands and knees a further 50 mtrs to where the water is deep enough to swim. Needless to say this is an undertaking not to be taken lightly and a little different from the Mexico caves Al and Fraser had been used to.

Al and Fraser decided on 12's and I used 18's, as I wanted to see how much harder it would be as Bob and I might need them next time we visit. It was much, much harder! After two hours we were ready to dive though and we entered the cave. Everything was fine for about 13 mins and then Frasers light went off. He switched to backup and signalled us to stop, and then after switching his light off and on again it sparked up and we continued, only to stop again two minutes later, so we thumbed the dive. Returning back to the entrance Fraser was saying it couldn't be the battery or the bulb, and then the question arose about charging and burntesting. It appears that Fraser had given Al the light at a Vobster trip and not asked Al to charge it, and it hadn't been touched since. Hmmm. Fraser had a spare light so we left the gear in the cave and went for lunch, which Lynne had provided for us. Nice and sunny, 24 degC, peaceful and chatting about caves and cave diving, what better hobbies can there be?

The next dive Fraser used his spare light and we had a very nice dive, getting to around 400 mtrs or so before reaching our gas limit at 35 mins or so, which I didn't think was bad at all, resulting in a dive of around an hour. The viz was good but a little milky and I have seen it better, but Trou Madame is a very pretty cave and it was great to see the grins on the guys faces afterwards, as that would help them get the gear down the river again

Day Two: Ressel

Ressel is a completely different cave to Trou madame and I always think it has a sense of majesty about it. The passageways would be quite large if they weren't littered with massive rocks and slabs of limestone which have collapsed over the eons. The rocks are as big as cars for the most part and there is a nice circuit you can do which always impresses me.

Ressel is at the side of a river and it is really just a case of carrying the gear down a semi steep path to the river bank and then the entrance to the cave is 50 mtrs or so up the river, where a line is attached to a tree. The cave then heads under the river bank and the large cliffs at the side of the road. I led this dive and took Al and Fraser the shallow route, which is basically along the first T, place cookies, and then turn left. following the line as far as you can go before turning, or at the second T. Al and Fraser are restricted on their cave 1 cards to only passing one T and using 35 bar of gas, so we worked with that the best we could. The viz in Ressel was the best I had seen it, crystal clear and you could see as far as your light would allow. We were just short of the second T when we called the dive and exited, giving us a 1 hour dive.

Al was using an oxygen bottle to finish off the dives due to his recent dci incident and this provided a new experience for them. Whilst we had been diving a whole circus of french cave divers (an apt collective noun?) had entered the cave and trashed the whole entrance. This meant that the guys went to touch contact on the line and Al needed to switch to his O2 in very little viz. It seems that having bought a naff DIRzone stage kit rather than the Halcyon ones the cord snapped and he couldn’t clip the bottle on properly so it was even more difficult and he looked like he had an o2 bottle sticking out of his ear! All good fun, and I am sure a bit different from their recent Tech 2 O2 switches Welcome to cave diving.

On the second dive we went the deep way in and swam on to the second T. This is a new T that someone has placed in Ressel and it actually goes to an airbell. We know this because we checked it out. It gets very silty though no matter how careful you are. After looking at the airbell we exited the cave, and on the way back Frasers light failed again. He switched to backup and we switched positions so he was in the middle, and I led the way out mumbling and swearing about the importance of burn tests. Needless to say Frasers new trip name was now ‘2 lights’ as he needs to use 2 lights on every trip.

We had a nice lunch sat in the sun and Fraser decided to sit the last dive out as he was having a bit of sinus trouble. I think he was more entertained watching the French cave divers. Apparently there was a celebrity there in the form of Pascal Bernabe, who recently dived to 330 mtrs. They were calling him ‘Mr Deep’ but when I saw his silver body clinging drysuit I christened him the Space Cadet which later changed to the Space Monkey. Silver drysuits are just so wrong.

Al and I did a final dive and as the French divers had left the cave alone for a while the viz at the entrance had cleared and the dive was awesome. We went past the first T and then checked out the drop off to the 45 mtr section. Just hovering at 21 mtrs being able to see the floor at 45 mtrs is a little bit special, and after the dive Al was more than a little pleased and called it his best dive ever, so that was pretty cool.

Day Three: Landenouse…No, Ressel

We aimed to do Landenouse today as Roel and Anne-Marie had reported that the level was high and at the top of that ladder. We arrived and it was low showing 13 rungs of the ladder. oops! I really didn’t fancy lugging kit up and down the ladder so I suggested we hit Ressel as it should be quieter and Fraser could go and see the drop off which he missed the day before.

This is probably a good time to mention John Clease and the TomTom. Al had brought his PDA fully equipped with a TomTom GPS system and we had been listening to a nice lady on the PDA telling us where to go so far on the trip. I actually though it was pretty good and was a little disappointed that Al had effectively got away with any of the navigation jobs. Al decided for a laugh to change the voice to John Clease, but I think that they have some setting for picking the most ludicrous directions possible a la Monty Python stylee. Getting from Landenouse to Ressel is quite straightforward using a map, but not with John Clease directing us. I think we went the wrong way down a couple of one way streets and had to squeeze the van down what we in Yorkshire might affectionally call an ‘eight foot’ on a steep hill before we would eventually finish the journey, all accompanied by John saying ‘sharp right…oooh!’ far too many times. Even Al was shouting at him in the end, and Fraser must have thought we had gone mad as he was following in his rental car.

At Ressel there was only one other car there and they looked like they were going to be heading into the deeper part of the cave so I was happy that we would have some good dives. Al was also a bit keen today and was living up to his reputation as an organiser, so much so that Fraser started calling him Sgt Major, and we quickly revised that to simply call him ‘Bilko’, and as Al was so quick to protest we knew we had found him the right name. We were first in the cave and did the same dives as yesterday, one in the shallow section, and one in the deep section, with the final dive being a short trip to look at the drop off.

One interesting thing that happened was that on the way back out from the second dive I had a bit of a problem putting my cookies back in my pocket. Eventually I did it and checked the pocket was fastened and it was. A few minutes later I am swimming in my number three position and I suddenly feel some resisistance to my swimming. It was as if there was suddenly some flow stopping me going forward. I signalled the guys and then had a look underneath me and saw some line. At first I thought I might have simply caught the main line but that was on my right. Then I thought that I might have caught the main line a little while ago and had completely destroyed it somehow, but looking behind me that seemed OK. Then I saw a lone double ender with line attached coming out of my pocket. Somehow my 40 mtr safety spool had come off the double ender and fallen out of my pocket, but the loop was still on the double ender. The spool had probably unwound and then lodged in some rocks and then pulled tight when I had swam it out. I pulled the line and decided to just tie it round a rock and pick it up on the next dive. We were on the exit and hopefully I hadn’t created some spiders web in the cave somewhere. We had plenty of gas, but I figured it best to just continue on out and fix it later. On the third dive my suspicions were proven correct as we found the spool completely unwound and I had rather expertly laid 40 mtrs of line completely parallel to the main line  No harm done though.

Perhaps the best bit about this day was that it was so sunny and warm when we got out of the cave that there was no rush to get out of the water, and we just laid on our backs and floated down the river to the entry/exit area. Excellent.

Day Four: St George

Al was taking a day off today and Fraser was only doing one dive as he had to head back to Bergerac for his flight so we decided to do St George. It was the closest cave to the gite and also best for getting on the main roads for Fraser, and I like this cave anyway. St George has one of the prettiest entry pools of the French caves and is again, completely different to Ressel and Tru madame. In some places you are simply swimming along a line in the middle of the cave, only just able to see the walls on either side, as the passage is so large. It goes down to 30 mtrs initially, and then steadily rises up to 10, and then goes up to 3mtrs before meeting a restriction and then eventually it goes to 70 mtrs plus. Fraser and I went past the airbell, and then came to a T, and then after 30 mins or so reached the restriction T, at which we called the dive. This was about 420 mtrs in the cave so this was pretty good going for just 30 mins. Heading out we saw a few French divers but luckily they didn’t kick up the silt too much and we exited fine. Fraser was being a bit too polite and giving way to the entering divers so I gave him a little push as a reminder that it is the entering divers who give way to the exiting divers, and there was plenty of room for both sets of divers to swim anyway. It was no big deal and it just shows how relaxing the dive was, but you may as well do it right.

After the dive we had lunch at the side of the pool and then Fraser left for Bergerac and his flight. Al and I decided to do a bit of exploring and visited Cabouy, walked to Pou Maisson, and then drove over to St Sauveur and then truffe, all merrily directed by John Clease, who was still determined to pick the most inappropriate roads for a combi van full of diving gear and cylinders. At one point on the way to St Sauveur, we were faced with a rickety old bridge or what looked like a deep ford. After debating whether I should ask Al to walk in front with his evolve wing as a bouyancy aid we picked the ford and luckily it wasn’t as deep as we thought and having visited all thes sites Al has now quite a comprehensive list of dives he wants to do in the future.

All too soon it was time to go home and the drive from Payrac took about 7 ½ hours before taking the ferry and heading to Al’s parents, where I was treated to tea and gingerbread , before setting off home to finally arrive back in East Yorkshire at 9pm.

Thanks to Bilko and 2 lights for a great trip. It seemed to be a laugh a minute and I am already looking forward to the next one. These are the first cave dives I had done with Al and Fraser, and although there are some differences between what Chris taught them and what Tyler taught me, it was very straightforward diving together.

Andy

PS I have some piccies to add but will fix them tomorrow.

[chrisch]

Cheers for the report Andy.

We're there in a fortnight. (buggering the vis no doubt )

Chris

[Mark Chase]

Nice one Andy.

Andyp wants to do some of the French caves with me next year. I hope all this talk of lugging kit about puts him off . Mind you I like the sound of the crystal clear water.

ATB

Mark Chase

[Bob Cooper]

Nice report mate.

Sounds like a fun trip....

[Al_Star]

Nice write-up from "Our fearless leader" so named as he went striding off up Trou Madame with a set of twin 18's on.

It really was a fantastic trip and a great introduction to French cave diving. It certainly seemed quite different to Mexico. The fact that you really did have to just find a site in the middle of nowhere and effectively trespass to get in was quite different. The caves don't show the decoration of Mexico but have a different set of features complete with scalloped areas.

Having Andy's familiarity with the area proved a real bonus to us and he just about managed to put up with my endless questions on the first few days before I chilled and got into the more relaxed pace. The opportunity to dive with someone more experienced also allowed both Fraser and I to improve our technique and we were regularly hitting hour long dives even on our basic gas limits.

I certainly got to know Ressel over the two days diving there and I was pleased to put all the cave training into practise, I was really learning the cave and able to predict what time we’d hit certain features. Fraser’s fun with lights and Andy’s fun with a spool gave us some minor incidents and in all cases it was a total non-event to resolve. I last dived with Andy in April 2005 so the fact that the training just put us on the same page immediately was a testimony to the success of GUE cave training. The standard of some French cave divers left me staggered as we carried out our zero vis exit and deco. That was about the only time it was a bit uncomfortable – I was rather pleased once we were able to ascend up the line and out of the cave entrance.

Big thanks owed to Roel who provided us the GPS co-ordinates for all the caves on the day we arrived as it made navigating easier. We only failed to find one cave "Oeil de la source" on our last day of exploring the entrance pools which was a real result despite the odd bit of dodgy navigating from John Cleese.

Stand out moments of the trip will be turning the dive in Trou Madame at 450-500m penetration, the drop-off in Ressel and watching the sunset over Rocamadour while eating an ice cream chatting about cave diving. Can’t wait to go cave diving again – I'll just have to do some wreck dives to fill the gaps in the calendar

[Fiona]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

Andyp wants to do some of the French caves with me next year. I hope all this talk of lugging kit about puts him off . Mind you I like the sound of the crystal clear water.

ATB

Mark Chase

Won't he just hire a sherpa

[malcolm smith]

Great report Andy, I'm pleased you all had a good time.
However, twin 18s in Trou Madam can surely not be classed as doing it right :-)

My back was aching just reading the report !!! :-)

Well done to the 2 newly deflowered French cave diving virgins on the squad :-)

Cheers, Malcolm.

[neilh]

Cracking stuff guys! Sounds awesome!

[AMW]

The standard of some French cave divers left me staggered

This should go down well with any French cave divers who frequent this site. I have seen some lines that need a bit of tidying and some divers with interesting gear ! This is not a problem as you should be 100% self sufficient in a cave then others who are around you make there own choice.

Andrew .

[chrisch]

The comments about the lack of helmets amongst the DIR divers (German mostly) can be quite strong. You will find the French (and the Belgians with whom we dive) consider this to be foolhardy to the point of stupidity.

Each to their own I guess.

Chris