steve2281
October 18th, 2007, 02:32 AM
In the six weeks since our inital dive in Three Sisters, I've found myself thinking about that middle TN cave: the spring, the tunnel, the line, and most especially the end of the line and what lay beyond. In talking with Dennis, I discovered that he has been experiencing similar obsessive thoughts. A return trip to middle TN had been cancelled due to heavy rain, and then postponed time and time again due to another highly coveted dive occupying our calendars.
We returned to Three Sisters yesterday. The objective of the dive was simple: to lay new line, to view cave tunnel previously unseen by human eyes, to go where no-one had ever been.
We had made it to the end of the existing line on our first dive in the system. However, since that time the cave had been pushed at least once and we didn't know the exact distance of the current end of line.
We dived it as a double stage planning a moderate pace. As we entered, we found the vis only 8-10', much less than on our previous dive. Our hopes of the vis imporving further back in the cave partially came about as we found widely scattered areas of vis up to 20'. Water temp was 57 degrees.
The combination of the low vis and the extra bottles slowed us noticably. We reached our previous max penetration in 37 minutes. Now viewing the area recently explored by other divers, we were pumped and made better progress. The cave remained big: maybe 15' high and 10' wide for several hundred feet. Hundreds of "ear-like" projections lined the smooth vertical walls.
We dropped the second bottle as the cave changed to wide bedding plane. A couple minutes later, the water turned strangely yellowish-orange, a change I was expecting from reading the report of the most recent explorer.
About 50' later, 58 minutes into the dive, the current end of the line came into view. As planned, I would go first. I tied off the line and swam into the virgin tunnel. Dennis followed closely behind alternating between checking my placements and helping to light the tunnel ahead. I reeled about half the line off my Dive Rite primary and gave the reel to Dennis. The cave remained big and wide as Dennis finished out my reel, tied it off, and handed it back. A short break and short discussion followed as we tried to decide whether to push it farther or turn the dive. With only 400 psi used from our doubles, Dennis tied off his primary and off we go.
As we penetrated another hundred feet or so, the cave dramatically narrowed. Ceiling to floor became about 3', passable in backmounted doubles but difficult to not disturb the gravel and silt bottom. This width had narrowed to about 10'; this tunnel was getting small. As Dennis was laying out the line, he paused and changed his mind on a placement; I came in behind and further tried to improve the wrap. This resulted in both of us stopping and turning which produced a cloud of silt. Pausing again and another discussion; we pulled the line tight, tied it off, and cut it from the reel.
We turned the dive short of thirds at 82 minutes after laying 400-500' of new line over a 24 minute span. The return swim gave time for sight-seeing and reflection upon the experiences, events, and good fortune that had brought us to this point. We exited Three Sisters after diving 143 minutes. We warmed in the TN sunshine and took our time loading up.
We returned to Three Sisters yesterday. The objective of the dive was simple: to lay new line, to view cave tunnel previously unseen by human eyes, to go where no-one had ever been.
We had made it to the end of the existing line on our first dive in the system. However, since that time the cave had been pushed at least once and we didn't know the exact distance of the current end of line.
We dived it as a double stage planning a moderate pace. As we entered, we found the vis only 8-10', much less than on our previous dive. Our hopes of the vis imporving further back in the cave partially came about as we found widely scattered areas of vis up to 20'. Water temp was 57 degrees.
The combination of the low vis and the extra bottles slowed us noticably. We reached our previous max penetration in 37 minutes. Now viewing the area recently explored by other divers, we were pumped and made better progress. The cave remained big: maybe 15' high and 10' wide for several hundred feet. Hundreds of "ear-like" projections lined the smooth vertical walls.
We dropped the second bottle as the cave changed to wide bedding plane. A couple minutes later, the water turned strangely yellowish-orange, a change I was expecting from reading the report of the most recent explorer.
About 50' later, 58 minutes into the dive, the current end of the line came into view. As planned, I would go first. I tied off the line and swam into the virgin tunnel. Dennis followed closely behind alternating between checking my placements and helping to light the tunnel ahead. I reeled about half the line off my Dive Rite primary and gave the reel to Dennis. The cave remained big and wide as Dennis finished out my reel, tied it off, and handed it back. A short break and short discussion followed as we tried to decide whether to push it farther or turn the dive. With only 400 psi used from our doubles, Dennis tied off his primary and off we go.
As we penetrated another hundred feet or so, the cave dramatically narrowed. Ceiling to floor became about 3', passable in backmounted doubles but difficult to not disturb the gravel and silt bottom. This width had narrowed to about 10'; this tunnel was getting small. As Dennis was laying out the line, he paused and changed his mind on a placement; I came in behind and further tried to improve the wrap. This resulted in both of us stopping and turning which produced a cloud of silt. Pausing again and another discussion; we pulled the line tight, tied it off, and cut it from the reel.
We turned the dive short of thirds at 82 minutes after laying 400-500' of new line over a 24 minute span. The return swim gave time for sight-seeing and reflection upon the experiences, events, and good fortune that had brought us to this point. We exited Three Sisters after diving 143 minutes. We warmed in the TN sunshine and took our time loading up.