Khao Sok Thailand Expedition 2008

Drmike · 1st September 2008, 18:19

Quote: (Originally Posted by wedivebc)

Wouldn't the height of water below the dam indicate the pre-dam depth in that valley?

nope.

(whats the big deal how deep it is anyway? like i said bruce may have a better idea - i dont care one way or other)

the confusion may come from the fact bruce was looking at another temple in a lake up north - im wondering if that was the deeper one??? Bruce - where are you bruce?

Andy/Roger Id love to see any pics you got of the villages - any chance you can put them up. How was the viz. I know it can be crappy there

added: oh ok wedivebc ive just read your other post and realised your little feelings have been hurt because you think i made you look like a willy and was having a go at you. well (to my mind) you didnt and i wasnt- but you carry on acting like a girl and i have no doubt eventually you will and I shall.

***EBT*** · 1st September 2008, 18:19

Quote: (Originally Posted by stuey)

Here we go again, I can see this is going to turn in to another pissing contest.

Will that make the water deeper then?

rogeringebo · 1st September 2008, 21:31

Hi Mike and the rest of you guys!

The viz was quite good I must say but its pitch black on the bottom.
There is usually a milky layer on top from the decomposing jungle below that block out all light on the bottom.
The purpose of our trip was to look for the villages, do some deep diving but mainly hang out and catch up.
Finding caves in the area is not hard.... finding new ones are I guess.
What we do is talk to the families living on the lake and try to learn more about what it looked like some 20 years ago before the dam.
They are happy to help but do not know all that much about caves, diving or diving in caves for that matter.
We ask around and they try to help as best they can.
The caves we have seen are beautiful and It sure feels exotic gliding in between the white jaws made of lime stone in to the mountain.
Demanding? Not at all...... Have people done it before? Im sure....
Exotic diving? Hell yes!
The locals have been trying to point out where the villages were but its like trying to find a hay in a pin stack, If you know what I mean? When you reach 40-50m its like a night dive and you hit the canopy in most places where we dived. On the bottom its a lot of silt, roots not to mention the jungle itself. Laying a line is not an option I can tell you that.
With a bottom time of around 30-40min at 60m we could cover the size of a tennis court in valleys large enough to hold several football stadiums.
But on one dive the bottom looked very different.
The bottom was flat without any growth on it. To me it looked like a river bed with banks on the side. I could be wrong.....
All of a sudden something large came out of the gloom.....
It was a 3m high round concrete water container with a faucet on it.
Very typical in Thai villages as they are used to collect rainwater.
We started laughing in our loops with Mickey Mouse voices from the helium.
It can clearly be heard on the video...
When I turned around there were another one just behind the first one.
After little while we moved on and bumped in to yet another one about half the size with a square hole on top.
At this point at least my hart was racing a bit I must admit.
After another 10m of swimming we found something that looked like a post... about 1 meter high with a carved knob on top.
We moved on and then there was another one.....and another....and another... all on a perfect straight line.
It was definitely a old fence.
By this time the dive was going to be over 2 hours long and we did not have bailout for that so we had to make for the surface.
When we showed the video to the Thais they were all smiles and said the recognized the type of objects we found and showed us a similar post on their little pier.

We had a bunch of slings and gas prepared for deep diving so we were going to try to find some real depth the next couple of days.
On at least 4 occasions we were taken to different places where it was supposedly very deep.....70m....80m..... more than 100m and so on.
It turned out to be a way shallower on all dives.
The dives were not bad really but were not what we came for regarding depth.

The whole experience was something I will never forget, thats for sure.
For you who have not been there its a world of its own, something out of Lord of the Ring or Jurassic park. No mobile phones, no noise, no girlfriends or wifes.....just jungle.......and diving

Rodge

Drmike · 2nd September 2008, 07:29

Quote: (Originally Posted by rogeringebo)

Hi Mike and the rest of you guys!

The viz was quite good I must say but its pitch black on the bottom.
There is usually a milky layer on top from the decomposing jungle below that block out all light on the bottom.
The purpose of our trip was to look for the villages, do some deep diving but mainly hang out and catch up.
Finding caves in the area is not hard.... finding new ones are I guess.
What we do is talk to the families living on the lake and try to learn more about what it looked like some 20 years ago before the dam.
They are happy to help but do not know all that much about caves, diving or diving in caves for that matter.
We ask around and they try to help as best they can.
The caves we have seen are beautiful and It sure feels exotic gliding in between the white jaws made of lime stone in to the mountain.
Demanding? Not at all...... Have people done it before? Im sure....
Exotic diving? Hell yes!
The locals have been trying to point out where the villages were but its like trying to find a hay in a pin stack, If you know what I mean? When you reach 40-50m its like a night dive and you hit the canopy in most places where we dived. On the bottom its a lot of silt, roots not to mention the jungle itself. Laying a line is not an option I can tell you that.
With a bottom time of around 30-40min at 60m we could cover the size of a tennis court in valleys large enough to hold several football stadiums.
But on one dive the bottom looked very different.
The bottom was flat without any growth on it. To me it looked like a river bed with banks on the side. I could be wrong.....
All of a sudden something large came out of the gloom.....
It was a 3m high round concrete water container with a faucet on it.
Very typical in Thai villages as they are used to collect rainwater.
We started laughing in our loops with Mickey Mouse voices from the helium.
It can clearly be heard on the video...
When I turned around there were another one just behind the first one.
After little while we moved on and bumped in to yet another one about half the size with a square hole on top.
At this point at least my hart was racing a bit I must admit.
After another 10m of swimming we found something that looked like a post... about 1 meter high with a carved knob on top.
We moved on and then there was another one.....and another....and another... all on a perfect straight line.
It was definitely a old fence.
By this time the dive was going to be over 2 hours long and we did not have bailout for that so we had to make for the surface.
When we showed the video to the Thais they were all smiles and said the recognized the type of objects we found and showed us a similar post on their little pier.

We had a bunch of slings and gas prepared for deep diving so we were going to try to find some real depth the next couple of days.
On at least 4 occasions we were taken to different places where it was supposedly very deep.....70m....80m..... more than 100m and so on.
It turned out to be a way shallower on all dives.
The dives were not bad really but were not what we came for regarding depth.

The whole experience was something I will never forget, thats for sure.
For you who have not been there its a world of its own, something out of Lord of the Ring or Jurassic park. No mobile phones, no noise, no girlfriends or wifes.....just jungle.......and diving

Rodge

great stuff - I can just imagine how it must have felt when you saw that concrete container. Pics man we want to see pics!

I know its a horrible feeling descending through blackness in zero vis and landing on, falling through drowned trees there - not nice.

I dont think theres much more there cave wise than what we know but if there are more did you think of looking at recorded dry cave locations? - given that the caves you are looking for were all above water level and known before the area was flooded- the cave lists I have for Southern Thailand it looks like there are a few in that general area - you may need to convert locations given to get GPS. If you dont have it I can dig up my copy of cave locations for a looksee. Also theres a number of dry caving groups that go there when water level is low - those caves flood at times during the year - but I think they are mostly visiting the known ones - but
maybe they could help with locations

cheers

Rebreatherlab · 2nd September 2008, 13:40

Quote: (Originally Posted by Drmike)

great stuff - I can just imagine how it must have felt when you saw that concrete container. Pics man we want to see pics!

I know its a horrible feeling descending through blackness in zero vis and landing on, falling through drowned trees there - not nice.

I dont think theres much more there cave wise than what we know but if there are more did you think of looking at recorded dry cave locations? - given that the caves you are looking for were all above water level and known before the area was flooded- the cave lists I have for Southern Thailand it looks like there are a few in that general area - you may need to convert locations given to get GPS. If you dont have it I can dig up my copy of cave locations for a looksee. Also theres a number of dry caving groups that go there when water level is low - those caves flood at times during the year - but I think they are mostly visiting the known ones - but
maybe they could help with locations

cheers

Mike,

Do you know where that Temple Cave is in the lake? From Eric's VDO it looks quite clear, (probably shot in dry season, but still...), and a bit longer than others. GPS or long/lat, please!

Andy

Rebreatherlab · 7th September 2008, 13:11

Here are some blurry VDO shots from what we found. It is hard to make anything out of it other than some objects looks man made. I think the first thing could be a house foundation where wooden walls were taken down before evacuating the village. The round things might be water cisterns or similar.
The cement poles are likely the support pillars for the wood that holds the roof.

Cheers,

Andy

YouTube - Diving Cheow Lan Lake 2008

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rogeringebo · 8th September 2008, 04:47

Hi Andy!
Great to finally see the video!
The Pelagian sure looks tiny with the 80s

Cheers
Roger

andibk · 8th September 2008, 05:33

Rebreather list
When you guys go to Kao Sok give me a call and I will give you the number of the boat captain that we all have been using. She is a lady and does know the lakes quite well. I called you not to long ago and I asked her how deep the water is in Kao Sok National Park, If I remember right she told me 80 meters. The Thais do have a tendancy of thinking that they are much deeper then they really are.
I do quite a bit of diving in the lakes just north of Kanchanaburi. I know of a couple villages and temples and was told they were in the depth range of 120 meters. I have a map of the village before and after the flood to help locate it. I only once actually tried to see if we could find the temple at 120 meters. The first dive we must of landed on a hill and the water was only about 60 meters. The next dive we did we got to 10 meters or so. (This was a few years back). I tried using a depth gauge to see if I could get a reading but the depth was actually to deep. I sent down my OMS gauge on a reel but found out that the OMS gauge only read about hte 10 meters. The line did keep on going. I am guesing the depth to be around 125 meters. The Thais have said it to have deeper spots but I have not found it yet. I was checking the depth near the dam which should be about the deepest spot.
I have located about 4 caverns and two caves that I run training courses in. The caves are all in a freshwater lake. You can see large cat fish (enough to scare the *&%^ out of you). There are also some BLIND fish that swim right up into your mask. This took awhile of getting used to. One of the larger caves there is a large wooden table in the middle of the cave. This was a table used to put the Buddha images on before they flooded the area. I was told that there was a very large Buddha image in there but have not found it yet. There was a passage way in the back that went a good ways back but never seemed to find it again. Next time I will make sure to lay a line. These caves got to a max depth of 27 meters or so and good for training. I have layed some line through some of these caves but will have to go through and relay the line now that I have a better outline of the cave in my head.
I have 3 caves that I have been told about that have never been dove before and just waiting to go. A short hike in the jungle for about a hour or two and you are there.

Bruce

Rebreatherlab · 8th September 2008, 05:54

Quote: (Originally Posted by andibk)

Rebreather list
When you guys go to Kao Sok give me a call and I will give you the number of the boat captain that we all have been using. She is a lady and does know the lakes quite well. I called you not to long ago and I asked her how deep the water is in Kao Sok National Park, If I remember right she told me 80 meters. The Thais do have a tendancy of thinking that they are much deeper then they really are.
I do quite a bit of diving in the lakes just north of Kanchanaburi. I know of a couple villages and temples and was told they were in the depth range of 120 meters. I have a map of the village before and after the flood to help locate it. I only once actually tried to see if we could find the temple at 120 meters. The first dive we must of landed on a hill and the water was only about 60 meters. The next dive we did we got to 10 meters or so. (This was a few years back). I tried using a depth gauge to see if I could get a reading but the depth was actually to deep. I sent down my OMS gauge on a reel but found out that the OMS gauge only read about hte 10 meters. The line did keep on going. I am guesing the depth to be around 125 meters. The Thais have said it to have deeper spots but I have not found it yet. I was checking the depth near the dam which should be about the deepest spot.
I have located about 4 caverns and two caves that I run training courses in. The caves are all in a freshwater lake. You can see large cat fish (enough to scare the *&%^ out of you). There are also some BLIND fish that swim right up into your mask. This took awhile of getting used to. One of the larger caves there is a large wooden table in the middle of the cave. This was a table used to put the Buddha images on before they flooded the area. I was told that there was a very large Buddha image in there but have not found it yet. There was a passage way in the back that went a good ways back but never seemed to find it again. Next time I will make sure to lay a line. These caves got to a max depth of 27 meters or so and good for training. I have layed some line through some of these caves but will have to go through and relay the line now that I have a better outline of the cave in my head.
I have 3 caves that I have been told about that have never been dove before and just waiting to go. A short hike in the jungle for about a hour or two and you are there.

Bruce

Hi Bruce,

When you say you checked the depth near the dam are you talking about Rachaprapha or another dam up north? For some stupid reason I always forget to bring gps and sonar when going to the Khao Sok lake. It would be good with some depth in the lake as it is a quite convenient place to run Pelagian courses and for mixed gas some depth is needed. We actually have a 80 m hole just south off Samui, but that is pitch black and the visibility is not bad. There is NO visibility, whereas Khao Sok gets very clear the deeper you get.

Cheers,

Andy

andibk · 8th September 2008, 08:59

Andy
The location near the dam I was checking was Sri Nakrin. I believe the spelling is correct. The dives were actually quite neat. The deeper you went again the viz got better but was quite dark but clear. We were swimming in and out around trees.
Other then the one main cave everyone is diving in Kao Sok there is one other cave that is ok. Not the greatest in the world but good enough. There is a line layed through it already. I think we did two dives in it on the last trip.

Bruce

1st September 2008, 18:19	#21 (permalink)
Drmike RBW Member Current Rebreather/s: MK 15.X Ouroboros Other CCR Home Build Other Rebreather/s: Inspiration Classic Other CCR Home Build Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 3,378	Re: Khao Sok Thailand Expedition 2008 Quote: (Originally Posted by wedivebc) Wouldn't the height of water below the dam indicate the pre-dam depth in that valley? nope. (whats the big deal how deep it is anyway? like i said bruce may have a better idea - i dont care one way or other) the confusion may come from the fact bruce was looking at another temple in a lake up north - im wondering if that was the deeper one??? Bruce - where are you bruce? Andy/Roger Id love to see any pics you got of the villages - any chance you can put them up. How was the viz. I know it can be crappy there added: oh ok wedivebc ive just read your other post and realised your little feelings have been hurt because you think i made you look like a willy and was having a go at you. well (to my mind) you didnt and i wasnt- but you carry on acting like a girl and i have no doubt eventually you will and I shall. __________________ Cave diving is a sport Wreck diving is a sport Diving in general is a sport 'Rebreather diving' is not a sport its the delusional obsession with a highly dangerous and often inappropriate piece of equipment Last edited by Drmike : 1st September 2008 at 18:34.
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1st September 2008, 18:19	#22 (permalink)
*EBT* Apprentice Luddite Current Rebreather/s: Classic Kiss Other Rebreather/s: Inspiration Classic Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: UK, Brighton Posts: 2,105	Re: Khao Sok Thailand Expedition 2008 Quote: (Originally Posted by stuey) Here we go again, I can see this is going to turn in to another pissing contest. Will that make the water deeper then? __________________ Eagles May Soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines! RBW Terms of service
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1st September 2008, 21:31	#23 (permalink)
rogeringebo Life starts at 100 Current Rebreather/s: Pelagian Other Rebreather/s: Megalodon Classic Kiss Pelagian Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Stockholm Sweden Posts: 739	Re: Khao Sok Thailand Expedition 2008 Hi Mike and the rest of you guys! The viz was quite good I must say but its pitch black on the bottom. There is usually a milky layer on top from the decomposing jungle below that block out all light on the bottom. The purpose of our trip was to look for the villages, do some deep diving but mainly hang out and catch up. Finding caves in the area is not hard.... finding new ones are I guess. What we do is talk to the families living on the lake and try to learn more about what it looked like some 20 years ago before the dam. They are happy to help but do not know all that much about caves, diving or diving in caves for that matter. We ask around and they try to help as best they can. The caves we have seen are beautiful and It sure feels exotic gliding in between the white jaws made of lime stone in to the mountain. Demanding? Not at all...... Have people done it before? Im sure.... Exotic diving? Hell yes! The locals have been trying to point out where the villages were but its like trying to find a hay in a pin stack, If you know what I mean? When you reach 40-50m its like a night dive and you hit the canopy in most places where we dived. On the bottom its a lot of silt, roots not to mention the jungle itself. Laying a line is not an option I can tell you that. With a bottom time of around 30-40min at 60m we could cover the size of a tennis court in valleys large enough to hold several football stadiums. But on one dive the bottom looked very different. The bottom was flat without any growth on it. To me it looked like a river bed with banks on the side. I could be wrong..... All of a sudden something large came out of the gloom..... It was a 3m high round concrete water container with a faucet on it. Very typical in Thai villages as they are used to collect rainwater. We started laughing in our loops with Mickey Mouse voices from the helium. It can clearly be heard on the video... When I turned around there were another one just behind the first one. After little while we moved on and bumped in to yet another one about half the size with a square hole on top. At this point at least my hart was racing a bit I must admit. After another 10m of swimming we found something that looked like a post... about 1 meter high with a carved knob on top. We moved on and then there was another one.....and another....and another... all on a perfect straight line. It was definitely a old fence. By this time the dive was going to be over 2 hours long and we did not have bailout for that so we had to make for the surface. When we showed the video to the Thais they were all smiles and said the recognized the type of objects we found and showed us a similar post on their little pier. We had a bunch of slings and gas prepared for deep diving so we were going to try to find some real depth the next couple of days. On at least 4 occasions we were taken to different places where it was supposedly very deep.....70m....80m..... more than 100m and so on. It turned out to be a way shallower on all dives. The dives were not bad really but were not what we came for regarding depth. The whole experience was something I will never forget, thats for sure. For you who have not been there its a world of its own, something out of Lord of the Ring or Jurassic park. No mobile phones, no noise, no girlfriends or wifes.....just jungle.......and diving Rodge
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2nd September 2008, 07:29	#24 (permalink)
Drmike RBW Member Current Rebreather/s: MK 15.X Ouroboros Other CCR Home Build Other Rebreather/s: Inspiration Classic Other CCR Home Build Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 3,378	Re: Khao Sok Thailand Expedition 2008 Quote: (Originally Posted by rogeringebo) Hi Mike and the rest of you guys! The viz was quite good I must say but its pitch black on the bottom. There is usually a milky layer on top from the decomposing jungle below that block out all light on the bottom. The purpose of our trip was to look for the villages, do some deep diving but mainly hang out and catch up. Finding caves in the area is not hard.... finding new ones are I guess. What we do is talk to the families living on the lake and try to learn more about what it looked like some 20 years ago before the dam. They are happy to help but do not know all that much about caves, diving or diving in caves for that matter. We ask around and they try to help as best they can. The caves we have seen are beautiful and It sure feels exotic gliding in between the white jaws made of lime stone in to the mountain. Demanding? Not at all...... Have people done it before? Im sure.... Exotic diving? Hell yes! The locals have been trying to point out where the villages were but its like trying to find a hay in a pin stack, If you know what I mean? When you reach 40-50m its like a night dive and you hit the canopy in most places where we dived. On the bottom its a lot of silt, roots not to mention the jungle itself. Laying a line is not an option I can tell you that. With a bottom time of around 30-40min at 60m we could cover the size of a tennis court in valleys large enough to hold several football stadiums. But on one dive the bottom looked very different. The bottom was flat without any growth on it. To me it looked like a river bed with banks on the side. I could be wrong..... All of a sudden something large came out of the gloom..... It was a 3m high round concrete water container with a faucet on it. Very typical in Thai villages as they are used to collect rainwater. We started laughing in our loops with Mickey Mouse voices from the helium. It can clearly be heard on the video... When I turned around there were another one just behind the first one. After little while we moved on and bumped in to yet another one about half the size with a square hole on top. At this point at least my hart was racing a bit I must admit. After another 10m of swimming we found something that looked like a post... about 1 meter high with a carved knob on top. We moved on and then there was another one.....and another....and another... all on a perfect straight line. It was definitely a old fence. By this time the dive was going to be over 2 hours long and we did not have bailout for that so we had to make for the surface. When we showed the video to the Thais they were all smiles and said the recognized the type of objects we found and showed us a similar post on their little pier. We had a bunch of slings and gas prepared for deep diving so we were going to try to find some real depth the next couple of days. On at least 4 occasions we were taken to different places where it was supposedly very deep.....70m....80m..... more than 100m and so on. It turned out to be a way shallower on all dives. The dives were not bad really but were not what we came for regarding depth. The whole experience was something I will never forget, thats for sure. For you who have not been there its a world of its own, something out of Lord of the Ring or Jurassic park. No mobile phones, no noise, no girlfriends or wifes.....just jungle.......and diving Rodge great stuff - I can just imagine how it must have felt when you saw that concrete container. Pics man we want to see pics! I know its a horrible feeling descending through blackness in zero vis and landing on, falling through drowned trees there - not nice. I dont think theres much more there cave wise than what we know but if there are more did you think of looking at recorded dry cave locations? - given that the caves you are looking for were all above water level and known before the area was flooded- the cave lists I have for Southern Thailand it looks like there are a few in that general area - you may need to convert locations given to get GPS. If you dont have it I can dig up my copy of cave locations for a looksee. Also theres a number of dry caving groups that go there when water level is low - those caves flood at times during the year - but I think they are mostly visiting the known ones - but maybe they could help with locations cheers __________________ Cave diving is a sport Wreck diving is a sport Diving in general is a sport 'Rebreather diving' is not a sport its the delusional obsession with a highly dangerous and often inappropriate piece of equipment Last edited by Drmike : 2nd September 2008 at 07:36.
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2nd September 2008, 13:40	#25 (permalink)
Rebreatherlab Rebreatherlab Rep Current Rebreather/s: Pelagian Other Rebreather/s: Not Bought Yet Classic Kiss Pelagian Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Thailand Posts: 203	Re: Khao Sok Thailand Expedition 2008 Quote: (Originally Posted by Drmike) great stuff - I can just imagine how it must have felt when you saw that concrete container. Pics man we want to see pics! I know its a horrible feeling descending through blackness in zero vis and landing on, falling through drowned trees there - not nice. I dont think theres much more there cave wise than what we know but if there are more did you think of looking at recorded dry cave locations? - given that the caves you are looking for were all above water level and known before the area was flooded- the cave lists I have for Southern Thailand it looks like there are a few in that general area - you may need to convert locations given to get GPS. If you dont have it I can dig up my copy of cave locations for a looksee. Also theres a number of dry caving groups that go there when water level is low - those caves flood at times during the year - but I think they are mostly visiting the known ones - but maybe they could help with locations cheers Mike, Do you know where that Temple Cave is in the lake? From Eric's VDO it looks quite clear, (probably shot in dry season, but still...), and a bit longer than others. GPS or long/lat, please! Andy __________________ www.rebreatherlab.com
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8th September 2008, 04:47	#27 (permalink)
rogeringebo Life starts at 100 Current Rebreather/s: Pelagian Other Rebreather/s: Megalodon Classic Kiss Pelagian Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Stockholm Sweden Posts: 739	Re: Khao Sok Thailand Expedition 2008 Hi Andy! Great to finally see the video! The Pelagian sure looks tiny with the 80s Cheers Roger
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8th September 2008, 05:33	#28 (permalink)
andibk New Member Current Rebreather/s: Classic Kiss Dolphin Azimuth Other Rebreather/s: Inspiration Classic Evolution Megalodon Classic Kiss Dolphin Azimuth Join Date: May 2005 Location: Thailand Posts: 156	Re: Khao Sok Thailand Expedition 2008 Rebreather list When you guys go to Kao Sok give me a call and I will give you the number of the boat captain that we all have been using. She is a lady and does know the lakes quite well. I called you not to long ago and I asked her how deep the water is in Kao Sok National Park, If I remember right she told me 80 meters. The Thais do have a tendancy of thinking that they are much deeper then they really are. I do quite a bit of diving in the lakes just north of Kanchanaburi. I know of a couple villages and temples and was told they were in the depth range of 120 meters. I have a map of the village before and after the flood to help locate it. I only once actually tried to see if we could find the temple at 120 meters. The first dive we must of landed on a hill and the water was only about 60 meters. The next dive we did we got to 10 meters or so. (This was a few years back). I tried using a depth gauge to see if I could get a reading but the depth was actually to deep. I sent down my OMS gauge on a reel but found out that the OMS gauge only read about hte 10 meters. The line did keep on going. I am guesing the depth to be around 125 meters. The Thais have said it to have deeper spots but I have not found it yet. I was checking the depth near the dam which should be about the deepest spot. I have located about 4 caverns and two caves that I run training courses in. The caves are all in a freshwater lake. You can see large cat fish (enough to scare the *&%^ out of you). There are also some BLIND fish that swim right up into your mask. This took awhile of getting used to. One of the larger caves there is a large wooden table in the middle of the cave. This was a table used to put the Buddha images on before they flooded the area. I was told that there was a very large Buddha image in there but have not found it yet. There was a passage way in the back that went a good ways back but never seemed to find it again. Next time I will make sure to lay a line. These caves got to a max depth of 27 meters or so and good for training. I have layed some line through some of these caves but will have to go through and relay the line now that I have a better outline of the cave in my head. I have 3 caves that I have been told about that have never been dove before and just waiting to go. A short hike in the jungle for about a hour or two and you are there. Bruce
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8th September 2008, 05:54	#29 (permalink)
Rebreatherlab Rebreatherlab Rep Current Rebreather/s: Pelagian Other Rebreather/s: Not Bought Yet Classic Kiss Pelagian Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Thailand Posts: 203	Re: Khao Sok Thailand Expedition 2008 Quote: (Originally Posted by andibk) Rebreather list When you guys go to Kao Sok give me a call and I will give you the number of the boat captain that we all have been using. She is a lady and does know the lakes quite well. I called you not to long ago and I asked her how deep the water is in Kao Sok National Park, If I remember right she told me 80 meters. The Thais do have a tendancy of thinking that they are much deeper then they really are. I do quite a bit of diving in the lakes just north of Kanchanaburi. I know of a couple villages and temples and was told they were in the depth range of 120 meters. I have a map of the village before and after the flood to help locate it. I only once actually tried to see if we could find the temple at 120 meters. The first dive we must of landed on a hill and the water was only about 60 meters. The next dive we did we got to 10 meters or so. (This was a few years back). I tried using a depth gauge to see if I could get a reading but the depth was actually to deep. I sent down my OMS gauge on a reel but found out that the OMS gauge only read about hte 10 meters. The line did keep on going. I am guesing the depth to be around 125 meters. The Thais have said it to have deeper spots but I have not found it yet. I was checking the depth near the dam which should be about the deepest spot. I have located about 4 caverns and two caves that I run training courses in. The caves are all in a freshwater lake. You can see large cat fish (enough to scare the &%^ out of you). There are also some BLIND fish that swim right up into your mask. This took awhile of getting used to. One of the larger caves there is a large wooden table in the middle of the cave. This was a table used to put the Buddha images on before they flooded the area. I was told that there was a very large Buddha image in there but have not found it yet. There was a passage way in the back that went a good ways back but never seemed to find it again. Next time I will make sure to lay a line. These caves got to a max depth of 27 meters or so and good for training. I have layed some line through some of these caves but will have to go through and relay the line now that I have a better outline of the cave in my head. I have 3 caves that I have been told about that have never been dove before and just waiting to go. A short hike in the jungle for about a hour or two and you are there. Bruce Hi Bruce, When you say you checked the depth near the dam are you talking about Rachaprapha or another dam up north? For some stupid reason I always forget to bring gps and sonar when going to the Khao Sok lake. It would be good with some depth in the lake as it is a quite convenient place to run Pelagian courses and for mixed gas some depth is needed. We actually have a 80 m hole just south off Samui, but that is pitch black and the visibility is not bad. There is NO visibility, whereas Khao Sok gets very clear the deeper you get. Cheers, Andy __________________ www.rebreatherlab.com* Last edited by Rebreatherlab : 8th September 2008 at 05:57. Reason: dyslxeia!!!
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8th September 2008, 08:59	#30 (permalink)
andibk New Member Current Rebreather/s: Classic Kiss Dolphin Azimuth Other Rebreather/s: Inspiration Classic Evolution Megalodon Classic Kiss Dolphin Azimuth Join Date: May 2005 Location: Thailand Posts: 156	Re: Khao Sok Thailand Expedition 2008 Andy The location near the dam I was checking was Sri Nakrin. I believe the spelling is correct. The dives were actually quite neat. The deeper you went again the viz got better but was quite dark but clear. We were swimming in and out around trees. Other then the one main cave everyone is diving in Kao Sok there is one other cave that is ok. Not the greatest in the world but good enough. There is a line layed through it already. I think we did two dives in it on the last trip. Bruce
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