World Record - Gigi Casati Reaches -205 with Voyager Rebreather - Vrelo Cave Croatia

Drmike

We know a heck of a lot more about sat diving deco than we know about 'bounce' diving type deco (as practiced in sports diving)

They arent trying to work after a rapid decompression with high CO2 (from exersion) and before having a chance to aclimatise. The two things just cant be compared.

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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

GiBi

Sorry for not aswering before but i was very very busy recently.

I will post more details on the expedition later today.

Also I tell you... Gigi Casati is on the way to Croatia for a new expedition.




Cheers

GiBi - Verona - Italy

tibby

That's what I like to read about!...rather than record hair spliting. Good luck and please post more about the your expeditions.
Thanks you
Tibby

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Does the voice of reason change when you add helium to the mix?...hmm

GiBi

I will forward the compliments to Gigi



HABITAT

No Habitat was used as the expedition team was not expecting such a deep spring. -205 was a total surprise! (The meaning of exploration ) So all the dives have been completely "wet" at 9/10 C including the record dive which lasted 295 minutes.


DIVES SEQUENCE

1 -102 m
2 -123 m (JJB)
3 -165 m 158 minutes
4 -176m 188 minutes
5 -205m 295 minutes


CAVE CONDITIONS

The cave was really full of broken trees and pieces of wood down to -100 meters that often created obstructions and restrictions. The walls are close to vertical and really instable with mud and small stones and they easily move. In the forth dive the very limited water movement of Gigi have created a small landslide bringing the visibility close to zero for two days forcing him to stop at -176.


DECOMPRESSION PLANNING

Gigi is using different deco softwares and tables to have a general idea of the expected decompression. Then the actual planning happens underwater where he decides the decompression stops basing them on his experience and personal body physiology. In the last dive, fo example, Gigi has cut the decompression almost of an hour from what the VR3 was suggesting (Do not try this at home ). So the VR3 is used mainly as a bottom timer as it is the only instrument quiet efficient around -200 meters.


I will post more details on the expedition in the future including the Majerovo Vrelo siphon exploration another example of uncommon dive profile not yet studied by the decompression science...


To have an idea of the location where the expedition took place take a look to this YouTube video:


A picture of the underwater cave entrance:




Ciao e a presto.

Giovanni

DrJM

Thanks for sharing Giovanni, very nice surrounding indeed !

You spoke about landslide, does that mean that all through the year the current is active in the spring to avoid natural landslide ?


Regarding:

this is insane !!! we don't know anything about deep bouncing dives below 100-140m, we are just guinea pigs, so below 200m ??? diving hyperbarist will have a fit reading this, mainly when no habitat and in cold water ... I hope gigi had his telescopic monoplace recompression chamber on surface, at least it's warmer

All the best for Croatia, but c'mon avoid the VR3 "USE TABLES" message

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GiBi

Ciao DrJM!

As you can see from my first post the mainly reason why there is such an instability is that walls are close to vertical and composed of unstable mud and stones. So is very easy that and something starts to come down.

For the flow trend during the year I will ask to Gigi.

Insane? Between us who is not in some way?


Unfortunately there was no habitat or monoplace recompression chamber as the team was not expecting something like that. That is the business.

Have a nice day.

Giovanni

DrJM

Like Enzo would say in the big blue (and not like Berlusconi):

Forza Italia !




Jerome (Insane Deep Explorer )

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tibby

Wow, just incredible thanks for the report.
Insane is right, but so is serious determination. And I thought a 60m dive without planning and backup tables would be dangerous

Congratulations to all and thank you for being alive and doing this so we may marvel.
Good luck!
Tibby

__________________
Does the voice of reason change when you add helium to the mix?...hmm

GiBi

Ciao DrJM

So here we go with the flow

Flow conditions during the -205 m explration were similar to those you can see in the Youtube video. So actually flow was quiet absent.

Local inhabitants were telling to the team that during the year there are some flash floods able to bring the river 60/80 cm up.

The cave/spring entrance is loked at 400 m of altitude and reachable after a 15 minutes hike on a quiet steep trail (What a pleasure!).

Obviously ,due to the dive profile, no DPV was used.

I will post soon more details about the 2007 Gigi Casati exploration and MAJEROVO VRELO.

Cheers

Giovanni

Vladimir.S

hi everyone,
I'm new on the forum, but still have something to add...uh where to start...let's try this way...
first, all respect to Gigi!!! he's really true explorer, doing this depths on a virgin sites, doing topography as much as it is possible...just has to publish more to wider community, especially such stuff as profiles (I know what means when are you cutting deco, based on personal knowledge/experience, or call it feeling, , however...)...
old continent old school rulez!!!
it is not same when you are spending hours in wakula (or zacaton), or some typical european karst spring where temp ranges 6-9 celsius. even in some cave diving manuals I've red (probably some mainstream ones) found some shocking facts, shocking at least for us diving on this side of the atlantic, mean europe...anyway, had no intention to start this subject as it is endless and pointless, as we all will continue diving as we are used so far...
let's get back to my primary idea, there was photo on the very beginning of this thread (somebody said how beautiful place is, or something like that). just to mention that on this photo is spring of the river BUNA (not Una) located in south Bosnia and Herzegovina, 12km from the city of Mostar. beautiful area, and river too. this spring (the Buna river) was explored by a French national speleo team led by mr. Toulumgijan (sorry if misspelled), when they reached max. depth at 85m and length was maybe 600-700m. just to mention that one team member drowned as switched by mistake to an high O2 mix on 40 meters, as far I recall as it was 9-10 years ago and I was not present there... and Una is another river, more to the north. name was given by ancient romans ('one' or 'only') as they have found it so beautiful...
actually this was my real intention, just to tell few words about beautiful places we have here at Balkans (SE Europe)...all long the Adriatic coast (east side of the Adria) is beautiful karst region (karst alps, Dinaric mountains) filled with springs, sumps, rivers and lakes. personally live in Kotor, Montenegro, small coastal town on south where we have in 10km area at least 4 capital object still to be explored. one is Ljuta spring, 135m done so far, by M. Mihailovski from Slovenia. by his report it continues going down vertically and it is expected to be around 200m, but who knows...
would like to provide any kind of info for anyone interested, some local support too (there are gases available and mixing facility too...).
also would like to turn on one (for me) important fact- Gigi did his dive on Voyager, completely mechanical unit, but I've heard about some incidents happened on it, even JJB died using same unit. can anyone tell anything on this subject? is Voyager project still alive as have heard different things about that (I was in some remote corners of our planet for past three years, so, not really updated...).