The GRAVA DI SAN GIOVANNI Cave at LAURINO 2004
We leave Lecco on Friday 24 September, we are in
three: my friend Paolo Cesana, of course J.J.Bolanz and me. We leave at 05.00 in
the morning trying to avoid the traffic of the bypass road of Milan but
beautifully halfway through the bypass we remain jammed in the traffic for half
an hour because of works in progress. This delay makes us arrive at Bologna in
the time of the most intense traffic, so that we are jammed another thirty
minutes: for the first 250km we have employed 3h30 and the road is still long! I
miss the silent calm of my lonely sumps...
At about 20.00 we reach our final destination:
Laurino, in the province of Salerno, the exit of the highway is called
Battipaglia. We arrange the
essential things in the house that we have rented, we quickly have supper and
jump into the beds. During the night violent grumbling storms keep on waking me
up, and I cannot do other than think about what will happen to the spring that
we want to visit: The Grava di San Giovanni Cave . Our initial intention of the
trip is to give a touristic glance to this spring of which I have been knowing
about the existence for several years; we are only in three and the sum of our
ages passes 160 years: the calmest, Jean Jacques is 64 years old, the least
aquatic one and who as a good speleologist hates water, Paul, has 57 years and
the freshest one, myself, I have 40 years. In the morning, after breakfast, we
begin to unload the van and a part of the car. While Jean Jacques (the first
dive will be his) gets ready his equipment, I prepare the emergency tanks to be
brought into the water. We arrange the necessary things on the van and go to the
spring that is situated at a couple of kilometer from our lodging. Two trips of
5 minutes are required to bring all the necessary things to the entry of the
spring. Free from the sacks left at the outside, we descend for about 15 meters
almost in vertical in the dry cave, using ladders positioned by some generous
unknown, until we reach the black surface of the water: we dive in the 50W
lightings and we realize with a little disappointment, that are not more than
20cm of visibility. We leave the heavy material at the entry and return to the
village. We assume that the reason for the bad visibility is the mud washed out
by the abundant rainfall last night, so we decide to wait for a couple of days
to see if the conditions improve. On Sunday morning sprinkling rain and the
black sky are our companions which discourages us; after a moment of truce we go
down to check the state of the spring: the level has gone down for about 1,5m
and the visibility seems to be improved. The reaction of the spring in the
occasion of strong rains is very quick: around about ten hours, but in this
case, perhaps because of the long dry period preceding, the intermittent rain
which has arrived did not interfere with the level of the spring, apart from the
visibility.
Monday. - Once returned on the place we
start: Jean Jacques is preparing, Paul installs a cave ladder that serves for
reaching the water and a rope to help to descend and climb in the shaft with the
equipment, and I transport the necessary materials and the tanks from the entry
to the mirror of the water. When everything is in place Jean Jacques puts on a
light dry suit in trilaminate, gears up his semi closed circuit, the helmet and
begins to descend in the shaft. The rope installed by us secures us in case of
slipping. Once reached the edge of the water he finishes gearing up, puts on his
fins, takes one 12l and one 7l tank and leaves for the dive. At -36m he leaves
the 7l tank, the visibility doesn't pass one meter and a half, at -40 the main
line he follows is broken, he attaches the exploration reel and continues the
descent, at -65m the visibility improves all of a sudden and this confirms our
suspects about the scarce visibility due to the mud washed into the entrance
shaft from outside. He sees that there is another line that goes down, he joins
the two lines and continues in an almost horizontal tube up to reach -72m. There
he leaves the 12l tank and begins to ascend. After 60 minutes from the departure
he is back on the surface and calls us. I reach him, take the small accessories
that he hands me over, I hook the rope to the semi closed circuit so we have the
possibility to help slightly unloading him of the weight and we begin to get him
out of the water. Among everything, weights, tanks, semi closed circuit, Jean
Jacques carries about 60kg of weight; he climbs up the cave ladder slowly but
but nimbly until he reaches the more comfortable rigid ladder and at this point
the rope serves only for safety: his committment impresses me. Hardly out of the
water he describes us the dive: it is his first time with the computer connected
to the circuit in a way to be able to read the partial pressure of oxygen and he
is happy to have succeeded in seeing the data on the small display; the water
temperature of 11° has cooled him down a little, he is not able to describe the
shaft because, due to the strong suspension of mud, he has not succeeded in
seeing it.
Tuesday. - It is my turn to be the
tourist: I gear up with almost all the equipment outside of the cave: dry suit,
mask, helmet, gloves, depht meter, plyers and the Voyager (closed circuit),
rigged up with two 2l tanks of oxygen and one 2l tank with argon. I easily go
down the ladder, I arrive at the piece of cave ladder, I descend around 1,5m
before reaching the level of the water, I let myself go and float in the dark
pool, 2x3m, I put on the fins, I fix the light, take the emergency reel, the
battery of the electric heating vest, I take the two 12 l tanks containing the
diluent, a mixture with 7% of oxygen, 75% of helium and 18% of nitrogen, and I
begin the descent: it is midday.
The visibility is about 2,5m, there are
two lines that go down and they are not even near to each other; at -15m I leave
the battery and the writing slate. My descent continues: it is a vertical shaft
that has interesting erosions in some points; I see the tank at -36m, I pass it.
It makes impression descend in such a vertical unknown shaft with so little
visibility. When I reach the bottom at -65m, I find several meters of old broken
line. I enter the tube and start fin kicking: there are also two lines; the
visibility remains about 3m; after about twenty meters almost in horizontal, I
see the tank placed by Jean Jacques the day before, I go on for estimated twenty
meters and find myself in front of another shaft, I try to turn on the lighthing
that refuses to work. Therefore I leave it attached to the line, I continue to
descend and find myself in a horizontal meander at about -90m; I pass it and
reach a shaft of decidedly bigger dimensions. The visibility doesn't help much
to understand the dimensions but, after having made a turn, I estimate 7-8m of
length for 2-3 of width; I continue to descend: the closed circuit with the used
diluent theoretically allows me to operate between 0m and 200m of depth, so that
I can continue without problems. The descent seems not to end: -100m, -110m,
-120m; at -126m I tie off the line on a small rock prominence; 12 minutes have
passed from my departure for which I decide to continue. I attach the thread and
enter the tube that is opening in front of me. It has a diameter of about 2,5m,
it is smooth, beautiful, so beautiful that after 30m of route until the maximum
depth of -128m, when I decide to return, it almost seems to me to have profaned
it without the proper respect. At the twentieth minute I begin to ascend, I
recover my lightings, I pass the 12l tank, I arrive at the initial shaft after
having already completed a couple of decompression stops.
I ascend slowly; the VR3 computer is clear after 70
minutes of run time; after 90 minutes I am at -15m: I connect the battery to the
heating vest, I write some data on the slate and quietly I continue the
decompression. After 150 minutes I am back at the surface, I leave the fins, the
battery and the lightings attached to the rope and begin to ascend the shaft,
first the cave ladder and then the more practical fixed metal ladder until I see
the sky that in the meantime has become cloudy again.
Wednesday. - This day promises joy: after having
completed the duty of finishing the preparations for the dive of Thursday, we
dedicate our time to the pleasure of rest: we go to Paestum to take a bath in
the sea, then to Battipaglia to feast on buffalo mozzarella. Around 17.00 we
accompany Paolo to the station, he has to return home.
Thursday. - By now reduced to two, Jean Jacques and
myself, during breakfast we reassume the situation: the material to be taken to
the spring is few and with a couple of trips for each one of us, all the
necessary things will be ready at the entrance of the spring. I will use a
neoprene dry suit with bigger thickness and with a bigger inside volume, so I
will be warmer, the closed circuit will be in the same configuration like
Tuesday, etc.. We start: I succeed in descending the ladder slowly without too
much sweating, I reach the little entrance pool, I let myself go and beginn to
float on the surface, I put on the fins, I hook the tanks and off I go, I begin
to descend; the visibility seems to be better: about 3m.
AT -21m I stop for leaving a 7l EANX tank, the
additional weights and the battery that will feed the electric heating vest,
after this the descent continues faster; I cannot say to know the cave well, but
I know, that up to the bottom of the shaft I can descend quickly.
In fact, after four minutes I am on the
bottom, I enter the meander, I pass it until I reach the little shaft, then
again another meander, the shaft, and after 12 minutes I reach my exploration
line; this time I can see the tunnel because the lighthings work as they should.
I continue until I reach the low point at -128m, while a little further I see
the exploration reel and the tunnel that begins to ascend; at -124m a short
horizontal section, then in front of me an intersetion: I choose to pass in what
seems the biggest passage and there I am in front of another shaft; I tie off
the exploration line and begin to descend until I touch the bottom at -138m.
Since the tunnel continues in horizontal, at
this point, calculating the limited stock of gas for a possible return in open
circuit, I decide to return. I tie off the exploration line definitely to a rock
prominence, I cut it, take away the exploration reel and start to ascend.
The decompression begins at -94m; with decreasing depht the stops are
getting longer. At about -75m I observe a big
hole of at least 2m with a diameter of 0,8m. I recover the whole material
positioned inside the cave. I arrive at -6m where I find a slate to write and I
can communicate to Jean Jacques that everything is all right and that he can
start to recover the material that I have with me and that doesn't serve me
anymore. I am quite hot, so much that I cannot wait to be able to open the dry
suit: I even detach the battery that feeds the electric heating vest. While I am
recovering the 10l oxygen tank at -6m, I see a strange little animal: a worm of
about 20 to 25cm in lenght and 1 mm in diameter, transparent, swimming around me
like a snake; I pick it up with one hand, it attaches with one extremity to the
neoprene, it rolles up and tries to attach completely to the dry suit with the
other extremity: does it love me? I detach it and see it desolately moving
towards the wall; little after I see another little animal very similar in the
movements to the first one but decidedly smaller, it measures about 1cm.: the
little brother?
By
now it's time to ascend: a last look at the pressure gauges: 40bar consumed of a
12l tank and 90bar of oxygen of a 2l tank. Fantastic! The computer tells 190
minutes of total run time. Now there comes the worst: to ascend the ladder with
the equipment after a deep dive. Jean Jacques lightens me of all the possible
weights, so that I remain only with the circuit geared up with 3 small tanks. I
start to ascend without forcing too much; first on the piece of cave ladder then,
on the rigid ladder. At the exit I rest with a sigh of relief, I reach the car
to get changed, I take some bites, a good drink, and then help Jean Jacques to
transport the rest of the equipments.
Conclusion: in this small trip of recognition we have explored 55m of new
tunnels and having reached -138m, this source, The Grava di San Giovanni Cave
has become the second deepest spring in Italy.
Participants: Paolo Cesana, Jean Jacques Bolanz, Luigi Casati
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