Its Just the Grand Traverse Why so Tired?

[cozmo]

Here is our latest trip to Peacock

 

[oya]

Some years ago a friend and I planned what we called:

THE ULTRAVERSE

You've got rebreathers and a camera. Do this one next.

It took a little under six hours hours of swimming, a LOT of jumps, staged bailout and snacks, and a very long post dive nap. So plan accordingly.

(I keep the little, pocket, bailout/route map we brought with us on the big map I have mounted on the wall of the workshop)

 

[mdwalter]

Here is our latest trip to Peacock

Great question, why ARE you so tired? It's also called "the mile run" but it's not even a mile. I did it a couple times years ago (2013 and 2015 maybe) on OC and it was a bit of an ordeal setting up and doing it properly (thirds in from P1, drop cookie, exit, then starting from Orange Grove make sure you get to cookie before thirds, ... , maybe a cleanup dive after), but I don't remember being exceptionally tired. I had wanted to go back and do this again for years, but every trip I would end up either unable to find a buddy for this or it was flooded out. Usually ended up doing a solo in Cow instead, since I was already up there. Then in 2022 I got to do the mile run again on my shiny new ChOptima, with appropriate bailout consisting of the amount of gas it took to do it on OC (so no setup dive) and was like "Wait, was that IT?" It seemed shorter than I remembered from 7 to 9 years earlier, again not really tiring.

What I did find tiring, though was last year when I was down and wanted to go to Peacock again, only to find out it and almost everything else was browned out. So I went to Ginnie instead and did a dive up the gold line about a half mile (to the 2700 arrow) and back. That turned out to be about 90 minutes in against the flow and a leisurely 90 minutes out with the flow. This of course is mostly at 80 to 100 feet depth, so I also had 90 minutes of deco at 20 feet. I started this dive just after lunch at about 1 p.m. and it was dark when I exited at 5:30, so that was interesting. So this dive was only about 1000' longer than the Grand Traverse, but it wore me out a lot more. Not sure if the difference was half against flow / half with flow vs. no flow or if it was due to 3x depth and the associated deco time, but I was so tired about an hour into deco that I actually dozed off a few times. It could also be related to when I tried to hydrate during my deco time, only to find out the Capri Sun that had been riding around in my side mount butt pouch for about a year had formented itself into basically a wine cooler. Since my methodology for drinking these things under water involves getting the straw all set up and then removing the loop from my mouth, sucking the whole thing down at once and then going back on the loop, I did not notice this until I had ingested the whole thing, LOL. It could have also been the 10 hour drive getting to Florida the day before that did me in.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Might be kicking vs pulling. I get tried at Peacock because I am mostly pulling in flow caves so kicking for 90+ minutes get tiring. But when I first started to dive Ginnie regularly I would be sure the next day from pulling, which I don't get anymore.

 

[The Chairman]

You scooter potatoes make me sick!!! J/K

I've only done it once, and didn't feel tired in the least. Peacock is my favorite and look forward to it again, if I ever get back in the water (back injury).

 

[rddvet]

it was a bit of an ordeal setting up and doing it properly (thirds in from P1, drop cookie, exit, then starting from Orange Grove make sure you get to cookie before thirds, ... , maybe a cleanup dive after), but I don't remember being exceptionally tired.

Good on you for doing it the right way. Most people basically do it as a trust me dive most of the time it seems nowadays. I was taught in my training to do it as you describe. It makes sense, and it's the safe way.
When i was newly full cave many years ago tons of friends tried to get me to do it the ways they were taught and I refused. Alot of people just have a friend tell them "oh its easy and you'll have enough gas, I always do." And the trust me dive begins. Alot of other people choose to just recalculate at every opening. So people will get to challenge, recalculate thirds, hit olsen, recalculate thirds, and some real dummies also have said they recalculate at pothole which is just stupid. But by recalculating at every possible emergency exit, you're saying if sh-t hits the fan you're ok trying to climb out of olsen or challenge. Half of these people have never even seen either sink from the surface. I consider myself to be in relatively ok shape compared to alot of the cave divers I see. There's no way in hell I want to crawl out of challenge as my emergency backup plan. And now with more ccrs showing up, I can guarantee you half those people aren't doing the math for bailout planning.
I will concede that I can't off the top of my head think of a death related to the grand traverse. But that is what creates the issue. It's considered an "easy" advanced cave dive so people are happy to jump in and do a trust me dive or make climbing out of challenge they're emergency gas management plan. That's not even getting into the vacation divers who were able to do the traverse and hit their thirds point 5 years ago, but haven't been in a cave since and think their gas consumption will be exactly the same. Its a pet peeve of mine. Sorry for the rant.
Last thing. The main driving factor of people doing it that way and not running line at gaps is to avoid having to do set up or clean up dives.

 

[cozmo]

Yah the title was more a joke. This dive we were all on RBs and yes I was calculating my min bailout based on the max distance(we had waayyy more gas per member than the bare min) from any one of the openings. When we are doing OC we do the setup pre dive and drop the cookie and then do the dive from the other entrance with enough gas to make the whole trip with that good old third left. Also on this dive we did go back after a surface interval for the Double.

Before living in Florida I just got a new dry suit the same day we were leaving for cave country and was before Pee valves were invoge and did not come standard and no time to put it in before the trip. So yes I have de-kited in challenge sink and climbed out to Pee then back in to Keep going(I never dive dehydrated). I was not to Dependable so did not wear depends LOL. This was also when you could start your dive at Olsen. I have climbed out of there with 104s on.