New stage of exploration of CHS-001 cave in Terjola municipality.
10 August: CHS-001 cave has become a little bit longer today. Stick-mapped +100 meters, depth rapidly increased from 13 to 42 meters in a form of a straight descending passage. Unfortunately visibility stayed the same (~2 meters). The passage continues but requires trimix. Dived solo, Flex2 eCCR with BO stages. Total explored length is 310 meters. Exploration continues.
July 27: Yesterday I dived CHS-01 resurgence again. Cave is fully submerged, no air pockets found yet. Laid 80m of line and now total length of the main branch exceeds 210 meters. First half of the dive was done with my teammate, we visited terminal point from last expedition. I escorted my buddy back (he was on OC and in neoprene) and returned to the termination point. It was a sketchy place, last time we couldn't find a passage from there. Profile droped down to 18 meters and then sharply rised to 12 meters and we got to a silty slope and wall on the right side. After trying to find a continuation from bottom left side and getting to a silt slope again I rage quit and just stuck myself to the ceiling and followed it to the left. And voila, in several meters I have found the main passage! In visibility like this (<2m) you can' see continuation too well and have to poke around. Silt makes things even more diffictult. I reeled out approx. 30 meters and got to the sharp left turn, right after it I have found a cow tooth (picture attached). The passage moved on and after several tie-offs I have found a big stalactite chunk laying on the bottom (picture attached). Tie-offs here were not solid, attached to movable stones and I was happy to finally reach a big massive rock in the middle of the passage which has marked my 60m (190m total) secure tie-off. After having a hard time in finding a passage I started to follow ceiling again. After reaching 80 meter mark I got stuck again - right side ended with short silt pocket, left wall got me higher and ended in silt again. I was approaching my bailout range limit so decided to return. On the way back I made a quick and dirty survey (picture attached). The cave is promising but this is the best visibility you can expect here (<2m). One question remains: why dive solo? In small diving communities like our most of the time solo diving is the only way to gather experience and move forward. This cave definitely can benefit from at least one buddy and even better, second team to place stage tanks for further penetration.People, who have participated in CHS-01 expedition so far:
Lasha Tetruashvili (first recon, phase I)
Giorgi Japaridze (phase II)
Mirian Okradze (phase III)
Andrei Nosenko (phases II and III)
Vakhushti Bagrationi Institute of Geography
Cave Diving Georgia • ქეივ დაივინგი საქართველოში