Kim and I made the trip up to North Island cave country over the weekend.  We were invited by Dave Tomblin and Aaron Lackie, two divers who are decidedly and proudly not DIR, and have been actively exploring a number of caves on the island.

 DAY 1.

Kim and I made the drive up from Victoria to Port McNeill in about five hours.  From Port McNeill we followed a well maintained logging road for 24km to our camp site at Three Isle Lake.  A note left at camp informed us that Dave and Aaron had arrived the day before and were already off at Reappearing River Cave checking conditions and the line they had laid the year before. 

As it was getting late in the day, Kim and I decided to revise our plan and head to Devil's Bath, because we knew that it was a full days work to haul gear into, and out of, Reapearing River.  We began the short drive to the giant sink and it quickly became evident that we were heading in the right direction, as the familiar Vancouver Island logging roads became a vibrant white limestone.  The entire area around the Benson River displays karst features with many sinkholes and springs.  Devil's Bath is the most prominent of these features and is claimed to be the largest cenote north of Mexico. 

When we arrive at Devil's Bath we were amazed by the size.  Not only the size of the sink, but the size of the vertical cliffs surrounding it.  Knowing that Dave and Aaron had found a way down the year before we spent about two hours bush-wacking.  After several dead-ends we finally made our way to the waters edge and discovered the path they had taken.  There were several ropes to help climb the steep slope out of the sink.  There would be no diving Devil's Bath for us - just to risky an entry with steel tanks.  We plan to return with a rope and pulley system to get the gear in and out of the water some time in the future.   

With the day wearing on we left and decided to check out the entrance to Reappearing River.  Dave and Aaron promised to mark the trail head for us with a rock pile.  Using our map book we searched J Main for another couple of hours never seeing the promised rocks.  What we did find was a sign marking Vanishing River.  A very short hike down a trail lead us to a viewing area where a small creek trickles down into a large hole in the limestone.  Using dye traces this was established to be connected to Reappearing River over a kilometer away.  The physical connection still remains to be made.  

We gave up and headed back to camp.  On the way we crossed the Benson River and immediately Kim spotted two artistic rock piles.  Reappearing River had been very poorly marked on the map!  We began the 5km drive up to the trail head.  Dave and Aaron had marked it for us the whole way with branches and arrows.  We put the truck in 4x4 and counted the twenty-two road wash-outs we had to cross before we arrived.  A 10 minute hike through the bush and we arrived at the spot where the river reappears out f the ground.  Dave and Aaron were already gone and it was starting to be dusk so we left for camp.

DAY 2.

We woke up to the sound of "Breakfasts Ready!"  Scrambled eggs, beans, rolls and coffee; these guys were really great.  Dave and Aaron prepared to leave to explore a new and much deeper cave in a totally different area and we headed off for Reappearing River.  Dave choose Reappearing River for us based on the fact that we are, as my cave instructor pointed out, "baby cave divers."    

It took us 25 minutes to haul our tanks down to the river.  Then a second trip to bring everything else we would need.  We got geared up did our checks and walked the 100' through the shallow river to the cave entrance.  Dave and Aaron's line had not lasted from the year before through the high flow of the winter/spring season.  Due to this fact they did not bother to leave their line in from the day before.  This meant that we were not going to be able to safely do much more than a cavern dive. 

As soon as we entered the cave we were amazed.  I had always been told that Vancouver Island had terrible conditions.  However every time I tried to pin somebody down on exactly what the issues were I could not.  Never the less we had planned to expect the worst; cold, dark, and small with high flow and terrible visibility.  What we found was a cave that could very easily belong in Florida.  The cave was big; the first passage was about 15' wide and opened into a room that was easily 25' x 25' x 25'.  The limestone was a bright yellow with some dark rock patches in the room.  The visibility was about 80'.  The flow was, for all intents and purposes, none existent.  The water temperature was 43F.

The first thing we noticed was a big school of trout.  Moving into the cave we came to the room previously mentioned.  The room seemed to be the end of the cave and the only passage I could see was a small keyhole where you would literally have to remove your tanks to get through.  So we started to explore the caverns and found a vertical shaft in the top left hand side corner.  We descended down this shaft and it bottomed out in a small restriction.  That was as far as we could safely go as Cave 1 divers.  The restriction was only about five feet in length and we could see it opened right back up into big bright cave on the other side.  We called the dive and reeled in the 250' of line to our primary tie off.

On our second dive we explored the room more thoroughly in hopes of finding a big passage that went.  It was not to be as this restriction proved to be the only way to progress through the cave.  We spent the rest of the dive clearing out a number of old lines that had blown out of the cave and were laying on the floor around our first two tie offs.       

Canadian Caver, Fall 1988

THOUGHTS.

This experience with Vancouver Island cave diving proved to us that the myths floating around about the horrible conditions are not true for all caves.  I would venture to say the number one reason that more cave diving is not going on is that it is an incredible amount of work.  We drove for 5-6 hours and spent 2.5 hours hauling heavy gear through the forest.  Adding to this, the caves can only be safely dived when the water table is down and the flow is low.

There are a large number of caves to dive in.  While most of the known wet caves have been dived/surveyed, most are also still going with much more cave to explore and connections waiting to be made.  Also it seems that finding sections of dry cave is also common.  Reappearing River Cave for example if is a a series of sumps and dry cave sections.  Dave and Aaron crawled over a dry section to get back into another sump on their dive the day before.  There are both shallow and deep caves; we hit a max depth of 22' but there are caves that have been dived to depths of 240'.  Finally there is both big cave and very small cave.

For now Kim and I are happy to dive the sinks, ceverns and short Cave 1 dives.  We are still building on our limited cave experience and working towards Cave 2.  For experienced Cave 2 divers willing to put the work in there is no doubt unexplored cave waiting.   

Chris Fenton