Cave Diving In The Lot

Breathtaking karst caves peppered between charming French villages and gorgeous river valleys welcomed Kerrie Burow, who was embarking on a cave pictures course

Photographs by Kerrie Burow, Ingrid Olberg & Max Masu

The Lot district within the central space of southern France is among the most-famous cave diving areas on the planet. The three rivers on this space -Dordogne, Lot and Cele – feed dozens of caves together with among the deepest siphons in Europe, lots of that are diveable.

In early October 2022, I had the chance to attend a multi-day cave pictures workshop within the Lot. The workshop was being run by Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) cave diving instructors and photographers JP Bresser and Kirill Egorov.

It was open to any diver with a minimum of a cave-level ranking. Having heard a lot about cave diving within the Lot, lengthy being an admirer of the cave pictures of JP and Kirill, and itching to begin spending common time in Europe once more after just a few years of closed Australian borders because of Covid, I jumped on the alternative.

Traversing continents

My journey to the Lot from Sydney consisted of three flights -Sydney to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Paris, after which a home flight from Paris to Toulouse in southern France.

At Toulouse airport, I had organized to select up a small rent automobile to drive the roughly two hours north to The Cave to Be dive store, the place the pictures workshop was being held, and for day by day journey between my lodging, the dive store and the caves sprinkled across the Lot district.

The Cave to Be – the mothership

Gramat is a small city in central, southern France surrounded by farmland and with a inhabitants of about 3,500. The city has a really massive grocery store and each facility you could want throughout your keep.

Lying on the outskirts of Gramat is The Cave to Be – essentially the most well-known dive facility within the space. It’s a superb TDI / IANTD / GUE coaching centre run year-round by well-known cave diving teacher Olivier ‘Oli’ Bertieaux.

As effectively as providing cave diving programs from newbie to superior to CCR, it’s totally stocked with cave diving gear on the market (Halcyon, XDeep, Shearwater, Santi, Tecline, Aqualung) in addition to tools leases (tanks, scooters, and so forth), guided dive companies and a very good filling station providing trimix, nitrox and oxygen.

Accommodation

The Cave to Be also can organize lodging in a multilevel farmhouse only a two-minute stroll from the dive store.

This is the place I stayed, together with the opposite pictures workshop contributors. The massive, charming farmhouse is break up into small residences with all of the fundamentals (and extra) you could want, together with wonderful showers and Wi-Fi. There’s a really massive BBQ space with a splendidly lengthy out of doors desk, parking, a primary dryroom for drysuits and loads of clothes-line house.

In the realm of gastronomy, the Lot district emerged as a foodie paradise. The farm-fresh meals and beautiful wines surpassed expectations, elevating the general expertise of the journey. We assorted our meals with restaurant visits, dwelling cooking within the farmhouse’s kitchens and a communal barbeque on the final day.

The cave pictures workshop

The cave pictures workshop with JP and Kirill ran for 3 days on the Cave to Be. It was a really worldwide mixture of contributors with 4 Europeans (every from a special nation), a cave diver based mostly in Dubai and myself coming from Australia.

The divers have been additionally a mixture of cave to advanced-cave degree, and a mixture of configurations with sidemount, backmount twins and CCR all represented among the many contributors and the instructors.

Eager to get cracking and studying, we shortly settled right into a structured routine. We spent half of every day within the classroom studying cave pictures idea and methods from JP and Kirill. Then, on the finish of every day by day classroom session, we might be given an project to concentrate on in the course of the subsequent cave dive.

We selected our buddies for the day, selected a cave to dive from the various obtainable, after which went off to cave dive to attempt to nail the pictures project underwater. As traditional, I discovered the technical classes on lighting essentially the most fascinating in addition to essentially the most difficult.

The drives to and from the caves added a beautiful scenic dimension to the journey. These usually being 20- to 30-minute automobile journeys winding by fairly little French villages, every exuding historic appeal and nestled into the valleys shaped by the meandering rivers.

One notably memorable drive took me previous the gorgeous Rocamadour, an historic city ingeniously constructed into the aspect of a limestone cliff.

On the next day after a cave dive, we might critique the earlier cave dive pictures outcomes collectively as a category and talk about what labored, what didn’t and what we might and would change on the subsequent shoot.

It was a beautiful alternative for us all to get focused instruction on areas of our cave pictures we wished to enhance in addition to a problem to grasp new methods launched by JP and Kirill.

The cave diving

I used to be capable of dive in three completely different caves whereas within the Lot -Source du Marchepied, Emergence du Ressel, and Gouffre de Cabouy.

Source du Marchepied is, like most of the caves within the Lot, a few 25-minute drive from The Cave to Be. The cave is accessed by way of a small entrance on the sting of a river. There’s a 30-metre restriction on the entrance which has solely simply grow to be doable to do in backmount, although it’s nonetheless extra comfy in sidemount tanks.

After the restriction, the cave opens up into an attractive passageway with water so clear, it’s like diving in gin. This was my first cave dive there, and I need to admit I used to be so enthralled by how stunning it was that I didn’t take many images!

The subsequent cave I dived was Emergence du Ressel (usually simply known as ‘Ressel’) – a really massive cave and possibly essentially the most well-known cave within the Lot because it’s additionally thought of the coaching cave. Ressel may be very near the village of Marcilhac, and the cave begins within the Cele riverbed.

The dimension of the automobile park is a testomony to how standard this cave is – each instances I used to be there, on weekdays, the car parking zone was nearly stuffed with customised ‘cave vans’, the automobile of selection for European cave divers.

Entry to Ressel is simple – stroll your gear about 100 metres from the carpark to the sting of the river, climb down just a few steps into the river, then do a brief floor swim till you’re over the doorway of the cave.

You then drop all the way down to about 8m and observe a slope into the cave. The entrance, and the passageways, are fairly broad, making the cave standard for scootering.

It’s the go-to cave for cave divers of all ranges because of its a number of lengthy passages, so dives right here will be on the newbie degree (with an accompanying teacher and solely at first of the cave) to the very technical for deeper and longer penetrations utilizing scooters and CCR machines.

The number of divers and dives right here means it might get fairly busy, particularly simply inside the doorway the place we noticed just a few cave lessons occurring (the blindfolded divers being a giveaway).

Being centered on doing the pictures workshop assignments on my dives right here and never penetrating too far, I actually look ahead to diving this cave once more as I solely skilled a small a part of the adventures it provides.

Finally, Gouffre de Cabouy. This was my final cave on this journey to the Lot, and the one which left the largest impression (and an itch to return). The entry to the cave is by way of a brief floor swim to the other riverbank, the place there’s a buoy indicating the cave beneath.

Dropping down, we adopted a rope in zero visibility to the cave entrance, after which the visibility began to clear considerably. The cave then drops to about 30m the place it turns into shallower, opening up into an enormous passageway that appears countless.

I keep in mind considering the way it appeared like a semi-trailer truck may very well be pushed by it. I used to be instructed Cabouy is an instance of a ‘Power Cave’ and it’s straightforward to see why! ‘Epic’ is one other phrase to explain it.

Overall, the caves themselves have been nothing wanting breathtaking. Featuring principally broad and lengthy passageways, the caves boasted excellent to wonderful visibility. Surprisingly, the temperatures each out and in of the water have been hotter than anticipated.

With a mean of 14 levels Celsius, the caves within the Lot have been no colder than the caves in Mount Gambier, Australia. Above the floor, early October graced the area with good climate – heat, dry, and sunny days.

Most of the time, I used to be wearing a T-shirt, simply needing to don a lightweight jumper for the cooler evenings, a delicate nuance of the seasonal transition.

Conclusion

Overall, the cave pictures workshop within the Lot, France, with JP Bresser and Kirill Egorov proved to be an impressive studying expertise. I efficiently addressed a number of technical challenges that had been a supply of battle in my cave pictures.

The wealth of data imparted in the course of the workshop additionally outfitted me with new methods, which I’ve applied in my subsequent cave dives in Australia and Mexico.

I’ve now had a style now of cave diving in France, and I can’t anticipate a repeat go to within the close to future.

Note: JP Bresser and Kirill Egorov have run an annual cave pictures workshop within the Lot, France, for many of the previous couple of years. Keep an eye fixed out on their social media accounts for extra data.

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This article was initially revealed in Scuba Diver UK #83

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