L'Ouysse Souterraine Survey Project France 2010

L'Ouysse Souterraine Survey Project France 2010

By Chris Le Maillot

For the second consecutive year, GUE cave divers from Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, Canada and France joined efforts from Sept 18 to 22 to complete a detailed survey of the underground river L'ouysse.

The river L'Ouysse is located near the town of Rocamadour in the french departement of the Lot. This river disappears underground at the Gouffre de Cabouy and is an affluent to the larger Dordogne river.

The project focused on collecting accurate measurements of the cave using hand held sonar and fiber glass tape to sump 1. In addition, the team removed a lot of the old broken lines that rendered navigation hazardous in some part of the cave especially past the Gouffre de Poumayssen.

As of Sept 22, 2010 there's a continuous #42 guideline running from Gouffre de Cabouy to Sump 1. Survey efforts continued beyond sump 1 into a magnificently carved out dry section. A short dive later the team surfaced in sump 2 that seemed to be more chaotic with big blocks dotting the bottom floor. This passage forked out into two smaller but distinct dry tunnels. Further mapping is planned for Sept 2011.

Dive & mapping team: Jutta Arens, Fred Devos, Maren Isigkeit, Chris Le Maillot, Jan Reimann, Chris Sandrini, Stephan Schlumbohm, Torsten Schnitter, Joerg Schwerdtfeger, Josef Spanyol.

Special thanks to: Andre Grimal and Leszek Legat for the underwater photography.