Exploration of Elefante Bianco in Italy
Our dreams of exploring Elefante Bianco cave in Italy go back to somewhere around 2018. That was the first time when I, Tomek, and Zdziebeł met for the first time for diving in Italian caves. Since then we've visited Italy many times, making small steps further and further. In the meantime, I've managed to dive until the end of line in Grotta dei Fontanazzi, where no way forward can be found due to a huge rockslide blocking the way. In caves of Oliero, near Elefante Bianco, I've managed to make a photoshoot in the vast and beautiful chambers after sump one (over 2500 meters underwater into the cave). As we gained more and more experience diving in Italian caves, the idea of challenging Luigi Casati's end of line in Elefante Bianco started to come to our minds more often than not. The cave has not been explored further since 2004, when Luigi Casati made a breakthrough exploration, deepening the cave to -186 meters at a distance of 530m from the entrance.
The decision was made that in February 2024 I'll try to reach Casati's end of line, and if all goes well - explore the unexplored cave that goes beyond it. When the time came, I met with Tomek (Wieczny), Bartek (Zdziebeł) and Mariusz (Banan) on site, and we started our week-long project. Unfortunately, for the first time since many years, Italy welcomed us with a rainy weather, and Elefante Bianco, which is one of the highest-flow springs of the world, was totally flooded. It took next two days for it to settle down and allow us to start diving, but the visibility was much less than what we've hoped for.
For the first few days each of us was focused on his own tasks - the guys were taking care of cleaning-up the old, broken guidelines up to -120 meters depth - the water flow in Elefante is so strong, that after every bigger rainfall the guidelines are torn and hang from walls and ceiling, just waiting to be caught into the DPV's propeller. They also helped me setting up some of the deep open-circuit bailouts, of which there were more than 10 tanks, down to -170 meters depth. I was focused on laying the guideline all the way to "somewhere around" Casati's EOL (so somewhere around -186m depth), acclimatizing to growing depths, setting up emergency open-circuit tanks.
After a few days, I managed to reach a horizontal corridor, in which my depth gauge showed -186 meters depth, and the Seacraft navigation console (ENC3) showed distance from the surface ~530 meters. I was at Casati's end of line! I left the half-empty reel with guideline at the spot, ready to pick it up on the next dive and start exploring the new parts. The dive lasted about 5 hours. Back on the surface we made a decision that the next day I'll spend recovering and relaxing, while the rest of the team will make their own deep dives, and the day after we'll prepare for my push into the unknown. Mariusz and Tomek dived down the second shaft and continued a few meters in the horizontal corridor, reaching the maximum depth of ~135 meters.
And finally it was the time for the "big push", attempting to go beyond 20-year-old exploration of Gigi Casati. The previous evening was spent on discussing the dive plan, emergency procedures, recalling first aid drills, and double-checking all the equipment. For this dive I was equipped with two closed-circuit rebreather units (Backmount & Sidemount CCR Liberty), a dual Seacraft DPV, allowing me to move in the cave with speed exceeding 90 meters per minute. The plan for this dive was to reach the reel at -186 meters after some 10 minutes since submersion, and then spend a maximum of 7 minutes exploring the corridor ( 3-4 minutes going inside). The ascent after such a dive would take about 6 hours in water temperature 9 degrees Celsius. I will meet Banan at -110 meters depth, and he will assist me to -70 meters, where Wieczny will meet us and stay with me for the rest of the dive.
I started my descend down the main shaft, which took me to -90 meters depth. A minute later, I was at the second shaft, going down from -120 to -130 meters. The visibility was still poor, and considering the huge corridor size, I could not see the opposite wall. Only a part of the bottom and the wall by which I was scootering. Another minute or two until I arrived at the third shaft, which goes from -165 to -180. Soon I reached the reel. From now on, it was an unknown territory that no human being ever has seen. The corridor was continuing with a very wide section, so I had to stick to a wall to know which direction to follow. After some 70 meters of exploration, at a depth of -190 m, the bottom of the cave below me disappeared - another shaft! I continued swimming horizontally over the void below me. It was really huge, measuring 20 or more meters in diameter. When I finally reached the other wall, I went down the shaft until the depth of -227 meters. The shaft was narrowing, but still going deeper, however I decided to call it a dive, as my computers already showed more than 3 minutes since I started the exploration, and I needed to account some time for cutting the line, and returning to the point where the exploration started. Aslo the visibility didn't improve at all, so I didn't want to push it any more.
After cutting off the line, I went back on full throttle. My diving computers already showed more than 5 hours of decompression, and there was still a few minutes of deep corridors before I could start decompression phase. When I arrived at -120 meters, I already saw Banan's light in front of me. I showed him an "all ok" sign, and quickly we proceeded to reach the first decompression stop at around -110 meters. When we arrived at the stop, I showed him the dive profile from my navigation console, displaying the maximum depth. We both laughed loudly into our CCR loops. But it was just the beginning of my ascent, it was still not the time to celebrate.
The rest of the dive went 100% according to plan. Thanks to having a heated undersuit, heated vest, and heated gloves, the 6.5 hour long dive was not exhausting for me, and I exited water in a good shape, hydrated and well fed thanks to energy gels and a camelbag with isotonic that I had with me during the deco. The team, already waiting for me outside, helped me undress from my rebreathers, batteries, bailout tanks, and gave me a hand going out of the water. Now we could celebrate! It was already dark...
As a result of our actions, Elefante Bianco was deepened from -186 to -227 meters, making it the deepest spring in Italy, adding another 150 of explored corridors, and the cave - shaft - still goes further!
