Emergence du Ressel - photoshoot in Bivouac Hall and Ressel Dome
Ressel Expeditions 2021
In 2021, I made two consecutive expeditions to the Lot region of France, in March and May, with the goal of reaching the remote sections beyond the main submerged part of the famous Emergence du Ressel cave.
The project had several objectives. I wanted to explore the distant parts of this world-famous underwater cave, carry out a photo shoot in the dry sections located 2–3 kilometres from the entrance, and, perhaps most importantly, gain experience in long, deep and remote cave dives.
All dives were performed solo, using a closed-circuit rebreather (CCR) and a DPV. The photographs were taken with a camera mounted on a tripod, which presented an interesting logistical challenge of its own.
March 2021 – Lac Isler
During the first expedition, over the course of one week, I gradually explored the main underwater galleries leading towards the far side of Ressel. The route reaches a maximum depth of approximately 80 metres, before eventually surfacing in Lac Isler, a chamber located around 1,850 metres from the cave entrance.
Lac Isler was first reached in 1990 by the renowned Swiss cave explorer Olivier Isler.
Each day I ventured farther into the cave, staging safety cylinders along the route, repairing damaged guidelines and gradually becoming accustomed to longer and longer penetration distances.
One of the defining features of this route is its depth. The deepest point reaches approximately 80 metres, and almost a kilometre of the route lies at depths greater than 50 metres. By the time the passage finally becomes shallow on the far side, a significant decompression obligation has already accumulated.
In practice, reaching Lac Isler feels almost like surfacing from a deep open-water dive with a substantial bottom time — except that you are nearly two kilometres inside a cave. Using a powerful Seacraft DPV allowed me to minimise the time spent at depth, limiting my decompression on the far side to approximately one hour.
Another major challenge was simply finding the correct route. In the more remote sections, many of the guidelines were broken, while the layout of the cave is far from obvious. Several line junctions, shallow-water sections and short dry passages make navigation significantly more complicated than in the better-known entrance sections.
The photo shoot in Lac Isler marked the end of the March expedition.
By that point, however, I was already thinking about the next objective: reaching Bivouac Hall, the place used by explorers as an underground camp during multi-day pushes towards the most remote parts of Ressel, including Ressel Dome and Kredithalle.
May 2021 – Bivouac Hall and Ressel Dome
I returned two months later, in May 2021.
After several preparatory dives, I once again headed towards the remote part of Ressel. During one dive I reached CO2 Promenade, Metro Passage and Schikane. On the following dive, I continued as far as the legendary Bivouac Hall, approximately 2.5 kilometres inside the cave. I took photographs at all of these locations.
But with some time still remaining in the expedition, I decided to attempt one final objective: Ressel Dome, approximately three kilometres from the entrance. To my knowledge, no Polish diver had previously reached this part of the cave.
Getting there required transporting an entire diving system — a CCR, two DPVs, safety cylinders, a camera and a tripod — through the dry section at Bivouac Hall. From there, the route continues with approximately 500 metres of swimming through an underground lake and a shallow sump before reaching Ressel Dome.
The entire dive, including decompression and the equipment transport through Bivouac Hall, involved more than six kilometres of underwater travel on the way in and out. The complete operation took less than five hours.
A step towards exploration
This project became one of the most important milestones in my development as a cave diver and underwater explorer. It taught me far more than simply how to travel a long distance inside a cave. I gained experience in logistics, decompression planning, equipment management, navigation, line repair, photography in remote environments and dealing with problems far from the entrance.
More importantly, it changed the way I approached cave diving. Instead of simply following established routes and visiting known places, I began thinking increasingly in terms of exploration: how to prepare, how to solve problems, how to move farther and how to operate independently in remote environments.
Many of the lessons learned during those two expeditions later became the foundation for much more ambitious exploration projects.
