Mine Felicitas - Sept 2018
Team: Max, Steffen, Heinke, Marc, Zeljka
Guests: Marcel, Mats
A few weeks ago we were together with some friends for fun diving in the mines Nuttlar and Felicitas. Both mines are beautiful and a whole new experience for us cave divers. Especially the Felicitas was very appealing to us and we quickly recognized the potential of this mine, so we planned a cavebase project together with the operator Wolfgang Röhr.
What makes this mine special is the so-called "Bremsberg", which always offers almost zero visibility and stretches 120m until you reach the first level in about 28m water depth. Arrived at a T-junction you can decide to dive into the "old" part built with blasting work or into the somewhat "younger" part built with machines. In both directions, the further you dive in, the better the visibility.
The goals of our project were to fully explore and unline the mine, complete the map and assist in the creation of a 3D model, create films and photos, and explore at least one emergency exit. So we arrived with a total of 7 divers and set up our base camp in the hall in front of the dive entrance. The infrastructure could not have been more comfortable, so we had to walk only about 30m to the dive entrance and could even open our gases on this route. On the first day we made a loop around the so called Babaratunnel, an impressive tunnel made of metal, which runs through the mine directly behind the left behind machines. So now you can also loop around the tunnel.
Day 1/2
Here also a side branch was discovered, but it is so narrow that it is not possible to continue with the backpack without danger. The visibility goes very fast towards zero and the passage becomes more and more narrow. Furthermore, the first deposits were already made to make the further dives easier.
In the evening of the second day we extended the EOL of the left passage by 120m and reached the end of the passage which ends in a vertical shaft. We dove up the shaft, which was clogged with some plastic sheets, cleared them aside and oriented ourselves using the installed ladder, visibility immediately dimmed. Despite all the obstacles we reached the surface, we quickly shot a few more photos and then dove back to report to the others. Together with Gunther Dudda we explored a concrete shaft at the edge of the cornfield behind the mine, after we compared the photos from the surface with those from the surface and the course of the passage it was clear that it must be one and the same place. We had thus explored a second entrance or an emergency exit. In order to be able to use it safely in the future, the plastic tarpaulins had to be removed.
Day 3
On day 3 we explored the Deep Level, which leads down to a good 50m, but is quite small, has poor visibility and also revealed no continuation. Instead we ventured to the already known "mosquito passage" in the forest next to the official entrance, here it seemed obvious that this passage is connected to the main system, but so far this passage has not been dived. The entrance to this pool is full of mosquitoes and slippery ground, hence the name "mosquito passage". The pool was crystal clear and so we sent two divers into the water, they had quite some problems to find suitable "deep offs". In addition, the sliding mud roller with the associated zero visibility made the work difficult. However, the two managed to get out within 15 minutes at the suspected location in the main system and marked the line immediately as an emergency exit. So now there is an emergency exit in every diveable direction (T-left/T-right).
Day 4
On day 4, we lined another loop on the right side of the Babar tunnel and a loop in the back area. In the evening, we wanted to explore the farthest corners of the right area with the scooter. Particularly impressive was a distribution hall with rails for diverting the trolleys. Here it went unleashed in almost all directions and we could lay out here again 350m line. The visibility in these areas was almost perfect. We cleared the last question marks in this dive and got a really good understanding of the actual course of the mine. Together with Gunther we evaluated the made videos and worked the gained knowledge like ping measurements, water depths, buried passages and mine relics into the 3 model he created.
Day 5
On day 5 we finished our project with a photo dive and a clean up of the created depots. All in all it was really a very successful project and we contributed to a really great 3D model, laid a total of 650 m of new line, gained 150 GB of film and photo material and dived 2 new entrances/exits.
Many thanks to Wolfgang Röhr who made this great project possible for us.
In this spirit,
Your Cavebase
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