Sump hole expedition completes mapping expedition near Tobermory

By Stephen Weir

For now the chapter is closed on the exploits of Canada's undisputed kings of sump hole diving. Last summer, after eight years of trying, Terry German and Kim Martin met, broke and apparently set a distance record for travelling inside a flooded sump hole. In an environment of total darkness, bone numbing cold and stagnant water, the pair, along with a small army of volunteers, managed to explore and map a 1.4 mile long underwater passageway near the dive community of Tobermory, Ontario.

The objective was to map and explore as far as was physically possible a water filled sump hole. The final dive took 61/2 hours to complete and the expedition travelled a distance that, according to German and Martin, has not reached by any other sump hole divers on the planet!

Make no mistake, a sump hole is not a cave. It is a passageway underground that has filled with ground water (whereas caves are formed by running water and have both a source and a exit point). Water filled sumps tend to be stagnant, dirty, small and often don't have much of a beginning or end. Sump hole diving, is neither hygienic or inviting. And, although the name of this particular system sounds adventurous, it refers simply to a type of frog that is found more dead than alive inside these flooded tunnels. Explorer Terry German describes sump hole diving as swimming inside a coffin for hours and hours and hours.

"The expedition last year was the culmination of 8 years of work," Kim Martin told Diver Magazine. "Last summer alone we made 125 dives, involving over 20 volunteers to map all diveable passages within (the Leopard Frog Sump Hole)."

Normally travelling a mere mile and a bit underwater doesn't take an army of divers. But, when the conditions are as tough as they are in the Leopard Frog Sump Hole, reaching the "end" of the sunken passageway was as much a feat of bravery and endurance as it was an act of exploring an uncharted frontier.

Over the past 4 years a number of Diver Magazine writers and photographers have made the five hour trek from Toronto to the community of Tobermory at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula to monitor the progress of the famous pair. Although most people travel to "Toby" to dive on the wrecks of the Federal Fathom Five Park in Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, the Leopard Frog project begins and ends in a farmer's field, a five minute drive inland from the harbour community.

During the summer of 1998 there were no signs to lead the curious to the expedition site. However, a 15 foot tall stack of large Praxair oxygen cylinders, trailers, tents and a mobile dive shop clearly identified the farmer's field as a happening place.

The buzz amongst the divers last year was nothing compared to the noise made by a million mosquitoes who spent their brief life cycle, fighting to get a piece of the action around the entrance to the Leopard Frog Sump. To avoid too much loss of blood, suiting up was always a very speedy endeavour.

The Leopard Frog Sump was not discovered or initially explored by Martin and German. That honour fell to a geologist studying the area in the 70s (a close cave diving friend made the initial dive in the sump). Once just a small crack in an outcropping of rock, a larger hole was created when a backhoe was brought into to remove rubble around the entrance.

The only way in and out of the sump is down a rock lined tube uncovered by the hoe. Just large enough to accommodate a person in a dry suit, divers have to shimmy, shake and wedge their way vertically down the 15 foot drop (don't even ask about how you get out of the sump). The final 5 feet is a free fall into near freezing water.

During the 1998 expedition the area around the rock entrance to the sump had all the comforts of a big town dive shop! A half dozen smudge pots belched smoke, there was power, an alarm bell, a Nitrox fill station and a pulley to get the gear in and out of the hole. Once a diver made it into the sump, his or her equipment quickly followed.

The water near the entrance is deep, however, there is a high dry ceiling above and the walls are close enough together that divers can initially keep their heads above water by literally wedge walking on the walls. After a 5 minute "stroll" down the black corridor the path turns sharply to the left and the ceiling drops almost to the surface of the water. With noses just touching the ceiling, divers lie on their backs and then float into the next chamber. Here the ceiling is once again very high over head and people are able to stand out of the water, gear up and prepare for the ordeal ahead.

Total darkness would reign if it wasn't for the many lights that the divers brought with them. The water temperature approaches zero, even though the heat of the summer bears down on the support team overhead. To escape the numbing cold the four visitors stand on a small sandbar and study the anteroom to this underground system.

Since sumps are not created by running water, there are no stalagmites or stalactites that can normally be found in most caves. Here the walls are of dark dull dolomite rock. The water is very shallow except for a small manhole sized dark patch right in the middle of the chamber. Kim Martin straps a tank under each arm (because of the close confines the divers sidemount their tanks), takes up his lights and mapping reels, turns back and says, "Now the dive begins!"

"When we started this we wanted to get the best training we could," explained Terry German. "We took every cave course we could find. The vast majority of caving courses involve warm water diving in caves where you don't use side mounted tanks (a tank under each arm pit) but rather clip them in front or between the legs. The passageway is just too narrow, you can't do that style of caving here. We have had to develop our own way of diving ... and then train our volunteers."

The mapper hits the water and quickly disappears down the tunnel. There is no room in the sump for dive teams, Kim Martin will spend the next six hours clawing his way solo through the unexplored passageway. He has fully redundant tanks, regs and lights and at various points along the way the volunteers have dropped off tanks and regs ready to replenish his kit.

The hole plunges down at times to a depth of 60 feet. Before the men starting working with Praxair (an Ontario supplier of oxygen and mixed gases) and were able to pump Nitrox into this remote part of the province, they had numerous problems with decompression sickness.

"DCS was bad enough, but, what really hurt was the cold," said Mr. Martin. "The water is as close to freezing as you can get. No matter what you wear in your dry suit, it doesn't take long to go numb from the water. We were constantly ripping our suits and then it would get Really cold. We finally got some (Kvelar) suits from Whites that held up well and I developed a heater pad for my chest and that has made all the difference!"

Once it is certain that Mr. Martin is well on his way inside the sump, his support team, including Diver Magazine, leave the anteroom and head back to the surface. Food. Showers. A roaring fire. For the next six hours the team keeps busy in the main camp near the sump hole waiting for a special bell to ring.

A bright red school bell has been affixed to the rock. Deep inside the sump near the first bottle drop, there is a switch that an exiting diver pulls, setting off the alarm alerting the recovery team that they will be needed soon.

Meanwhile In the sump Mr. Martin inches his way through the passageway. Taking measurements, examining his environ ment and seeing how far the tunnel leads to, is the order of the day for the Toronto area explorer.

"Usually there is no current in the passageway. But, the sump acts as a siphon during spring run off and after a heavy rain. Spread out over thousands of acres, this system can fill up with water at an amazing rate, and at times there can be a strong current blowing through the system" said Mr. Martin. "This is one place that we don't hate the rain. Following a storm, the warm rain water rushes in and replaces the frigid water. It might cloud up the visibility, but I'll take heat over clarity any day!"

All divers entering the sump follow a safety line nailed down by Kim Martin. The shape of the sump is such that at times the line runs under ledges where people can't fit. Divers have to always be aware of where the line is, and parrallel its path, especially when they can't physical hold onto it.

"The visibility in the sump at the best of times is limited. My bad viz is 0, but in tight quarters 3 feet will do. Since there usually isn't current any dive action brings up the silt and it can hang in the water for hours," continued Mr. Martin. "The second you stop, the water is filled with silt and it gets so murky the lights can't cut through. My job is to keep clear of the silt , lay lines and keep mapping ... when I have to make a decision on which way to go, I can't stop and think about it, because I will be silted out. You have to make decisions quickly and go with it."

Diving the sump has taught Martin and German not to touch things that they can't identify. Martin found out the hard way the fine crystal like substance (they call it girthite) lining the walls disintegrates when touched and becomes yet another type of suspended silt.

Both men are now approaching their forties and have been diving for decades. Although they have had support from compa nies like Sherwood Scuba, White's Drive Suit and Praxair, the exploration of the Leopard Frog Sump Hole has been largely paid for out of the men's own pockets. Terry German, the photographer, videographer and expedition sparkplug was able to get and train a core group of volunteers. The team has spent hundreds of hours inside the hole, but, it was ultimately left to Kim to make the last push and go it alone in the dark, in passageways so small that any mistake meant death.

The expedition shut down in August last summer when Martin reached the end of the sump. "There was a small hole, but I couldn't fit through it. I tried to pull away some of the rock, but, it was solid. The tunnel may open up a few feet away, but, short of blasting that is as far as anyone can go!"

After almost a decade of sump diving the men are not unhappy that the quest is over. Although they are not quite sure why they ended up doing what they did , they are very aware of the dive milestone that they have boldly laid.

They set records for sump cave exploration and are now busy rewriting how people look at traditional drainage patterns in this eco-sensititve region. They are using a computerized program to transform the data they collected to produce a map of the Leopard Frog Sump.

They are arguably now the best divers in the province and have formed a partnership to take their expertise to other problem dive sites. Their company Extreme Explorer Productions, has quickly established a reputation of getting the dangerous underwa ter images that no one else has been able to get. They have many video projects on the go including a 1999 summer filming expedition to the famous wreck of the Andrea Doria in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Leopard Frog Sump Hole story might not be truly over yet. If the scientific community comes to the forefront and asks them to go back into to cold, dark Leopard Frog Sump and return with samples of some of the creatures including a sightless isopods they discovered, they are prepared to go field diving again.

" While we are at it, I'd really like a geologist to take a look at the some of the rocks down in the sump," concluded Kim. " There are formations of rock and clay I've never seen before. Problem is finding anyone willing to go down there with us!"