Caverns Measureless

A good day out…

We met up with Nathan as planned at 10am in the car park closest to the cave. He had brought a friend along to come and help, called Mario. Mario is 25, a new member of the CLPA and was clearly being given some sort of induction involving carrying diving gear half a kilometre in the heat – none of which was his!

Nathan explained that he was the first person to dive the first sump in this cave 15 years ago!

Passing dive grear through the entrance boulder choke - which is full of spiders…

We made it to the entrance with a bit of prickly bush bashing and a shin-bashing dry riverbed. Here, we gathered kit by the entrance and sent Nathan ahead to check that the boulder choke was safe (he was concerned that the winter floods might have caused it to move and become unstable). He called up that it was and we followed, ferrying ten 7 litre cylinders, 5 divers wetsuits, equipment and lead (top tip – unless you are all diving at once, share lead!!!!) fins etc and a bolting kit and rope, in case it was needed for the climb out of the water at the end of sump 1.

Rich and I were to dive first and see how far we could get. It is reported that the winter floods rip the line out of these sumps, so we had plenty of line ready to go in and loads of snoopy loops for belays, if required.

Underwater sump 2 in Perdreau-Fourmi. Image: Christine Grosart

A line was tied off at dive base and water levels were extremely low. We passed all the equipment down the ropes and Rich and I kitted up in 7mm wetsuits and sidemount gear with a little buoyancy and set off into sump 1. This is 70 metres long and has a maximum depth of 21 metres. The sump was crystal clear with a blue tint as many of these Herault sumps have. Nathan followed five minutes behind with the bolting kit and rope.

The line was there…..but very slack and we took in metres and metres of loose line. It had been laid in zig zags across the passage and every belay except one had come free. We tied up the loose stuff as best we could and surfaced in a large air chamber with the reported climb in front of us. A thick rope was already in place, to our relief and we climbed up the rock face to land on a ledge above. We started down the jagged rock through some holes which led to the start of sump 2. Again the line was in place, but this time was much slacker and was combined with old, French washing line. I tried to tie some of it together in case the visibility was decreased on the way home

We flopped into sump 2 and very soon surfaced in a bit of an airbell with the continuation ahead. Annoyingly, this meant a brief excursion above water, crawling on hands and knees and falling face first into the water on the other side of a rock barrier. Rich dived in front and I couldn’t help but giggle through my regulator as I watched this GUE technical instructor, our lord and master, crawling on his hands and knees then wallowing unceremoniously, helmet and all into the water face first, fins waggling in the air. You had to be there……

Rich dived ahead with the line reel and, after a narrow rift, soon came across the end of the white French dive line. It was tied off to a rock spike pinnacle and the line was wrapped around it several times, almost in a statement. Here we go……

Rich tied my line reel into to line and began to pay out line into the rift ahead. It was a narrow, inclined 45 degree rift and I deployed my extreme-tek backup torch to spot the way on. This long, narrow beam hunted out a widening in the passage lower down whilst Rich searched for tie-offs as he went higher. He indicated to me to tie the line off as he went and two belays later, the viz started to go. Ten metres of progression and I could hear, but not see, Rich scrabbling and scraping ahead and not finding anything to tie the line to, he wriggled back towards me. I fended off waggling fins and coiled up loose line, whilst Rich began to reel back in towards me and gave me a thumbs up and ‘turn around’ signal. I pulled a snoopy off a rock and the rock simply broke in two and fell off the wall. The whole cave is made up of porous, fragile and friable rock which simply won’t tolerate interference.

We dived back on thirds and I kicked on ahead looking for a better way on as I simply didn’t believe that this nasty rift could be it. I got ahead of Rich and deployed my extreme-tek cave spotting torch and carefully examined the wall to my right. I noticed a pile of boulders a bit above me and, using Rich on the line as a lighthouse, swam up and over to have a look. I shone my torch down a large, ongoing railway tunnel of a passage which was ongoing as far as my torch could penetrate – at least 20 metres. There it was. The lost way on was stretching out in front of us. I signalled to Rich and he came over to have a look and we stared at each other in amazement.

Then, Rich tapped his watch and I tied two snoopy loops onto the line and built a rock cairn to signal to Joe and Oz where to tie their line off and we set off home.

We surfaced between sumps 1 & 2 to explain to Nathan what we had found. I stumbled over my French in excitement but he got the idea! Nathan had surfaced in the airbell found by the British team 3 years ago and confirmed it as a ‘cloche’ – closed off airbell.

We all dived back to base and Oz and Joe kitted up. I gave them very clear instructions and directions about what we had found and what to look for. We left the line reel for them in between sumps 1 & 2.

Meanwhile, Rich and I got changed into something more comfortable and began hauling gear with the help of Nathan, back up the pitches. We got everything except Oz and Joe’s kit out of the cave by the time they returned.

They had tied into the line at the cairn and set off down the railway tunnel – which Joe declared was far bigger than any railway tunnel he had seen – and laid 36 metres of new line to a depth of 30m where gas reserves turned them around.

Osama and Joe kit up in sump 1

We hauled their gear out and began the soul destroying task of getting kit back to the cars which ended in doing so by torchlight as the moon rose steadily.

The day by far exceeded our expectations and a return trip this week is planned to resurvey sump 2 from scratch, as Nathan does not have proper data - and survey the new line and add some more, having decanted as much trimix into exploration bottles we can, in case it goes deeper.

Nobody wants to do deco in this cave in wetsuits.

Push [Poŏ SH] - by Rich Walker

It sounds a bit silly really. To push a cave. A cave is an empty void, and difficult to push in the conventional sense like you would push a car that won’t start. Pushing a cave means, to the cool kids, to extend the limit of exploration. To go further in that cave than anyone has been before. You have to be careful here as it is very easy to sound like you are lost up your own arse. I suppose that would need some sort of pushing to rectify as well.

Kit stash at the bottom of the pitch in Perdreau-Fourmi

The Perdreau Formi is a bit of everything in a cave sense. It starts with an awkward boulder choke at the entrance. For the uninitiated, a boulder choke is a pile of rocks, stuck and hopefully wedged in the passage of a cave. We are fortunate that this choke is normally dry, so we can get through it without dive gear. This often involves some pushing as well, but more like what you would do with a car. Or a turd.

Once you have got past the choke, you arrive in a large chamber at the top of a 45degree slope. The slope is slippery, but manageable. We put a rope on it though and descend down the slope well protected as at the end of the slope is a vertical drop, 20m high. If you were to loose your footing on the slope and fall off, you might be lucky to land in the sump with a splash, but you would probably bang on a few rocks on the way down, and more likely splatter somewhere in the boulder strewn area at the bottom. You might survive, but then you’d be faced with being pulled up the 20m pitch, up the slope and pushed (there’s that word again) through the boulder choke again.

Tim Webber and Jarvist Frost had done a fantastic job sorting out the vertical section of this cave. They had built a system of tensioned lines, pulleys, hauling lines and brakes that would have looked good on a Spanish galleon. Moving the equipment up and down the pitch was considerably easier than the brute force methods we’d employed last year, and made the trip run significantly faster.

Christine kits up in sump 2

The sump at the bottom of the pitch is well lined, and normally clear. We dived it last year and it was a short, but very pretty trip. The walls are white and the water has a blue tinge to it. The passage twists around, through an easy restriction to a maximum depth of 19m, where it comes up steeply into a large airbell.

It takes about 5 minutes to cross this sump, whereby you are faced with a steep wall 3m tall, at about a 70degree incline. The way on is this way. Climbing the wall is precarious, but manageable with small cylinders. The second sump is found on the other side of this wall at the bottom of a couple of round pots.

Tim and Jarvist had been hard at work in the airbell too. They had installed for us a wire ladder to climb the wall, a gear line to clip off bigger cylinders and similar assistance on the descent into sump 2. This was to be critical when we returned later in the week.

Junction formed by Christine in 2011 when she discovered the way on in the Perdreau-Fourmi sump 2

Diving in the second sump, the line is not so good. It is often loose, and many belays have come free, so the first dive this year was to check the state of this line, effect some repairs and to have a quick look to the end of the line laid by Joe Hesketh and Osama Gobara on last years project. Their line was excellent and the reel was there waiting for our return. The line ended at a depth of 29m.

The passage had dropped down 20m from the tie-in on the main line and we had been concerned about the cave heading into deep water. Spending a few minutes looking at the way on was time well spent, as it seemed that the passage levelled off, at least for as far as we could see. This was good news to us - shallow means more time exploring and less decompression.

Christine and I had a chat back at the surface about our decompression strategy. We had expected the cave to head deeper much more quickly than would now appear, which would require a more significant decompression strategy - this in simple terms meant a lot of decompression gas was needed.

Given our look at the end of the line, we decided not to pull in the big decompression cylinders, and stick with a smaller volume of oxygen, for use at 6m, rather than the big cylinder of 50% nitrox for 21m decompression. This was a gamble, but would make the logistics significantly easier. For our return dive to “push” the cave, we had mixed gas for a maximum of 60m in two large 15 & 12L cylinders each, and a small 5L cylinder filled with oxygen for decompression. We were diving in wetsuits, which in 11C water would be a push on a longer dive, but as long as we limited the dive time to an hour, we figured we’d be OK.

New passage from 2011 explorations

On the day of the dive, the gear went in very smoothly with assistance from Jean Tarrit and friends from the CLPA. These people have been so good to us in our efforts here, and never fail to turn up to help out. It’s not always the same people though, so maybe word is getting out ;-) All we needed to haul in was the cylinders, the deco gas and the wetsuits, as we’d left all of the other gear in after the first dive.

Chris and I dived through sump 1 and were ably assisted by Tim and Jarvist, and we pushed and they pulled our heavy cylinders up the rope to the start of sump 2. Kitting up in sump 2 was a bit more awkward, but again our helpers did a sterling job of pushing us into the water ready to dive. The oxygen was handed down, and we set off.

After depositing the oxygen at a suitable place to do the deco, we headed off down the line. This had come loose again and floated into the ceiling (I hate blue polyprop). We missed the junction as it had itself floated into and behind a crack in the ceiling, and we arrived at the old end of the line. Very puzzled, we backtracked, and this time spotted the junction, more visible from the other angle. We still weren’t pushed for time, so we headed off to the end of the line. Pushing on through a patch of low visibility left from our dive 3 days previously, we soon came across the start of Joe and Osama’s line. Junction marked, and away we went, soon reaching the reel that had been waiting a year for our return.

I picked it up, and looked at Chris. She had her survey gear out, and we exchanged an OK and we started to swim. I like to keep the number of tie offs to a minimum, and if possible to have spotted the next one before I leave the current one. This makes the surveyors job much easier, as the line doesn’t wave around, and tying off takes time, slowing down the act of pushing. The cave made this pretty easy, as it soon turned from large open passage into a narrow rift, 2m across at an angle of about 45degrees.

It was probably 20m high in places, pale walls with delicate mineral veins extending from the rock. It was pretty silty, and as usual in places less well travelled, percolation from your bubbles traveling up the walls quickly reduced the visibility, meaning that constant motion is preferable. I put in 6 tie-offs before the reel was empty, a total distance of around 50m. Looking ahead, the rift appeared to get narrower, although probably passable. My gut tells me that there is something else though. Maybe it surfaces at the top of the rift, or perhaps there is another connection we have missed along the new line.

I glance at Christine thimb the dive. She returns the compliment and we head for home, 25 minutes after leaving the airbell. Now it was time to see how well my line was laid and whether it was easy to follow in low visibility. My ability to write the blog says that it was good enough, I suppose.

We got back to the oxygen and given that the dive had not gone anywhere near as deep as expected, decided to not bother with any decompression and get back to the warm. We surfaced at around 40 minutes, with an empty line reel, my knife that I had found after loosing it on the first dive and a full survey of the line we’d just laid. A proper good day out!

Chris holds up the empty line reel.

The secret cave

Before I go into details of our dive here, I should stress that this cave is not for public access and is indeed the water source for the town of Millau. Permission is required to dive here and we obtained this through a friend and a French cave diver before visiting the cave. Illegal dives here are quite likely to spoil ongoing attempts to reach an agreeable solution about diving the source, hence I have withheld its whereabouts.

The plan was to video the cave and as a result, will offer any footage we have to the local speleo activists to use in their quest to demonstrate how important divers are in the protection of caves and scientific hydrological research. At the end of the day, we are the only ones who can actually see what goes on under the water, under the rock, in the dark.

We drove almost 2 hours on nothing but winding roads and stunning gorges until we reached the village and after a little inventive French speaking and some friendly locals, located the source. We parked up but our French guide, Mehdi, was not there. Worried, I made a few calls back home to some friends who knew him but there were no such worries, as he showed up minutes later, having been diving in the Font d’Estremar all day!

We began carrying kit to the cave and we spoke to Mehdi in our best going out French and he spoke to us in pretty good English. He was to dive with us and both Rich and Joe had video cameras.

Joe's trailer, including the secret cave.

Due to gas logistics (there are no filling stations down here, so all trimix was pre-filled, as were deco gases – the rest is to be topped off by the compressor, courtesy of the Derbyshire Section CDG) Rich and I dived sidemounted as these were the only ‘backgas’ cylinders we had left which could be used, the rest still full of 15/55 for next week.

So we dived on 60m gas to reach pretty much the terminus of this cave, which ends in a jumbled, jagged breakdown choke at -65m.

The journey there however, was spectacular. Clive Westlake, my ex-CDG mentor was the last person to dive here 4 years ago and prior to that, the last diver had been in the cave no less than 8 years ago. And it showed.

Our exhalation bubbles sent bits of conglomerate and chert raining down on us and wafting past the video cameras. Anything you touched simply broke off in your hand so we dived it with kid gloves. The entrance is a narrow rift and we dropped off our deco bottles as we followed the winding, ‘diaclase’ (maze) to the head of a shaft.

I’ve seen some impressive underwater shafts, some pretty famous, but this was one of the more pretty and intricate ones. Mehdi dived a Megdalon ‘recycleur’ and stealthily crept along behind us, grinning in awe at the view he was presented with, descending above Rich with his double 18W filming lights, above me with my HID… he said it was pretty amazing! The visibility was infinite and sparkling blue.

I saw the line snaking off towards the breakdown terminus and thumbed the dive at 59.9m. We had a nice ascent and Mehdi began chatting to me through his RB and I felt obliged to waffle some crap in French back!!

We picked up our deco gases and Rich filmed Mehdi down some side passage while I wrestled with getting an ali stage clipped off to sidemount 12s, all the while feeling a bit underweighted; I soon realised that this was due to a sticking wing inflator valve which was filling my ‘Scoff-Bag’ at a rate of knots. Giggling at my stupidity for not noticing it sooner, I told Mehdi I was fine and that I would deal with the simultaneously freeflowing regulator later……

Such annoyances don’t spoil a great dive like this though and we surfaced at dusk, waffling in barely coherent Franglais at how good it was and how worth the drive etc etc.

I asked Mehdi if he would please join us for dinner, or a beer at least. One step ahead, he produced a bottle of delicately balanced local white wine which had been cooling in the resurgence all the while!!

We waited for the others to surface and giggled uncontrollably as they had stuck true to form, getting totally lost and taking the wrong line and ending up in some shit-hole about 0.5m high and full of mud, unable to turn around etc. They did make it to the deep in the end but they won’t live it down as it’s not the first time either!

The stars started to come up over the gorge and the white limestone cliffs were lit by the moon and we tore down the gorge after Mehdi who showed us to a very welcome pizza restaurant and made sure we were looked after.

An absolutely awesome dive, great company and a superb evening. Days don’t get much better than this. Thankyou guys.

A Grotty Sergent

Rich wanted a day off. So I took him caving!

Grotte du Sergeant. Image: Christine Grosart

Somehow over the last decade I have managed to avoid this very pleasant little cave. I must have misread the instructions because 300m walking later we had not found a 'large porch' - or anything resembling a cave.

This is not unusual. I have been up many garden paths, gum trees and on several spectacular wild goose chases in this region. It is hot, scrubby bush bashing and the best you can hope for is some sort of cairn, bit of paint (which could mean anything really - like, a really long GR route.....) or a couple of contradictory arrows painted on trees.

There was some pleasant scrambling on grippy limestone river bed with dried up plunge pools and lots of lizards, before we finally got to a 'combe' where we couldn't go any further - the cave had to be here.

It was - a vertical but not difficult scramble up the cliff face!

Once in the cool entrance, we wandered off down pretty but not spectacular dry fossil cave with a sandy floor. It probably does resurge in exceptional weather, but it hadn't in a very long time.

I took the opportunity to take some photos with my new camera and see how I got on. I'm reasonably happy with them, especially given there were only two of us.

I get the feeling this is the Herault's version of 'Goatchurch' - but much nicer and would be a good starter cave for any led groups I bring here in the future. It has nice little climbs, abseils to protect the vertical bits and pretties. Plus a great view from the entrance.

Well worth the afternoon out.

Autumn Atlantis

Autumn saw my final trip of 2019 on the Atlantis. The divers were working a little shallower and I had a reasonably quiet trip. We were treated to some stunning sunsets and the views from my cabin were pretty cool too.

View from my cabin in the south north sea.

I was very happy to be invited to talk at the Birmingham dive show yet again. I'm lucky to have such a wide range of topics to talk on.

Last year I talked about my cave diving exploration project but this year I was able to talk on Ghost Fishing.

This was doubly exciting as Ghost Fishing UK had a stand at the dive show for the first time and it was definitely the best thing we had ever done in terms of outreach.

We raised a huge amount of cash for the charity and all the volunteers on the stand, working for free all weekend, were flat out from the second the doors opened.

My talks on the Diver stage were packed, especially Sunday which was several layers deep in standing room only.

There is clearly an appetite for divers to help the aquatic environment and we are very happy to provide them with a pathway to making a real difference.

Boka Atlantis. Image: Christine Grosart

Perdreau set-up day

I decided that embarking on Garrel today would be a silly move. Still with remains of a chest infection, the caving trip, though moderate, is quite long and I am still quite weak, so we decided that the Perdreau-Fourmi was a more pleasant option.

True to form, Jean Tarrit rallied a few friends from his club and they arrived to help us carry our gear in two journeys up the riverbed.

I headed through the entrance squeeze and into the cave to start rigging the 45 degree slope and 15m pitch to the sump pool.

I decided to bring walkie talkies this time and was quite surprised that I was able to communicate from the sump pool to the surface!

Job done in a few hours, I headed over to the Source de Bueges, which sadly cannot be dived. Some pretty dragon flies were in residence.

We had some nice cold pressions at the local watering hole in St Jean-de-Bueges and headed back to the campsite to sort out cameras and have dinner.

Gear stash at the bottom of the pitch in Perdreau Fourmi.

Into the Blue

New cave passage in the Event de Perdreau Fourmi, discovered 2012, Screen grab: Christine grosart

Today was an excellent day - but not without a few teething troubles to get around first.

I picked up a missed call from one of my work colleagues, who was asking where I was. France, was the reply. It seems the great shift screw up had raised its ugly head again, but I doubt I have much to worry about as I am certain I booked this leave. In fact, I booked it in January. So, I tried to forget about it and concentrate on the cave diving.

We headed up to the cave and Jean had brought more friends along to help us. They were practising their SRT in the cave which seemed as good a reason as any to come along.

Jean and Claudie helping in the dry cave

Rich and I dropped the pitch and started to get our gear together. Next problem, Rich finds the team spare mask has shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces. It had been in a pocket on one of the harnesses and not protected by a French Pot and had somehow got broken. Never mind. We can live without it and we have another anyway.

The sump is blue and inviting. I get the camera ready and Jean and friends watch us set off into sump 1, before heading out to the sunshine to await our arrival. We tell them we will be 2 hours at most.

Surfacing in the airbell shortly after passing sump 1, Rich and I can't really get our act together and we soon notice a little panting going on. Carbon dioxide. Great.

Chris at the top of the ladder beyond sump 1

We take things slowly and rig the ladder, before hauling the 12 litre bottles up and getting everything into sump 2.

Kitting up in sump 2 was fairly easy this time around and I get ready with the camera. We have a plan to shoot some video of the sump, especially our discoveries from 2011 and 2012. We don't hope for much as it is a small, fiddly sump covered in powder-like silt. But we gave it a go.

We get shooting and with plenty of time and gas, get to photograph and film everything we want to.

Kitting up in sump 2

Then, we had one last job to do.

There was one bit of a chamber left to explore. I had always had a feeling there was more to it than just a boulder pile. So, I dispatch Rich off to take a quick look and a minute later he returned to say it was "Going".

Woo hoo!

Line reel tied in and I sieze the (rare!) opportunity to film exploration in progress.

Rich swam along with his reel and made some nice tie offs and the cave started to head downslope in a fractured, friable passage. It was sculptured and pretty and the water ahead was azure blue.

Chris climbing out of sump 1

Behind Rich it was patchy, rust red and bits and pieces rained down from the roof as the first bubbles ever disturbed the rock.

As the visibility went to zero, I paused at 24m and heard Rich scratching around. I figured he wouldn't be long and steadily, hand over hand on the line, fumbled my way back to the tie off with Rich just behind me.

Happy, we thumbed the dive and had a pleasant swim home in patchy visibility. I stopped to photograph a worm, the type I had not seen before in a sump.

Surfacing back at the airbell, we de-kitted, pleased with the days work.

Not surprisingly, after a recent chest infection and a cold, I had some trouble descending back into sump 2 to get home. Fortunately my bottle of trusty Otravine got me to depth but wasn't keen on getting my sinuses back up again.

Sump 1

It's a divers worst nightmare (well, one of them anyway) and despite hanging around on the way up trying to get my sinuses to let go, it was obvious I was going to get a reverse block.

I did and it hurt a lot, making my eyes water and temporarily blind. Rich took my bottles off and I eventually heard the relieving squeak, followed by some blood and the pain subsided. Not pleasant.

Jean was at the top of the pitch waiting for us as we surfaced. He was worried as we were half an hour overdue. This was probably due to our taking our time in the CO2 ridden airbell. We apologised for worrying him but he didn't mind and we showed him our photos to cheer him up.

Chris holds the empty line reel in sump 2, Perdreau Fourmi

A gang of cavers had showed up to help carry all the gear back in one run, including a very small child who was lugging 2 tackle bags and going better up the hill than I was!

A cold beer in St Jean de Bueges followed by pizza in Laroque seemed a fitting end to a very pleasant day, all things considered. Finally things are going our way.

2011 discovery in sump 2

Event de Rodel

Today we had plans to go the Event de Rodel.

This pretty little gem of a cave is one of the easier ones to access, but still requires a carry and some crawly, stoopy caving to get to the waters edge.

Andras in the Rodel

It was a much easier carry this year and all except Andras opted to dive in wetsuits. The gear was carried through scratchy scrub a short distance through bushes and up a short, dry riverbed. We then changed into caving grots and chained the five sets of diving gear to the start of the sump.

It soon became apparent that my trainee, Jarvist, was capable of shifting twice as much gear as everyone else in half the time - so we blundered along and let him get on with it!

We were a little alarmed by Andras' 10 litre cylinders, so he devised a hardcore technique for carrying them through the cave!

Even more alarming was his sidemount set-up - which had clearly been designed by someone who had never been in a dry cave in their lives, never mind had to carry diving gear through one!!

Andras watched in awe as Rich and I glided through the water easily in our minimalist UK sidemount set-up. He'll be borrowing one of ours tomorrow to see how he likes it.

The Rodel didn't disappoint and I shot some video of Rich and Andras, which had pleasing results - except the LED torch was causing red dotted stripes due to a problem with certain power settings. I couldn't fix this underwater so we had to make do with what we ended up with.

Source du Sorgues - The Picnic

Chris in the Sorgues. Image: Richard Walker

The Sorgues is in Aveyron and is a great little cave to finish the trip with.

We invited Mehdi Dighouth to come over for the day and Rich and I set off to the cave to have a picnic before diving.

Oz and Joe set off to the Durzon - because their instructions had the GPS co-ordinates mixed up!!!!!

The Sorgues is a beautiful river emerging from the cirque rockface and feeds the fish-farm just downstream. It used to be the case that divers were asked to hose off their drysuits before entering the water but now the fish-farm seem not to care and divers are welcome here.

We settled down to lunch by the weir and Mehdi produced some home-made Fois Gras and some fruit jelly thing which was amazing.

We were still waiting for the others to show up and without a mobile signal here, wondered just how long we should wait. Rich still needed fills from the compressor so couldn't dive with me until Oz and the compressor arrived. It was decided that I should go for a dive with Mehdi and Rich could dive with the others when (if) they showed up.

Mehdi and I set off through the maze of boulders and concrete tunnels which fill the entrance. I first dived here in 2007 but didn't remember much about the cave as I was pre-occupied with a top-heavy independent twinset, having moved from sidemount to backmount gear myself, without any advice or training. I was uncomfortable throughout and didn't enjoy the dive.

It was great this time to know that I could just get on with it and relax.

Chris in the Sorgues. Image: Richard Walker

We dived to what I consider the end of the cave. The main, spacious passage just ends and the way on is a small, narrow rift which goes up to about 3m depth from 31m and nobody has been any further. It is reported to be tight, nasty and a dead-end boulder choke - so we stay in the big stuff!

With loads of gas to spare, we turn round and I get the opportunity to waft my HID around and have a real good look at this cave. The geology is beautiful and there are ribbons of calcite protruding like a dragons back all along the edges and the floor. The water is typically clear, with a blue tinge and no decompression is required for such a short dive.

We surface to see that the others have arrived and Rich is getting his cylinders filled. Elaine and Duncan set off for a short dive and Elaine returns with plenty of gas, so I offer to take her in again behind the filming crew. Rich, Oz and Joe have a lengthy dive briefing for the camera work and Mehdi sneaks in for another dive behind them. Elaine and I stealthily follow them all and we are treated to a fantastic view of four divers, all with bright filming lights and HIDs, spread out down the passage. Elaine is thrilled with her dive and we call it a day.

The wonderful Sorgues. Image: Rich Walker

Mehdi returns and gives me an impromptu lesson on his Megdalon rebreather. I always said I would never go over to RB because there is so much I can do on open circuit to last me a lifetime - and I haven't got anywhere near my limit of open circuit yet. But maybe in ten years time I may think differently.

We end the day with much giggling and silliness as Joe asks Mehdi for an interview about the Esperelle. Both Joe and Mehdi are extremely professional - you get the feeling they have both done this sort of thing before....I am in the background asking Mehdi questions in French and the video looks amazing.

Then it's Rich's turn to be in front of the camera and Joe's techniques for shedding a little golden light on the subject has us in stitches.

All too soon it is time to go. Mehdi has to go and give a talk at the speleo congress and we have to shoot off as we've been invited onto the Hortus Plateau - aka middle of absolutely nowhere - by the CLPA for a pizza party!

Christine, Mehdi, Elaine, Osama, Joe, Duncan, Rich

The seven hour lunch

The impressive Millau Bridge

We arrived at the camp site in one piece yesterday. The tents are up (one for us, one for the gear....) and shopping done.

I'm still sick with some sort of chest infection off the back of a cold, so today we tried to take it easy.

I had a phone call from my good friend Jean Tarrit to tell us he was coming to our campsite and we were to have lunch at his house in Larzac to discuss plans for the two weeks.

Jean Tarrit

Fuelled with coffee and coughing like a donkey with asthma, I was driven via some stunning scenery to Larzac - the long way round as the Gourney's are closed for repair work in the Vis gorge.

The drive took ages but we finally met up with Jean and headed to his house.

It was a beautiful, typically French rustic country home with big beams and huge fireplaces.

We were spoiled from the outset with several courses, including crevettes (shrimp), magret de canard, sautee potatoes, salad, bread, cheese, tarte au poire and a 12 year old Bordeaux.

Many hours later we went for a short wander to take a look at the view over the Larzac plateau which is cave hunting heaven.

The viz gorge, Herault, France

Back at the house, we discussed the geology of the caves we were pushing, fault line directions and made plans for the week. Rich let out the occasional snore as he nodded in the armchair.

The plan is to go back to Garrel on Saturday but this depends on me being well enough and we can put it back a week if we need to.

Caves & Wine - What else is there?

After yesterday’s antics, I wanted a day off.

I met no resistance from Rich who was beginning to realise that the word ‘holiday’ had been misconstrued.

We decided to go and visit the vineyard at Saint-Saturnin and follow it up with a visit to a stunning show-cave, Grotte Clamouse.

I hadn’t visited either for almost a decade, so I was really looking forward to going back and showing it to Rich. Joe kindly loaned me one of his cameras so I was able to take some photos and video of our day out.

The vineyard was a great photo opportunity and we left with boxes and bottles of local wines, some for gifts and the rest for ourselves.

£100 lighter, we set off down the road to the show-cave.

We were treated to the best AV (in English and French) of cave geology, formation and 3D models that I have ever seen. It was outstanding and I wish some British show-caves would put as much effort into their experiences as this place. The show-cave guide was well educated, spoke in two languages and gave a detailed and interesting tour and knew the cave inside out.

Grotte Clamouse

There were plenty of photo opportunities as well as a music and light show, which might not be to everyone’s taste, but to be honest I find it hard to see how else they could show off the pinnacle of this fabulous cave in any other way. It was well done without being tacky and the tour was worth every penny of the 9 euros each….

Elaine and Duncan meanwhile had been spending their time diving the Rodel and hunting out various caves in the area to go and visit.

We headed back to camp central and dug out the BBQ having raided the local Super-U in Ganges. This fabulous supermarket has a meat and fish counter to die for and we went a bit mad, buying a big bag of tiger prawns, rack of ribs, some trout and salmon steaks, whole mackerel, beers plus salad things etc. Barely 60 euros later, we walked away with bags of goodies, amazed at how cheap it was.

Trimix fills in the middle of nowhere

It felt like the ‘last supper’ as we all sat round under the fairy lights, watching cave diving video films and footage that Joe shot of the Gourney-Ras. It was push day the next day in the Event de Perdreau – cylinders had been filled, trimix salvaged and gear was pretty much packed. All we had to do was go and lay more line…..what could possibly go wrong?......

Vineyards of St Saturnin

A Grand Day Out

It was not a pretty sight at 9am this morning!

Last year we were chased all over the French countryside by Jean Tarrit and his friend, Jean-Claude, who were desperate to find us and show us an exciting dive site in a cave called the Garrel.

Ongoing cave. We planned to dive the Siphone des Pas Perdus.

I had visited the Garrel in April 2003 and remember it as an easy, dry and pretty cave with no tackle required. I don’t recall there being a sump, but Nathan Boinet the local activist in these parts, had been dipping his toe in the sumps at the end of the system, some of which came to nothing early on and one which was looking to ‘go’ – but he was diving back mounted 7s and couldn’t fit through the etroiture (squeeze).

So, we were invited to take a look using our ‘techniques anglaise’ (sidemount) and were promised a large group of ‘slaves’ from the CLPA to carry all our equipment.

We were due to meet the French cavers at 9am near St Jean de Buéges but the troops were not to be rallied.

Tim Webber and Jarvist Frost arrived last night having made awesome time – but they were paying for it in exhaustion.

Duncan Smith and Elaine Hill also arrived yesterday – but Elaine was staying firmly between her tent and the toilet block, having eaten something dodgy.

Duncan was up and about, Rich was dragged out of his pit by me and there was no sign of life next door.

The plan was for Tim and I to take a look at this ‘squeeze’ and see if we could pass it. I would go first and sort the line and have a look, then, assuming I would be too fat to fit, as Nathan had insisted on a ‘thin diver’, I would hand over to skinny Tim to continue.

So, having had a minor epic trying to find bread for breakfast, we got on the road and Tim would show up later with Jarvist in tow.

The French team were at the side of the road, half kitted up and there was a buzz in the air. Lots of banter and greetings and introductions went around and after a degree of faff, we set off – minus SRT kits. This concerned us a little as the others all seemed to have them…….Nathan assured us that the climbing was easy and we weren’t to worry. So we didn’t.

Five minutes in to the entrance we were met with a 15m pitch!!

Never mind……The French guy ahead of me descended and Duncan behind me lent me his descender. I attached it to my belt, abseiled down the pitch and sent it back up the rope…..

Dry cave passage in Garrel on the way to the sump.

I could see this being quite a fun trip for those of us minus rope gear.! However, the French were obliging and over the course of several rope climbs and abseils, I employed just about every technique in the book – including those with red crosses through them! I used a stop, figure of 8, Italian hitch and krab, one or two jammers depending on what I could scrounge at the time, a full kit at one stage – loaned by Jean-Claude who can free climb just about anything – someone else’s cows-tail hauling me from above and quite a lot of brute force and ignorance!!

It was excellent fun and Jean was correct in his time estimation. It took 4 hours to get our teams and two sets of divers gear to the sump. There was climbing, crawling and boulder chokes by the bucket load and it was very, very hot and sweaty in there!

But the banter and morale kept everyone going with frequent breaks.

We arrived at the sump and it was large, blue and clear and very inviting. I was desperate to get in and cool down!!

Chris kits up in the sump pool

Everyone arrived on the boulder slope and began unpacking their lunch. It was a natural amphitheatre, with graded seats for the cavers to watch the divers kit up in comfort.

We treated ourselves to sausage roll, taboulé, bread and cheese. Nathan became insistent that it would be better for two people to dive together as the second diver would not get to see anything. I was unsure about this, but as he had dived it and we hadn’t, we went along with his suggestion and Tim and I kitted up together.

The line was broken at the very beginning, so we tied the reel off and set off down the sand slope in zero visibility. I went in front with the reel and we laid 20m of line until we found Nathan’s broken line in situ. We tied into it at a good belay and the water suddenly became crystal clear as we moved away from the sand slope and into a level passage with a boulder floor, about 3m high and 5m wide.

Tim Webber

We patched up the line in one place where it was needed and soon came to the end of Nathan’s line, marked with a 45m tag, just at the start of the squeeze.

I had a good look at it and it didn’t look too bad, so after a quick chat with Tim, I set off through the squeeze and passed it easily, stopping for a moment to make a good tie off at the end, before turning slightly rightwards into bigger passage.

Tim duly followed and continued tying the line off behind me. We moved forward until the passage seemed to come to a bit of a break down and spotted a higher passage so moved on up into that and went forward some more. We laid about 42m of new line altogether after the squeeze.

The biggest problem in this sump was the visibility. It is a static sump so there is no flow to help you. The silt seemed to rain down in clouds from the roof – probably because there had never been any air bubbles in there before to dislodge it.

Furthermore, the roof sloped upwards so bubbles were travelling up the roof ahead of us and raining silt clouds down like swirling mists of powder, right in front of our noses and interfering with our visibility.

This problem began to obstruct progress and I got to a bit of passage where the way on was less obvious and it looked to be breaking down. I stopped to have a good look and was engulfed in red swirling powder – so I thumbed the dive and tied the line off, cut the reel free and we set off back home in awful viz.

Following the thin line home was much easier than I anticipated and we soon arrived at the sand slope and looked up to see the dozen or so cavers lights glowing on the embankment in expectation, all staring at us through the ripples on the surface of the water.

I gave Nathan and the expectant audience a brief explanation of what we had found – in dubious French – and received a round of applause and what looked like an explosion of paparazzi!!

We cleared up, had some water and food and started the journey out en masse, which was not without amusement!

Still minus an SRT kit, I scrounged all sorts of items on the way home. The other brits were having similar epics and we ended up fighting over the sole karabiner for use with an Italian hitch!

The Garrel team 2012

The journey out was a little slicker and we stopped in the ‘Salle de dejeuné’ which Jean explained was the resting place for the original explorers.

We arrived at the last pitch and I was given an SRT kit from somebody and made my way up the pitch. Rich was also donated kit from somewhere but I have no idea how the others got out!

I arrived at the traverse line and was faced with a French caver, lying on his side looking like he wanted to die!

He said in English (cue French accent): “Christine, please can you 'elp me..? Can you take my equipment because I am very, very tired….”

I said “Of course!”

He went on to explain: “I cannot feel my arms or my legs any more!”

Poor guy!

He had left his jammer on the rope and couldn’t face the return journey of all of one metre to retrieve it!!

I offered to take his bag the last 15 metres of uphill crawling and he insisted we do it together!

We surfaced to the flashes of cameras and dusk was settling.

Garrel team 2012

A gang of us returned to the campsite for a great BBQ cooked by Rich and far too much wine!

A grand day out!

Success!

A huge thank you to the CLPA and friends for their support and images.

Fool de Lauret - by Rich Walker

If you had told me that I was about to drive for two hours in 35C heat around the south of France looking for a cave, I would probably have believed you.

If you had also told me that we would have to walk through some bushes and undergrowth, up a precarious limestone wall, and then descend into a cave entrance while hanging on a rusty chain over a 50m high precipice, I would have still believed you. If you then added a simple fact that I would be doing this while wearing a Fourth Element 7mm semi-drysuit, I might have started to question the sense in the plan. Never mind though, in for a penny, in for a pound as they say.

The cave is called the Foux de Lauret and lies near the village of Lauret. Thats how it got its name, apparently. I don’t know what Foux means though.

Elaine Hill in the Foux de Lauret. Image: Christine Grosart

Anyway, we arrived at the entrance, hanging on the rusty chain, to see a gate behind which is a small crawly tunnel. If you have heard me talk about caves before, you will know that crawling is almost my most favourite activity.

It comes second to hanging over a bottomless pit on a piece of wet string held to a slimy piece of rock by some sort of metal screw which looks a lot like something I had in a Meccano kit as a child. But I digress. The crawling is soon over and we arrive in large passageway. This is nice, impressive cave. I like it. Lots of meanders (s-shaped passage) follow where the water has worn it’s path through the rock and we end up at a clear blue pool. This is why I am wearing my semi dry suit. I jump in and try to cool off, but the suit is so good that no water comes in. I give the neck seal a pull and a pint of ice cold water shoots in.

Anyway, I swim over the pool to the other side, and carry on through the passage which remains very picturesque. There are more pools, which soon become canals requiring us to swim. Swimming in wellington boots sounds pretty easy (how hard could it be) but for some reason looks more like a valiant drowning attempt. I’ve swum a lot in my life, but the addition of wellies make me swim like a cat in a bag.

The French don’t seem to like getting wet, so there are lots of traverse lines hang in the roof of the cave. It must take hours for a group to cross these canals. Once out of the water, we soon come to a sharp left turn off the main passage, and rather than consider heading on a straight path, we turn off. We encounter rifts, traverse lines holes in the floor, and strange pegs hammered into the wall for us to stand on. You don’t to hang around on these pegs (or stemples as I’m informed they are known) as you can feel them bend under your weight. It’s not that there is a huge drop below you, just a gradually narrowing crack that with a decent drop would be sure to wedge you in good and proper. Keep moving.

Maybe we shouldn’t have turned off the main road. We come to a rather complex bit involving a rope and a long drop (see above). This was not supposed to be there, or maybe it was us that wasn’t supposed to be there, so we turned round and headed back to our turn-off point. And off we go again. This started to look more promising. More canals to swim in - great fun. I am developing a technique to swimming which resembles a cat that has just escaped from a bag, so I’m making progress.

People start climbing up out of the canal to try to find the legendary gour pools, which are apparently some of the most beautiful formations in the cave. Gour pools have been formed by crystalline deposits over millions of years, and resemble Asian rice terraces, but underground and sparkly. Water cascades down them when the river is flowing. Christine was determined to take photos, so we continue to hunt.

We come to what looks like the end of the canal, which makes little sense as these things don’t just stop. Further inspection shows that there is a tiny airspace over the water, maybe 3cm high and I fancy I can see the passage enlarging on the other side. I suggest that Jarvist goes through. I now know that it is possible for a human to make a snorkel with their lips.

I am banned from going through this delightful feature - I object for a moment to show some form of resistance and retain some level of manhood, then concede that I wouldn’t want to worry Chris. Ego intact, we turn and leave Jarvist and now Gerick to make snorkels with their lips and slither out.

My swimming technique is now so good that my trusty tripod that I have owned for 20 years fell out of my bag on the swim home. 10 minutes of touchy feely in the mud bottom of the canal failed to retrieve it. Oh well - it has served a long and useful life.

The exit was uneventful and took around an hour. The pools allowed us to flush the wetsuits from “heating fluid”.

Back out of the cave, up the rusty chain, down the limestone precipice and through the bushes put us back at the car and we decided to head off for a pizza. St Bauzille has a row of pizzerias along the waterside and makes an excellent place to stop for food, if you get there before 9pm.

9.05pm and you’re screwed, especially if you smell of heating fluid. There was one place left open that would sell us a takeaway pizza, on the condition that we waited outside in the garden.

We weren’t going to argue ;-)

"Has anyone seen my Eagle?" by Richard Walker

The Aven de Rouet looks like a goer on the survey. A straight down shaft to about 70m, and then ongoing horizontal passage. It’s right next to the road as well, so why the hell haven’t I heard of it before? Needs a look, I think to myself.

Christine and I headed over to the site on Monday night to confirm that the cave was where we expected, and to look at how we’d need to get the gear to the water. We’ve learned that nothing is easy here.

Sure enough, 30m from the road, across some flat ground, we find a bloody great hole in the ground. It’s about 10m in diameter, and dropped to depth of about 20m, where the water was.

There was a steel gantry jutting out over the top of it, and this looked a perfect point from which to lower the gear. Two steps away was a steel ladder down to a small gravel platform perfect to stand on while suiting up.

This was looking too good to be true, so how come I’ve never heard of this place before?

Weird. Needs a look.

We got up almost before lunchtime on Tuesday and started blending gas. 15/55 for me, Christine and Andras, and a couple of deco gasses for good measure. Tim and Jarvist were going to have a play with some trimix too on a short dive after ours.

Blending was creative, as ever, in these sorts of places but we all ended up with something useable in the end. We loaded the cars, and sent Tim and Jarvist to set up the pulleys and ropes while we ate lunch. Seemed reasonable to me. All the time I’m thinking “why haven’t I heard of this place before?”.

We arrive at the cave to see Tim stood on the gantry with an elaborate network of slings, carabiners, stops and pulleys dangling over the edge, and Jarvist at the bottom explaining how things will bang into the wall as they descend.

They fiddle around a bit, make some more complications and we have a working 3:1 pulley system, with a releasable deviation, which makes it go round a corner.

It’s so easy, I still wonder why everyone doesn’t dive here, and why I haven’t heard of it.

We lowered the gear down (OK, Tim lowered the gear down) and Jarvist makes a neat pile of it in the pool, and we three head down to the water like professionals.

Andras starts screaming when he sees the toad in the water.

Apparently he doesn’t like them.

Christine wanted to kiss it, but I reminded her that it needed to be a frog for that to work...

We put on our gear and did our checks floating in the water, and remarked that the blue water had gone a bit mucky with our movements. I was sure it would clear out below us though, and said so like someone who knew what he was talking about. So far so good. I still can’t believe I’ve never heard of this place - it’s such an easy site.

Andra, Rich and Christine in the Rouet.

We descend, Christine in front, Andras and then me. Following the line through the surface muck, and sure enough, the water clears and we are treated to pale limestone walls and a vertical passage.

It’s not very big, I think.

No matter, I’m going to drop these decompression cylinders pretty soon and then the clanging will stop. The Oxygen gets dropped in a small (1.5m round passage), and hangs on the line that has a convenient loop in it. Someone has clearly been here before and understands that you need to drop gear off.

The line turns into 9mm climbing rope, and continues to drop vertically through the pretty, white, cave tunnel. Which is still no more than 1.5m across.

We are three divers, stacked vertically.

There is some difference in approach to dropping down. I prefer the head down and swim, while the others seem to prefer some sort of feet down, reverse climbing strategy. The 9mm rope gets replaced by 5mm stainless steel cable. This is an odd choice, I think. I’d hate to have to cut that if I got tangled in it.

Still, visibility is good, and the line well laid. Still don’t understand why more people don’t dive here, even though it’s a bit tight.

More gear gets deposited and we start to descend. 30m, still nice clear water, pretty passageway, small. 40m, same. 50m - the rope ends.

Quelle horreur!

There is some old thin cave line arranged into a not-so-neat birds nest, with ends trailing out of it. Christine decides that this is too deep to be arsing about laying line in a tight passage with potentially much more loose rubbish beyond, and we reverse our direction back towards the surface.

Shame, it’s a nice looking cave and I’d have liked to see more of it. Can’t understand why I’ve not heard of it before.

Bubbles. Seemingly innocuous things.

Children make them with soap and play with them for hours. They are in beer and champagne. They could be considered to be fun things in some quarters. In a cave, they tend to float up along the walls.

If those walls are covered in a fine layer of silt, such as you might find in a cave that was not well travelled, then the bubbles dislodge the silt and rapidly reduce the visibility. If that cave is vertical, then those bubbles do that all the way to the surface, getting bigger all the time.

In fact, Jarvist and Tim were watching the pool while we dived and said that it turned into a “muddy silty vortex” within minutes of our departure.

They elected to not dive.

Meanwhile, back in the water, the visibility has dropped to something like tea with a splash of milk. Never mind, it’s a vertical cave, and we have a big 9mm rope to follow. We wriggle and turn our way back up the passage and soon arrive back at the 21m stop. We all managed to switch gas, not that it was really needed given the short dive, and continue out. Lots of gear plus steel wire. Nice. Fortunately only a few minor hang ups, and we’re soon at the oxygen pickup, and ready to head out.

At this point, Christine decided that she didn’t like it anymore and managed to reverse the team order.

Exactly how, I do not know, but she and Andras got past me in a 1m wide tunnel. Andras claims that it had something to do with Chris grabbing his testicles in a modified “touch contact signal” for “move”.

He moved. Like a rat up a drainpipe.

We surfaced exchanged a few “pleasantries” and decided to get out. I’m starting to understand why I haven’t heard of this place.

Then the fun started.

I looked up to see 2 locals stood on the gantry waving. Cave diving is often a spectator sport, in the same way people like to watch car crashes or why Romans went to watch criminals get eaten by lions. Turned out that he was a local caver and had been in there before.

Best to not do it with lots of people, he said.

Visibility gets bad apparently...

Well, they were nice and we chatted for a while. They left and enter local no. 2. His communication was less easy to follow. Basil Fawlty probably taught him how to talk to foreigners. Speak louder and faster when they don’t understand. Get more frustrated. Speak louder and faster.

He wasn’t angry, although he did look like a farmer, and therefore liable to say “quitter ma terre” at any point. Probably loudly.

He mentioned that he had a similar hole on his land. Bottomless, apparently, and if we wanted to go and dive it, we’d be very welcome. “Just like this one?” we asked - “Oui” came the reply. “Merci Messieur, mais nous partons demain”. He wandered off to shoot something.

More gear came up the magical winch thing.

Then two girls get out of a car and start running over towards us. They are flapping their arms and waving at us.

“avez-vous vu mon aigle”, or “Have you seen my eagle?”

To help with translation, they were flapping their arms and cawing as well.

Seemed obvious to me. I was tempted to say that it had grabbed my pet toad and I was very upset, but my French isn’t good enough. They seemed very upset, and continued driving around, looking for their eagle.

We stopped for Pizza in Laroque on the way home, which is a lovely way to end a days diving, eating nice food watching the river run, and wondering why nobody dives in that cave.

The Bloody French Cave

The CLPA had been keen for the last few years for us to go and visit the Event de Cambon.

Yes, that’s the entrance….

Frank Vasseur had dived the short, shallow sump about 20 years ago and to their knowledge, nobody had ever been back.

Now, even in his 20s Frank was no slouch. In fact, he was probably considerably fitter and harder than he is now.

I did make a feeble protest that I couldn’t see what we would achieve that Frank could not, but it was information that the cavers wanted rather than caverns measureless. They were intent on digging down from the top of the gorge and this cave was important to them to know if it connected or not.

We said we would take a look.

According to the description, Frank had surfaced and immediately encountered several climbs which got higher and higher. As he was alone, he made a retreat.

Nobody knows what happened after that and Frank could not remember much about the cave at all.

The CLPA wanted us to survey the sump, the dry passage beyond and get a compass direction.

How hard could it be?

So, we met up in St Maurice de Navacelles to have coffee with our sherpas – or ‘slaves’ as Jean prefers to call them and picked up a Disto-X for surveying beyond the sump.

In convoy, we set off down the twisty hairpin bends of the Cirque de Navacelles and parked up at river level by the Vis. The walk to the cave entrance was relatively flat but about 800m.

Christine kits up at the sump edge

Some enthusiastic deforestation then ensued as the French began clearing the snaggy branches and cleared away a grubby little cave entrance. It had filled with stones from the winter rains but by the time Rich and I had rigged our cylinders, the entrance was dug out again.

I went for a quick look inside.

Hmm. This was going to be a fun kitting up spot. Nowhere to stand up, nowhere really to sit. It was what we were used to in the UK but it was a long way to go to dive something like this in France. Oh well.

We passed the gear in to the cave and Rich went ahead and kitted up first. I remained just upslope of him, regularly kicking stones down at him while he thrashed about trying to get his fins on.

Frank’s old line was there but we needed to lay our own knotted line for surveying. The sump pool had gone to zero so surveying was looking less and less likely.

Chris about to dive

Once ready and crammed into the tiny muddy pool, we set off downslope through a squeeze with a rubble floor and sloping roof.

The sump was about 40m long as described and 7m deep. The water cleared after the squeeze and had better dimensions.

On surfacing, there was a near vertical rift – made of mud – and a ladder hanging down from above which was just out of reach and no means of getting to it. It looked as if Frank had dived the sump when water levels were somewhat higher.

Noses turned up, we returned to the start of the sump pool to report our findings. The viz had gone to zero and not good enough for a proper survey.

Then, as if our failure was not enough, then began the thunder. Torrential rain and thunder and lightening crashed all around us and the Cirque de Navacelles while we tried to pack our gear up.

Rich and I elected to walk back in our wetsuits as our clothes were sodden.

We got back to the van and took it in turns to get into the back and change. It was miserable and getting colder.

Jean invited everyone back to his house for a welcome cup of tea and to dry out a little. We made it up to ourselves by watching the video we shot of the new passage in the Perdreau.

Jean was in danger of having a power cut, so we headed back to our campsite to inspect the damage.

Water had infiltrated the front porch of the tent, which was not entirely unexpected and Rich had already moved electrical items to higher ground that morning.

Water had also infiltrated Rich’s Rude Nora caving torch battery which was now no longer working. Meh.

We decided to drown our sorrows in a local pizzeria – but each and every single restaurant in the region were closed. So, back to the campsite for a tin of sausage and beans and leffe beer. We’ve had better days, but that’s the nature of cave diving. It ain’t sun and stalictites all the time.

Stunning Sorgues

Chris admiring the calcite 'ridge' in the Sorgues. Image: Richard Walker

The Event du Sorgues is one of my favourite resurgence flops in the area. The only problem is that it is too short!

It is about 220m long and ends in an impenetrable, vertical rift which is too tight to pass in any kit configuration.

This is desperately frustrating as it is the major resurgence for the mighty 'Mas Raynal', 4Km upstream.

It is, however, beautiful, with no access restrictions (despite having to practically drive through somebody's living room to get to a parking spot - don't take any vehicle bigger than a Berlingo!)

Chris diving the Sorgues. Image: Rich Walker

It is heavily managed with dams and weirs built in to presumably control the water which flows through the fish farm. The water is cold, about 8 degrees and is almost always blue and clear.

I was intent on getting some photos here so we took the expensive camera kit, filled our cylinders, Rich gave me an impromptu lesson on his JJ CCR and just as my eyes began to glaze over, the bottles were ready and we went diving.

The Sorgues is geologically beautiful, with calcite ridges protruding from the floor and almost perfectly square passages with boulder strewn floors. Rippled sand catches the light as you swim mid passage, able to see your own shadow on the floor in the video lights.

The average depth is about 26m so you have just enough time to go to the 'end' and back within decompression limits. We were taking our time over photos and carrying a heavy tripod to mount the back-lights was a little tricky, so we didn't quite reach the end but we weren't far off when we turned for home.

Chris in the Sorgues. Photo: Richard Walker