Fearless do Kendal
Louise Minchin, Caroline Bramwell, Christine Grosart, Cath Pendleton, Imogen Sykes
“Reveille Reveille Reveille!”
Cath Pendleton’s strong Welsh accent reverberated through the Fearless house.
Christ on a bike. Was it that time already?
We were all getting up to go swimming in Lake Windermere. In November. In the rain. As you do….
The Fearless gang, some of us anyway, had headed up to the Kendal Mountain Festival for a weekend of cycling, swimming, running, kayaking, watching inspirational talks and films, catching up with friends and getting Louise Minchin tipsy, so she had to run a 10km off road race with a hangover!
The weather was its usual November offering in the Lake District – grey and drizzly. Not put off, a gang of us headed North with bikes, kayaks and our tow floats and moved into an Air BNB for a long weekend.
The Ice Queen ‘Merthyr Mermaid’ Cath Pendleton swims in Windermere
I was super keen to go for a bike ride with Caroline Bramwell, who wrote ‘Loo Rolls to Lycra’ – her ironman journey with a stoma. I was also keen to go swimming with Cath Pendleton, known as the Merthyr Mermaid. If you haven’t seen the documentary about her Antarctic swimming, it’s an absolute must. No wetsuits here. She did it in her cozzie.
I’m not into this ice swimming lark so I took my wetsuit, which I was still getting used to. This didn’t stop the snatched intake of breath when I put my face in the water. It was cold. Very cold.
I put Caroline, who had done her swim, into my sea kayak so she could shoot some video. With her hands tied up with cameras, she started to drift down Windermere as she handed me different sets of swimming goggles to try on. My open water ones leaked, so I was after another pair.
While Cath was off networking at the festival, Caroline and I set off for a cold and really rather hilly bike ride. Our plans to cross Windermere with our bikes and ride down the opposite side of the lake were thwarted when a big sign said the ferry was closed. Arse.
Ladies that do cycling
Caroline Bramwell and Christine Grosart
This meant a bit of a different route, taking in a main road with quite aggressive traffic but we managed and finished our 39-mile ride in the nick of time to get back for a shower, change, quick slap of makeup and a taxi into Kendal for Louise Minchin’s gig on stage.
Safely in the VIP lounge at the festival, we prepared to go on stage. I was feeling much less nervous as there is nothing like having done something before, to quash the fear. Something I reiterated when Louise asked her ‘panel’ how to manage fear. Fear isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it keeps you alert and aware as to what can go wrong. Fear can be healthy. But when fear turns to terror, that is the time to call it a day.
I’d spoken at Kendal in 2018 and knew the audience would be kind. I’d also spoken on Fearless in Chester at the book launch, so with these under my belt and with a great presenter, we were in safe hands.
Cath Pendleton, Christine Grosart, Caroline Bramwell, Louise Minchin
Our view from on stage
Flanked by Caroline Bramwell and Cath Pendleton, we were more like Fearsome than Fearless, and the session was fun and heart-warming. What I hadn’t banked on was a book signing afterwards. Fully expecting to leave that to Louise and sneak away to catch my caving friends over at the Petzl Underground Session, I got roped into also signing the books as the queue spilled out of the door. Cath and Caroline were well ahead of the game and had wonderful little straplines to write alongside their signature.
Armed with a sharpie, feeling a total fraud, I just signed my name. This was not at all what I was used to, and I could see Caroline was struggling with the same imposter syndrome.
Cath got around her nerves by talking to everyone at length and making the queue go even slower. It was exhausting and humbling.
Finally, book signing done, we headed to the local Pizza express for a well-earned meal and drink, catching up with the ladies from Her Spirit too.
The group thinned out a bit as we went on a bit of a mission to find a nice pub afterwards.
It was of no consequence to us that Louise had a 10km trail running race to do the next morning, as we continued to top up her wine glass.
Trying to hide Louise Minchin in a pub takes quite some doing and it wasn’t long before folk started staring and whispering and one slightly worse for wear held her captive in a one-way conversation for a while.
I can’t imagine being so famous that you are recognised wherever you go. Thank goodness for online shopping I’ll bet!
We spent the last day of the festival actually watching some films and talks we had planned to see. I particularly enjoyed finally meeting Jenny Graham and hearing about her round the world cycling endeavours. As the weekend drew to a close we all headed home in the grizzly weather exhausted, motivated and with plans afoot for more fearless adventures together.
Fearless
In the summer of 2022, I received a message out of the blue from Louise Minchin.
A quick Google to jog my memory, as I’m not a big viewer of morning telly, and I recognised her straight away.
Take a moment to watch this:
Louise had delivered the daily news from the BBC Breakfast red sofa for many years, getting up before the sparrows to provide that familiar, friendly face that everyone takes for granted while they get ready for work.
Louise was writing a book about amazing women doing amazing things. My immediate reaction was to cringe and pull a face. I don’t consider myself amazing nor what I do as amazing, especially among my peer group which comprises cavers and cave divers significantly better than me.
Louise and her team had been doing their homework and wanted me to take her caving, something she had never done before, and she was super excited about it.
Louise Minchin tries caving. Image: Christine Grosart
Trying to line up two very busy women’s schedules was a battle, but we got there. Louise did brilliantly in her first trip underground, not least because she had kept a lid on her very real fear of claustrophobia throughout.
Almost a year on, following several more adventures with some amazing women, Louise was ready to launch her book, ‘Fearless’.
I was invited to a book launch in Chester, which wasn’t really on my route home from my trip offshore on the diving vessel, Seven Kestrel. Even worse, the ship was due to crew change in Great Yarmouth. This was going to be a hire car job, going round the houses to get to Chester before heading south back home to Somerset.
My office. DSV Seven Kestrel.
Luckily our crew change was on time, and I started driving. I didn’t really have any nice clothes and no time to go shopping. I wasn’t too worried as it was only a book signing, probably in the front window of the local WH Smith or something.
As I got closer to Chester, the WhatsApp messages started to ping about.
“Is there anywhere to change?” I asked, fully expecting to change in the car park.
“Oh yes you can use my dressing room” Louise said. How posh I thought. They have a dressing room in WH Smith? Perhaps it was a Waterstones.
Who knew?
As I got within a few hours of arrival I re-routed my sat nav to the address Louise had given us all. The Playhouse, Chester.
Hm. That’s not a bookshop.
I parked the car and walked into quite a large building. It soon became apparent that Louise had booked the whole thing. It also became apparent that the throngs of people gathering at the bar had all come to see her – and us!
Louise Minchin - ready to launch her book.
We were going to be on stage to talk about our respective chapters in her book.
Oh crikey.
I ran up to her dressing room – which had lamps all around the mirror and everything – and had a quick shower and tried to look presentable. Not easy when you have been at sea for a month and up since 6am.
Note to self – don’t complain to a BBC Breakfast presenter about early mornings!!
I managed to find some of the other women in her book.
Caroline Bramwell sent her description over WhatsApp, and I found her and a few others at the restaurant table.
Caroline had taken up Ironman distance triathlons in later life, having been a self-described couch potato. But that wasn’t the end of the story. Caroline had suffered for many years with ulcerative colitis. After years of suffering, she ended up with a stoma bag.
This is something that many people would feel was life limiting, even life ending – there were people in my family and family friends who had stomas, some with devastating outcomes.
They certainly hadn’t taken up triathlon soon after.
Caroline was a true inspiration and kindly sent me a copy of her book ‘Loo Rolls to Lycra”. Between her and Louise Minchin, I was hooked on the idea of triathlon. Now that I had learned to ride a bike, there was no excuse anymore.
Also sitting at the table were women who had yet to reach my radar. Shamefully (but not my fault) ‘Fearless’ had been sent to my house – but I had not seen my house for a month!
I had not had the chance to read it. I had absolutely no clue who these women were or what part they had played in Louise’s mission to celebrate women doing incredible things.
The whole thing had come about because someone had pointed out to Louise that, whenever BBC Breakfast came on, her male co-host would always introduce the programme, followed up by the female co-presenter Louise, playing second fiddle. When Louise challenged the BBC about this, they said it was because ‘that’s the way it has always been’.
Not really good enough.
Furthermore, Louise was getting tired of hosting men who had done world record this or adventurous that.
Where were all the women?
Weren’t they doing these amazing things or were we just not hearing about them?
The calm before the storm. Signing as many books as she physically can.
Louise went on a mission to find out who these women were, doing the business and to celebrate their achievements; from swimming the channel to the most southerly ice mile; swimming Alcatraz to free diving under ice – in the dark – to cycling across Argentina and of course, caving with me!
It took a while to sink in that there were quite a lot of women out there doing hard core things, amazing things, fearlessly all over the country and the globe in fact – but Louise had whittled them all down to just 18 women. And I was one of them. In fact, until I sat here writing this, that had not really registered at all with me.
Louise Minchin, Caroline Bramwell, Lucy Gossage, Rhian Mannings
I Googled the book and read the reviews from Waterstones book shop.
It had been read by Sir Chris Hoy and Dame Kelly Holmes! They had read about my cave diving adventures. That was just bizarre. I do rather like Dame Kelly Holmes…
Wow - I loved this book. What a wonderful celebration of women's courage, resilience and endeavour. ― Dame Kelly Holmes.
I made my way up to Louise’s dressing room, where she was surrounded by her close entourage and half buried in a landslide of copies of her book, as she tried to sign as many as she could.
After a time, we all started to make our way to our seats in the rather large theatre.
It was packed.
Louise found it hilariously funny that I still thought the whole affair was going to be in a high street book shop!
Whilst the Fearless ladies got deep into conversation, an older gentleman, dressed in tweed and with pink trousers, very well spoken, approached us and asked what our roles were in the book.
“Who’s he?” we mouthed.
“I dunno. Just play along…”
We entertained him for a bit, still wondering who he was and why he was asking so many questions.
A while later Louise appeared out of nowhere and swooshed in to give him a kiss and said “Oh you’ve met my Dad!!”
Let the ground please swallow us up, whole…
It turns out Louise’s Dad is the epitome of the word gentleman and I felt a pang of slight jealousy that her father was so interested in everything she did and was so proud of her. I guess not all fathers are made the same.
Louise was introduced and soon came on stage looking amazing and relaxed as she always does, well-polished after 20 years on live TV.
I looked like something the cat had dragged in.
We were going to be called on stage in groups of four and with no briefing at all, invited into discussion about our respective chapters in the book.
There was method to this madness. Louise wanted an unbriefed, honest discussion with the women in her book and we trusted her entirely to lead us through it and she would never trick us or trip us up.
Louise Minchin, Kadeena Cox, Cath Pendleton, Vivienne Rickman
The evening was incredibly enjoyable and as it went on, all the women in the book, as well as the audience, were being incredibly inspired.
My mind started whirring about what things were possible and how I’d limited myself to being a cave diver by identity and a jockey in a previous life.
My second ride over fences, age 21.
I realised that nobody needed to be pigeonholed as only one thing, that nobody is identifiable by just one thing they’ve done. I suppose it is a bit like being typecast; everyone knows Louise Minchin for being on that BBC red sofa but to me, she was identifiable by being an GB triathlete age grouper who had pretty much started from scratch.
Like me, she had been heavily involved in sport as a youth and we had both abandoned it for different reasons.
My previous life.
It opened up my mind in the most incredible way. I knew I’d gained a lot of weight over the years, with no real goal or target to aim at and the only sport I did was really diving.
Once I’d started cycling it created so may new opportunities for me and the weight started to come off.
But I was still held back by my personal life, where I was deeply unhappy. I couldn’t really be myself unless I was by myself.
I was fed up with conforming to what other people wanted when they gave so little back. My remaining family were much the same – only bringing problems and no positivity at all. So, I created distance there as well.
With my newfound freedom, having removed the ‘mood hoovers’ as I call them, my whole world opened up in front of me and I could breathe again.
Lucy Gossage, an oncologist and ultra-runner and triathlete, winning Ironmans and all sorts, put it very well when she said that she was so lucky to have a body that functioned and allowed her to do these things. She saw being able to do things that other people find too hard, was a privilege and she almost felt it was a crime not to take advantage of that.
Don’t mess with this lot! I don’t know how many GB medals, ironmans or channel crossings are in that lot, but quite a few!!
I came away from that incredible evening slightly hungover and incredibly motivated.
It gave me permission to be me again.
And for that, I cannot thank Louise and the other 17 Fearless women enough.
In chapter order:
1. Anaya and Mitali Khanzode – Escape from Alcatraz
2. Christine Grosart – Wild Caving
3. Cath Pendleton – Freediving Under Ice in the Dark
4. Belinda Kirk – Overnight Dartmoor Crossing
5. Zainab (Zee) Alema – Rugby
6. Sophie Storm Roberts – Cycling
7. Mollie Hughes – Mountaineering
8. Caroline Bramwell – Long Course Triathlon
9. Lucy Gossage – Team Hike Bike and Paddle Board
10. Vivienne Rickman – Mountain Swimming
11. Kadeena Cox – Indoor Track Cycling
12. Rhian Mannings – Hiking
13. Mimi Anderson – 1200km Cycle Across Argentina
14. Lizzie Carr – Stand Up Paddleboarding
15. Anoushé Husain – Indoor Climbing
16. Rhiane Fatinikun – Hiking
17. Susie Chan – Ultrarunning
Conger Conger
I've been trying to get to grips with some scientific names for various marine critters. They tend to be formed from genus, species and sometimes order and class.
The easiest one to remember is 'Conger Conger'. Not very imaginative and I guess, in a class of it's own.
This one in Lyme Regis, Dorset was in a cage of it's own.
It had got itself trapped in a large, lost fishing pot, doubtless looking for an easy meal. A spider crab cowered nervously in the corner and the eel was stuck fast through the netting, unable to go forward or back with no chance of escape.
The charity Ghost Fishing UK had been tipped off about two lost pots which had got their lines tangled up in an old diving shot line and subsequently snapped off, abandoning them on the seabed.
Now, both the shot line and the lost pots were threatening unwitting wildlife.
As part of a 5-day marathon effort by the charity and its volunteers, not aided by Covid-19 restrictions and ever changing legislation, a team of 6 divers set out from Lyme Regis to dive the Heroine. Consisting mainly of brick cargo and conger eels, this fairly flat wreck had snagged both a shot line and string of pots, the latter laying hopelessly on the seabed just next to the wreck.
I was on the camera again, using my new Canon 100D and Ikelite housing set up, with Ikelite strobes and snapped some shots of Andy Rath collecting up the old shot rope, made mostly from polyprop. Floating neutrally buoyant, it was a very real hazard for divers, cetaceans and boat propellers alike.
Once removed, the pots eluded us until the other team jumped in to join us. It wasn’t long before we found a large, lost cage just off the wreck and stuck fast, a resident conger eel.
The pots had been there an estimated week or so. The conger wasn’t in bad condition and his cellmate, a nervous spider crab, cowered in the corner, trying hard not to be his next lunch.
I got in close and set about the camera.
Scuba divers are the eyes of the ocean and without underwater images and video, the public remains completely unaware of what is going on beneath the waves. How can anyone care about something they cannot even see or simply just don’t know about?
Satisfied with my images, Fred gave me an OK question signal to which I replied ‘OK’ I was done.
I did not expect what happened next, as Fred immediately opened the lid of the cage!
I screamed through my regulator, climbed over Andy leaving him confused and dishevelled and hid well out of the way, expecting the conger to sense freedom and set about immediately biting me.
Of course, nothing of the sort happened. Fred spent the next 5 minutes trying everything he could to get the conger out of the cage.
He tipped it on its side, shook it about, cut away some of the net which the conger was ensnared in and even tried to remove it by its tail. He wouldn’t budge.
Eventually, after more persuasion the conger slipped slowly and unceremoniously out of the cage and swam nonchalantly off along the sand to head back to his lair in the piles of bricks.
The grateful spider crab also made a break for it at a significantly quicker pace and the team set about raising the pots to the surface.
The pots were returned to their owners in an attempt to work up relationships with the local fishing community. Without their trust, we will not be able to get information where fishing gear has been lost and won’t stand a hope of recovering it before it does untold, wasteful damage.
To be a Fellow
"Dear Miss Grosart,
I am writing to confirm your successful application for Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)."
Well.
That's not something I ever expected!
Someone at work asked me why I explored caves. What did I get out of it?
They didn't see the attraction.
There's no money in it. In fact, it drains your own personal finances. No prestige.
No job prospects. No gold medal. Rarely any recognition other than the occasional nod of approval from your mates in the pub that night.
You get to call a piece of this planet your own for an unknown period of time - until that is, another human goes there after you. Until then, it's yours.
But honestly? Nobody really cares.
The Royal Geographical Society (RGS) is the United Kingdom's learned society and professional body for geography, founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences.
Today, it is the leading centre for geographers and geographical learning.
The Society has over 16,500 members, with its work reaching the public through publications, research groups and lectures.
Through my work with Ghost Fishing UK, I had come to the attention of Paul Rose, the popular explorer, former vice president of the RGS and tv presenter.
My CV, which was rather rather unsung, showed many years of cave diving exploration in France and Croatia.
Chris preparing to push the sump at the end of the Garrel
I was mapping new, uncharted territory in stunning underwater caves across Europe but very few people knew of it and even less cared.
One of my favourite pastimes is making films about exploration. I want to share our discoveries and show the diving world what goes into virgin exploration, going literally where no other human has ever been.
I never take myself too seriously though - it is meant to be fun after all! There is usually a healthy selection of outtakes to bring me back down to earth.
It meant the world to me and that's why I do it.
The primary reason for Paul's interest was the charity Ghost Fishing UK which was ground breaking, with the largest single collective of divers in the world, the first training course in the recovery of ghost gear and a powerful database of locations, types and impact of ghost gear in British waters.
Run entirely by volunteers, it had changed the lives of over 70 divers and was starting to make a real impact on the perceptions of the marine environment and the damage ghost gear can do, to not only the diving world but the general public.
A long standing, massive issue that was largely taboo and very much hushed up and overlooked, was now being exposed.
An estimated 640,000 tonnes of fishing gear is lost into our oceans on a global scale each year. Whilst great strides and efforts had been made to manage fish stocks and sustainability, huge fuss being made about super trawlers and fighting over fishing grounds...the fact that every commercial fishing vessel has at some point lost or abandoned fishing gear to the ocean to continue ghost fishing, had not even been considered.
My role in the charity covers lots of areas. I set out as a trustee and secretary, while my underwater role tends to always be videography and photography. An image speaks a thousand words, especially to the non diving public, so this is an area I am quite devoted to. I also make films, short AVs and documentaries about Ghost Fishing. I do all the press releases and connect with the fishing communities and make hard won friends and connections who are nervous of our intentions. I call myself the charity ‘dogsbody’.
Ghost Fishing diver. Image: Christine Grosart
I've taught myself all about sound recording, underwater videography, lighting and getting the most out of Adobe Premiere Pro.
I hate not being able to do something - if I can't do it, I have to go and learn how!
It took months and months of work to build, write and test the Ghost Fishing UK training course.
Run over 3 days it is designed to turn carefully selected divers into Ghost Fishing divers, who can work safely as a tight team, in close proximity to ghost nets.
It is immensely satisfying work but very, very time consuming and I admit to struggling to combine both cave exploration with running a charity full time and holding down a high profile job for a significant company offshore.
But hey, you're only on this planet once, I believe, so it is my mission to make the most of it and record as much as I can for posterity, inspiration and creating fond memories to look back on.
Lockdown Litter - Time to take a stand?
"Do you think that's cider?"
I asked my next door neighbour, Redd, as we poked through the brambles on the side of the road with our litter pickers.
It was a cold, slightly windy and very dull grey day. We were in the middle of the longest lock down ever and so utterly bored and fed up that we decided to start cycling.
It was during our tentative, lung bursting wobbles around the village that we were both noticing horrendous amounts of litter.
“Mate…that’s not cider….”
I did wonder. I mean, why would you drink some of it and then put the lid back on the 1 litre plastic bottle, then chuck it in the hedge?
How naïve. I’m a Paramedic as well, so the smell as I emptied it should have been a clue.
Just gross.
Turns out, the lorry drivers that have been visiting the village industrial estate have been parking up for the night or for a few hours to take their rest periods - and without toilet facilities, have been peeing in bottles and chucking them into our hedgerows.
Single use face masks. The latest scourge. Once in our drains, they are in our waterways and cause blockages - the least of our concerns.
A new blight was also noticeable, mostly within a short range of our village ‘hub’ the Co-Op convenience store. This seemed to be the final resting place for 15 of the 31 single use face masks we found.
According to the Marine Conservation Society’s Great British Beach Clean 2020 results, Personal protective Equipment (PPE) was significantly increased.
Face masks and gloves were found on almost 30% of beaches during the clean-up. The Source to Sea Litter Quest data showed that more than two thirds (69%) of litter picks finding PPE items such as masks and gloves.
Further down the road, drinks bottles, food containers, takeaway cartons and even full bags of litter thrown from car windows increased in quantity and density.
In one gateway, a pile of plastics had accumulated at the pinch point of a stream, right next to a field where cows were grazing. In another, piles of empty Carling cans densely filled one hedgerow. Someone had clearly had a fun drinking session here, but not only did they forget to take their cans away - they also left the 4-pack plastic yokes behind. Three of them.
Uncut, these can cause horrific injuries to wildlife.
Some companies are now making these yokes not only degradable but edible! Carling claim to have got rid of the plastic yokes but a quick visit to the village Co-Op showed a very different story. There was the puppy - and the poo.
Talking of poo….Redd is a dog owner and is incensed by other dog owners who leave their dog turds lying around on pavements and other people’s driveways. It isn’t surprising either, as the village has several escapees who wander the village by themselves. Presumably the owners neither know nor care.
We recovered over 750 items of litter in just under 4 hours.
Some hero.......Argos - what are you thinking?
At the beginning of February, I embarked on a National Geographic educator course called ‘Collecting Data to Explore Plastic Pollution in Our Communities’. It ties in quite nicely with the data collection work I am doing for the charity I run called Ghost Fishing UK.
Through this course I’ve learned how to create some very powerful and visual results. We did another one in the village on 14th February, just 20 minutes as per the Nat Geo course task.
In just 20 minutes we collected 116 pieces of litter!
If you are interested in doing litter picks, whether in the area you live your favourite beauty spot or on the beach, here are some handy tips to get you started.
Protect Yourself - Use PPE.
Make sure you use gloves and get yourself a litter picker. I definitely recommend a bag hoop to keep your bag open, especially on a windy day.
Get written consent from anyone you take a photo of (you don’t legally need it, but you may with children if you plan on publishing) and complete an easy risk assessment form (Example risk assessment form).
Wear high vizibility jackets, wrap up warm and make sure your phone is full charged.
Data Collection
There are several data collection tools out there - I would argue far too many, as this means all the data is collected differently by different people and there is no standardisation and no central database.
So, it is up to you where you hang your flag and what you use.
Here are some suggestions:
Marine Debris Tracker app
Set up a free account and you can download the data from the CSV file on their website.
This can be imported into Google Earth (instructions below).
Simply choose the list (begin with NOAA if you are new to it, but the Nat Geo list is very comprehensive) and tap on the item of litter each time you bag it. The app follows your route and will drop a pin on a map each time you log a piece of litter.
This is a very powerful tool for collecting geospacial data and provides evidence of litter ‘hotspots’.
To get the map, screen grab the plotted map BEFORE you submit your data
or you won’t be able to get it back!
The app generates some cool graphics which can be screen grabbed from the website.
To make a cool Google Earth KML file, follow these instructions:
1. Go to the Marine Debris Tracker website and download the CSV for your litter pick.
2. Open Google Earth on your computer
3. On your computer, open Google Earth Pro.
4. Click File > Import.
5. Browse to the location of the CSV file and open it.
6. In the box that appears, next to Field Type, choose Delimited.
7. Next to Delimited, choose Comma.
8. Use the preview pane to ensure your data has imported correctly and click Next.
9. Next to "This dataset does not contain latitude/longitude information," leave the box unchecked.
10. Select the fields in your spreadsheet that contain the latitude and longitude data and click Next.
11. Click Finish. Google Earth begins geocoding your data.
12. To use a style template, click Yes.
13. Click OK.
14. Create a new style template, or use a previously generated template.
You should now have all the items you collected, following the path you took. You can also draw a route and measure it using the rule tool in Google Earth, as I have done with the red line here.
Another very cool feature is that you can add images to the litter points to show photos of what was found, where and when.
You can also share your KML file so others can look at your Google Earth litter pick route and see what you found and where.
Village Litter Pick KML 14022021.kmz
Download KMZ • 20.39MB
If you prefer good old paper and pen, then the Marine Conservation Society survey sheet is more than adequate and works fine for inland litter picks as well as beach cleans.
When completed, fill out a summary sheet. Don’t submit it to MCS though unless it was actually done on a beach.
You can track your route and progress using an exercise app such as Strava.
Keep Scotland Beautiful also has a handy survey form. I could not find one for England so please let me know if you come across one.
At the end, I produce a summary sheet along with images as an ‘evidence pack’ and send it to whoever I think will listen. Parish Council, District Council, local papers, local social media - anywhere you think will make people wake up and listen.
Why not let us know how you get on. Have you done a beach clean or litter pick recently? How did it go and what did you find? Where did you send the results?
We would love to hear from you!
Our Village litter pick gallery. A huge thank you to Redd Moon for her company, enthusiasm and bravery in these litter picks!
Going Bubbleless
Learning to cave is the beginning of a whole new adventure.
Where else can you take up a hobby which can lead to exploring parts of this planet where literally, nobody else has ever been? All the mountains have been mapped and most of the ocean floor has been documented.
But nobody knows what lies inside the Earth until somebody goes there.
Many cavers spend their spare time ‘digging’ to remove obstructions in caves such as sand or boulders to open up new cave passages, or even dig open new ones from the surface. I’m far too impatient for that! In order to discover places no human has ever been, I took up cave diving in 2004 and never looked back.
I had mostly used conventional SCUBA equipment, reconfigured for appropriate use in caves.
Following my 2017 exploration in a cave called Izvor Licanke in Croatia, the logistics of using this equipment became a limitation. The cave was deep and we only had enough gas and bottles for one dive on the expedition.
Chris learns her closed circuit rebreather in Egypt
So, I bought a machine called a Closed Circuit Rebreather. It meant learning to dive in a slightly different way and I figured the best way to learn was to get lots of time in the water.
My partner Richard and I headed out to Egypt last summer to take a little break and spend hours getting used to my new equipment. Hopefully, this new rebreather will open up many doors and allow me to explore Licanke even further to discover yet more places unknown to humans.
Image of a clown fish: Christine Grosart, 2017
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
Macro with Mustard
Sunset over the Moray Firth
2020 has been rubbish for everyone. Well, to be clear, everything from terror, bereavement to annoyance and fury and my favourite one, disappointment.
This year I lost one of my closest friends when she took her own life. She was one of the strongest, toughest women I knew. So there but for the grace of god go any of us.
I was joining in with a British Society of Underwater Photographers (BSOUP) online meeting where we oggle the winners of the latest monthly competition.
That is where I heard about an underwater photography workshop being run in the UK by Alex Mustard.
Alex has a long standing reputation for being one of the best underwater photographers in the world and for once, I was not only available on the dates but had the cash (just about!)
I ummed and ahhed about it, thinking that I was nowhere near ready to be attempting a course for seasoned photographers to hone their skills.
I was barely starting out and really had no clue what I was doing. Rich pointed out that I'd had a pretty underwhelming year and this was my chance to do something fun, for myself.
So, I contacted the agent at Scubatravel who were absolutely superb, especially with the ever present threat of 'cancellation due to covid)' and I signed up.
Scotland
The cool thing about this photography workshop is that it really was remote.
8 hours after I had set off from the Dales following some caving and diving, I was still driving in the dark, howling wind and sideways rain along a single track road with thankfully plentiful passing places and DEER!!!
I slammed on the brakes and screeched to a halt.
There, in my headlights, staring right at me was a big, beautiful stag.
Nobody else was about and through the driving rain I could see him, staring right at me. He stood for a while until nonchalantly wandering off into the undergrowth and the dark.
Thereby followed a hairy drive in the dark and weather, dodging deer a plenty.
Obviously, I had all the wrong lenses for photographing Scottish wildlife above water!
It seemed to take forever to get to Kinlochbervie and then 10 minutes of complete darkness later, the bungalow where we were staying for the week.
We exchanged greetings in a covid fashion and fed ourselves, before Alex set out a plan for the week. We met Chris and Cathy from Kinlochbervie Dive Centre (formerly Northeast Dive) who were our hosts for the week. Cathy is no shabby photographer either! They looked after us well and we were never short of gas, hot drinks and biscuits.
The weather was not going to be favourable and the chances of getting outside the loch to photograph wide angle vistas, slim. But I was on such a steep learning curve I was secretly pleased to just be able to work on my macro.
Sealoch anemone, Kinlochbervie. Image: Christine Grosart
I'm no marine biologist and have a LOT to learn about marine critters. This is kind of cool for me because I get a lot pf enjoyment out of learning about their behaviour, making friends with them underwater and slowing down to a halt to watch their little worlds unfold.
I watched for ages as a hermit crab tried to climb a vertical 'wall' of encrusting pink algae...only to fall off as he approached the top and had to start all over again. He looked miffed.
I watched another hermit crab trying out a new shell for size and a very angsty pair of squat lobsters joining up to defend themselves against me while I tried to get a decent shot.
Then I spent a while photographing two queen scallops when the long arm of a large starfish came into view. My shot was being photobombed by a starfish! I knew as soon as the arm touched the queenie they would be off and, sure enough, the starfish prodded the scallops and they were gone, stropping off into the silt.
Scallop. Image: Christine Grosart
Alex has quite a hands off approach to workshops and you learn things without even realising it!
He ran a lecture most nights, expanding our horizons with ideas many of us hadn't thought of. I was in good company with well established and award winning photographers such as Kirsty Andrews, so we were able to learn from each other too.
Details such as giving as much consideration to your background as your subject, really improved my images. The workshop gave us 'permission' to try things out, make mistakes, get better and the real value was that everybody on the boat was aiming for the same thing and we all had the same agenda.
Thinking about the background. Image: Christine Grosart
In the evenings we'd have a talk from Alex and a show and tell of some of our best images of the day.
The logistics meant we could do two dives of at least an hour each day with a decent surface interval back at Kinlochbervie, whilst being back at the bungalow nice and early evening to have the time to go through our images and fettle them.
This was probably the biggest benefit of the workshops. Mostly on diving trips, I can be up until 1am still sorting images from the day, especially on Ghost Fishing missions where the media needs to be out and with the press the next day or even the same day.
My set up is relatively cheap and all but the camera is second hand. I use a cheap, small and lightweight Canon 100D which is use mainly for cave photography.
It is limited with things like ISO but I enjoy wringing out the camera's capabilities which still exceed my own.
I bought the housing from a forum for a steal and then spent the same again on strobes, arms, clamps and lenses.
For this trip I used a Canon EFS 60mm f/2.8Macro USM lens. I have a Tokina fisheye but as we were unable to leave the sea loch to to weather, never got to use it on this course.
Toady. Image: Christine Grosart
It didn't matter though as I had a tonne of fun with all sorts of creatures, getting closer...then closer still and looking for that all important background.
My photography definitely progressed in only four days and I am so grateful for the opportunity to learn with a true master of underwater photography. I am enjoying so much and cannot wait to get back into the water to get snapping again.
King scallops. Images: Christine Grosart
Hermit crab, dressed for Vegas…Image: Christine Grosart
Dahlia anemone. Image: Christine Grosart
Squat lobsters. Images: Christine Grosart
Feather star. Image: Christine Grosart
Feather star. Image: Christine Grosart
Sea Loch Anemone. Image: Christine Grosart
Not bad for a sh*thole!
Ever since my early twenties I’ve had a ‘target list’ for the year. I’ve never let a year pass me by without aiming to achieve several very cool things.
One such mission has been on my ‘target list’ for over 15 years, rolling over to the next year each time.
Keld Head is an iconic cave dive, which yielded the longest cave diving traverse in the world in 1979, conducted by Geoff Yeadon and Oliver 'Bear' Statham - a notorious duo who were also responsible for discovering several of my favourite cave diving haunts, such as Wookey Hole chamber 24 and Boreham Cave.
Geoff Crossley and Christine at Keld Head
Owing to a myriad of excuses - and I admit to have almost given up on the weather - I had never dived there. Yorkshire is a long way from my home, access to Keld had been difficult and it needed to stop raining for weeks on end. I simply found other things to do, but it never went away.
The world record traverse was eventually superseded by a dive in Florida, USA between Sullivan to Cheryl Sink, which forms part of the Wakulla Springs system.
The two systems are polar opposites in terms of atmosphere, geology and the style needed to tackle them.
I've been fortunate enough to stick my beak into both caves now. I adored Keld Head and it felt homely and familiar.
Wakulla scared the living daylights out of me - it's just a big, black hurricane and I was more than happy to mooch about in the head pool photographing manatees than go much of a distance in.
Horses for courses I guess. Olivier Isler, a record breaking cave diver himself, once said of UK caves:
"I know in England the caves are very small, the water is very cold, and you cannot see anything. Those are very difficult & dangerous conditions.”
To achieve a world record in a British cave is not to be sniffed at.
'The Underground Eiger' documenting the worlds longest cave diving traverse in 1979.
Access to Keld was fraught for many years, including those when I began cave diving and I never thought that things would change during my cave diving lifetime.
They did, a little, and members of the Cave Diving Group began to have tentative access again.
Chris, Martin and Geoff Crossley kit up while Geoff Yeadon watches on.
But that wasn’t the only problem. For most caves in the peat-ridden Yorkshire Dales to be diveable, it needs to stop raining. That’s a hoot in itself, but it doesn’t stop there.
It needs to stop raining for at least 3 weeks. Cave explorer Geoff Yeadon, responsible for both the discoveries and the record breaking first traverses from Kingsdale Master Cave and King Pot through to Keld Head, told me dryly that it was more like 3 months bone dry weather before conditions were tip top.
Given the warmer, wetter weather us humans have caused by global warming, my generation can probably shelve ‘tip top conditions’ for a while.
The longest dive, following Geoff Yeadon and Geoff Crossley as they connected King Pot to Keld Head.
Given the fast changing nature of pretty much everything thanks to Covid-19, I decided to pack my life into my Spacetourer and drive to Scotland to work on the DSV Boka Atlantis. I also threw in my sidemount cave diving kit…just in case!
Geoff and chris getting ready
It would be a shame to drive home past Yorkshire just as Keld Head was in condition - sans diving gear!
I disembarked the vessel and stopped off at my friend and fellow dive medic Danny’s house.
We jumped into St Abbs for a cheeky shore dive before it occurred to me to drop a message to Geoff Crossley, asking if on the off chance, Keld was diveable.
It was - and furthermore, he adjusted his weekend and his family at super short notice to accommodate me and join me in the cave. I’m so lucky to have just the best friends!
Geoff Crossley joined Geoff Yeadon in 1991 to complete the first traverse of King Pot to Keld Head.
As I drove the few hours down to the Dales, I was super excited to learn that Geoff Yeadon himself, now president of the CDG, was going to come along as well to supervise!
We were also joined by Martin Holroyd and after kitting up in the most idyllic setting, the perfect resurgence in the yawning, remote Kingsdale valley, we set off.
The water was typical for Yorkshire, with a yellow tinge from the peat staining. I followed Geoff who navigated the slightly complex entrance series and then headed off up some larger passages, straight into the hillside.
On some occasions I could only see one wall and not the other and before long, I couldn’t see the roof either. It was certainly spacious although the visibility prevented a good view of the whole passage.
After about 35 minutes of swimming, in 7 degrees water temperature, despite not being close to thirds my bladder pressure forced a return. In my haste to pack the car, I had forgotten my She-P. It was time to go home.
We had got about 750 metres back into the cave which is a decent day out for a British cave dive, when we turned for home.
I took a Paralenz on a tray with very bright video lights with me and managed to capture some nice footage of my first trip into Keld.
In my typical style, I’d stashed a mini bottle of prosecco in the head pool for afterwards.
Despite some covid restrictions being lifted, finding a pub that would feed us all was problematic. I was tipped off that my CDG trainee Mark Burkey was in town with his wife Jess, so after some creative phone calls we managed to find a pub that would feed us outside.
Settling down to a beer and fish and chips, surrounded by some of the best people on the planet, I began to realise just how lucky I was and after some of the darkest days of covid, began to see light again.
I pulled out the video footage of our dive for everyone to look at. Describing the dive to Mark, I commented: “And then we got to this junction where Geoff led me up some sh*thole…….”
The table fell silent.
“Some sh*thole?!!” Crossley said, outraged; “That was the main passage!!”
The table fell about laughing and muttered in there somewhere were comments of desperation from the original explorers about not being able to please some people!
Definitely something I will never live down!
Geoff Yeadon, Christine Grosart, Geoff Crossley
National Caving Conference & Thai Cave Rescue
Thai cave rescue team of cave divers.
While we were safely out of mobile phone signal with no internet in Fuzine, Croatia, a situation was unfolding in Thailand that was unparalleled in history. In June, a young male soccer team and their coach had ventured into a cave called Tham Luang in Thailand. It was a common thing to do. The boys left their push bikes by the entrance and headed off inside the cave for an adventure.
Then it rained. It rained a lot and the rain was early.
The water levels in the cave rose and the boys found themselves trapped by rapidly rising flood water and had to retreat even further into the cave to find higher ground.
There, they waited. The eyes of the world was on Tham Luang while the authorities tried to work out what to do.
I wasn’t surprised to hear that key members of the Cave Diving Group, some of whom had experience of underwater evacuations, had been called in.
The rest of the story is well known, so I won’t need to repeat it here.
It was great to see the guys back among their peers at Hidden Earth, the national caving conference and they had a very long, standing ovation from the main theatre which was overflowing.
Thai cave rescue divers from the Cave Diving Group at Hidden Earth 2018
With some help from some friends, we ran a try dive session in the pool and also won the ‘Best stand’ award of the conference for the Cave Diving Group.
Several months later I was quite surprised to receive an invitation to Westminster for one of many events celebrating the successful rescue of the 12 boys and their coach.
Confused, as despite being the CDG foreign officer, I’d been out of phone contact at the time and can safely say I’d had absolutely nothing to do with the whole affair – I replied thank you but I think the email has been sent to me in error.
I received a reply that the invitation was intended for the ‘great and good’ of the Cave Diving Group and was our opportunity to honour the guys that had rescued the children. An event for their peers, if you like.
It sounded like it would be a nice event and not something that happens every day.
I jumped on a train to London and we had all been put up in a swanky hotel before taking over the whole of Prezzos for a cracking evening and a great opportunity to catch up with friends, some of us who hadn’t seen each other for years.
The poor couple in the corner trying to have a romantic dinner for two must have wondered what was going on and how they ended up in the middle of this riff raff. I often wonder if they ever worked out who the guys were that stood together to have their photos taken.
The next day we had an invitation to drink the speakers chamber dry and eat all their food. Mr Speaker, Rt. Hon. John Bercow gave a good speech and we were given a tour of the houses of parliament before making our ways home.
Several months later, I was contacted by a member of Coventry BSAC who asked for Rick Stanton’s details as they wanted to make him an honorary member.
Rick had been unofficially “borrowing” their pool for years and now it looked like he was set up for life!
Rick graciously accepted and went to the dive club’s AGM dinner.
At one point in the evening, the compere asked what was the most unusual thing anyone had ever found underwater.
Rick put his hand up immediately and said “12 boys and a football coach!”
Emme Heron, Rick Stanton, Christine Grosart, Clive Westlake, Jim Lister.