2024 Mash Up
2024 left me gobsmacked. So many things I’ve always wanted to do, a bucket list of joy and so devastatingly interrupted by the passing of my Uncle Phil. I needed sport more than ever to keep me going.
Sitting around doing nothing is not a good way to recover from loss.
Not for me, anyway.
I trained in #lanzarote and #mallorca , climbed #sacalobra (again) completed my first #ironman 70.3 in Venice (when sick!) raced #annecy #triathlon olympic distance, went paragliding over #lakeannecy climbed #alpedhuez for real, learned to fly a drone @djiglobal sea kayaked the length of #menorca camping on sandy beaches with just the best people @muchbetteradventures raced Weymouth 10k, circumnavigated #portland by kayak with @channeleventsuk and saw a dolphin, learned to roll my kayak (work in progress) Dived with #lundy seals and bought some shares in racehorses!! I don’t think I’ve been caving or cave diving once, but there is more to life and I’ll get back to it when the mood takes me.
People keep trying to get me to slow down. Why would you do that? I like my life how it is. Why would I want to slow down? Life is too short, so make the best of it now. It’s not a dress rehearsal....
Lundy
Arrival on Lundy Island
I live only a few hours’ drive from the North Devon coast. It is shameful therefore that in my 20 or so years of diving, I had never visited the island of Lundy.
But perhaps not that shameful.
Lundy is a small island, only 3 miles long, that sits 10 nautical miles off the North Devon coast. Day trippers sail on the regular ferry MS Oldenburg from Ilfracombe to visit the protected and preserved island, which is home to puffins and seals, one campsite, a pub and 3 lighthouses.
Lundy is protected under a Marine Conservation Zone designation as well as a Marine protected area and the reefs surrounding the island are a strict ‘no take’ zone. This has allowed the underwater flora and fauna to flourish.
Dive boat for the weekend
Situated where the Atlantic meets the Bristol Channel, big seas meet a large tidal range and consequently, boat rides to Lundy can be ‘bracing’.
It is for this reason every trip I have ever attempted has been ‘blown out’. There just wasn’t a safe weather window for the dive boat to transit.
So, after a Facebook message from a diving friend, making an attempt at a trip in August – seal pup season – I thought I’d have another shot. As the date approached, the weather forecast deteriorated and I envisaged yet another failure at trying to get to Lundy Island.
It turned out that the Friday was a no-go. But Saturday and Sunday looked promising, if a little wild.
Whilst we would be too late for the puffins, it was optimal time for last year’s seal pups to come out to play.
On board with Kirsty Andrews, top drawer underwater photographer.
I drove down to Ilfracombe the evening before to stay with a friend, Caroline Bramwell, who has competed in Ironman distance races with a stoma. She also featured in Louise Minchin’s ‘Fearless’ and it was great to catch up with her and spend an evening overlooking the harbour, putting the world to rights.
The next morning the heavens opened. Sideways rain greeted us as we tried to get our cars as close to the boat as possible to unload diving cylinders, camping kit and tonnes of camera equipment.
Boat loaded and cars parked up for the weekend, among throngs of anorak clad tourists, we set off towards an island that we couldn’t even see.
Bone dry diving with my trusty Santi Elite drysuit
As soon as we left the harbour, we knew it would be a rough ride. The catamaran took off out of the water as we battled waves all the way out to the island and it only really settled after 90 minutes of not being able to stand up.
Divers hunkered down with looks of concentration on their faces as they tried not to throw up.
As we arrived, whilst still windy, the island looked wild, with blue skies and turquoise waters. We passed all the camping gear up onto the jetty and it was loaded into a landrover to be taken up the steep hill to the campsite, where we would be staying later.
Now it was time to dive.
Smiling for the camera. Image: Christine Grosart. Camera: Canon EOS 100D, Ikelite housing and strobes.
As the boat swung round and chugged into a sheltered bay, there they were. Waiting. You could almost see them tapping their watches; “Where have you been?”
The Lundy seals were in full chorus and at the sight of the dive boat, they flopped their way ungracefully off the sloping rocks and into the water to bob about, and wait.
We kitted up, cameras checked, buddy checks done and in our own leisurely time owing to no tides, we jumped off the boat and into the turquoise, clear, cool water.
Image: Christine Grosart. Camera: Canon EOS 100D, Ikelite housing and strobes.
“Don’t go looking for them….they will find you” was the instruction, along with general seal encounter etiquette.
“And if the come up and cuddle you….don’t cuddle them back!” Apparently, they can be covered in all sorts of bugs and nasties.
Seals are endangered and their behaviour suggests they know it. It wasn’t long before we caught glimpses of large, white and grey bodies flashing past as they sussed us out.
They are behind you - always behind you - as this is where they feel most on control. If you turn around to make eye contact, they vanish, quick as a flash.
Knowing this, I decided to experiment with my relatively new toy, an underwater housing for my Insta 360 camera.
My buddy Matt and I went through our pre dive checks and jumped into the inviting dark blue-green water.
My buddy, Matt
Dark round heads popped up and howling could be heard from the beach. You could almost see the seals tapping their watches and telling each other “The divers are here!”
We swam slowly towards the rocks, staying pretty shallow and fiddling with our cameras, getting the settings right, making sure the strobes were firing. I unravelled my selfie sick for the insta 360 and filmed a little bit of us swimming just to check it was all working. There was no sign of any seals just yet.
When I got back home and checked the footage, swinging the camera view around to look behind me, there were three seals quietly following us the whole time!
Image: Christine Grosart. Camera: Canon EOS 100D, Ikelite housing and strobes.
It wasn’t long before they started to get more inquisitive and flashes of large white and dark grey bodies shot past us. We milled about, not really sure what to do or where to go as we were now pretty much up against the rocks where the waves broke the shore below the tall cliffs towering above.
Then, it began.
Whilst I was looking the other way, a turned my head back and came face to face with a large, whiskery head. He was sniffing out my camera housing, able to see a reflection of his head in the port.
As soon as he’d been there, he was gone.
This game of cat and mouse continued for the next hour. I tend not to move much in the eater and can hang motionless without moving my fins at all. The seals seemed to love this as they could swim up behind me, grab my fins and hug them with theirs whilst having a good chew of the rubber, my ankles and my drysuit pocket!
Image: Christine Grosart. Camera: Canon EOS 100D, Ikelite housing and strobes.
While this was going on, my buddies would get the opportunity to get some great photos while the seal was falling in love with my fins.
The downside for me was that this was all going on behind me and I wasn’t getting much in the way of photos! I used my insta 360 on the stick to film the shenanigans going on but eventually I put it away and chanced my arm at some stills.
These depend entirely on the seals. It is a matter of patience, being in the right place at the right time, the seals mood and the settings on your camera being ready for the photo that presents itself.
Image: Christine Grosart. Camera: Canon EOS 100D, Ikelite housing and strobes.
Seals love admiring themselves in the dome port of your camera. In reality, they probably think it is another seal that looks just like them!
This presents great photo opportunities but also puts the fragile and easily scratched dome ports at risk – teeth and claws come out as they try to investigate. I didn’t want to spend my next few months polishing scratches out of acrylic, so I flicked them away when they got too ‘chewy’.
After a wonderful morning of playing with seals, we had a leisurely lunch and went on a dive around a reef pinnacle. I had the wrong lens for macro shots so mooched about a bit, trying to remember the names of the various squidge I was looking at from my Seasearch lessons.
We pulled into the pier and had some fun hauling cylinders up onto land. I think next time I’ll take my perfectly good caving rope and hauling system!
We opted to walk up to the campsite and we were treated to a stunning view as well as a puffy PFO test!
It was really quite windy and as beer time approached, there was some fun to be had putting up tents and blowing up air beds. I don’t know how I do it, but I always seem to end up on trips with people equally as bonkers as me!
The pub on Lundy fortuitously feeds the locals and those who work on the island, so despite being the only one and therefore a captive audience, the food was very good, the booze reasonably priced and the staff and service was excellent.
We made the best of it, interspersed with a very windy walk to watch the sunset from one of the lighthouses, before returning to the pub.
The next morning we all managed to grab a coffee and breakfast roll from the pub which was most welcome, before eating it on the walk back down to the boat.
Luckily the tide was in, which made loading the cylinders a bit less necky.
Off we went for seal round 2.
They were there again, waiting for us to sort out gear out. They seemed a little keener this time, already in the water with lots of howling going on.
Their heads bobbed patiently while we tested our cameras, did our pre dive checks and stepped into the water.
As we approached the rocks, the familiar tugs on our fins began.
I assumed the position and got mauled while Matt and Daryl this time, who wanted to hang out with us, got their cameras in position.
It wasn’t long before the seals started to get the upper hand. They had worked out that if they got really close, the divers didn’t know what to do and fell over backwards, rendering them completely helpless like a turtle on its back.
The mauling began.
Mugged by seals. Images: Matt Emmerson
One rolled me over and I lost balance, my double 12s twinset pulling me onto my back. Now, fins up and fully exposed, the seal took the opportunity to just get a mouthful of whatever he could. Camera, drysuit pockets, bit of hood, glove…
My buddies were insanely helpful, getting right in with their cameras to film this loss of fabulousness, whilst I completely failed to right myself for laughing and flooding my mask.
Daryl thought this was hysterical, until the seal turned its attention to him and, whilst on his back trying to get the classic Snell’s window seal silhouette, he instead got a good humping and was left abandoned in the weed!
The seals were definitely more boisterous and were having serious fun at our expense.
Image: Christine Grosart. Camera: Canon EOS 100D, Ikelite housing and strobes.
Being only a few metres deep and with tonnes of gas, we had all the time in the world – and it seemed to stand still.
It is an amazing privilege to be approached by wildlife who just want to play and interact with you. The seals are not fed by humans, they simply seek out play with their curiosity.
In the afternoon, we set off on another reef dive but in my hurry to swap lenses, I didn’t quite put the dome port on the housing properly and flooded my camera and lens.
This was pretty devastating and despite my insurance covering some of it, this worked out to be an expensive mistake.
Fortunately, a brilliant outfit called Nemo Photo who now deal in Ikelite and underwater camera gear in the UK, have been very helpful and I have a new camera set up coming very soon, treating myself to an upgrade.
I can’t wait to get it into the water!
The Lundy Gang
Fast Moving Treacle with Foam On't Top
It's been a long time since I was caving in Yorkshire - and even longer since I had been cave diving up there.
With a never ending motorway covered in cones pretty much between Bristol and Settle, you don't get much change out of a 6 hour drive to the Dales, so it really needs to be worth it.
The UK had enjoyed glorious weather all summer and were basking in a heatwave right up until the moment I stepped off the plane from work.
I packed my van full of caving and cave diving gear. A whole bunch of sidemount cylinders, ropes and camera gear went in - all the while as the biblical storm hit the UK and took out a few stone bridges up North for good measure.
Yorkshire Dales limestone
My Cave Diving Group trainee Mark Burkey scrabbled around looking for vertical caves that wouldn't flood and where pitches weren't too big and scary for Rich Walker, who hates SRT (Single Rope Technique) with a genuine passion.
The Cave Diving Group has a unique and rather accurate visibility scale for Yorkshire caves, which changes according to rainfall or lack thereof.
Water watchers scattered around the Dales report weekly, sometimes daily, to report back online how conditions are faring.
The CDG has a visibility scale which is remarkably accurate. A bunch of local weather watchers update it regularly with rainfall data and river levels.
Cave Diving Group Visibility Scale
Poteen
White Wine
Lager
Pedigree (acceptable)
Brown Ale
Guinness (Dark, with foam on top)
It's a bit like branch watchers, when you're trying to work out if the dive boat will go out or not...
I looked at my camera gear in desperation.
What we salvaged from what was, basically, a monsoon was incredible in hindsight.
We went down Lost Johns, Cathedral route and abseiled some lovely pitches. I took my camera box which was like dragging a small unruly child with me for the entire trip.
Mark cheerfully rigged, waggy-tailed that he didn't have the camera box for once and sniggering each time it jammed in the cave passage and I growled at it.
Rich was left to hang on the rope while I perched precariously on a ledge and tried not to drop my expensive camera kit down the 30 metre pitch.
Cathedral pitch, Lost John’s Cave, Yorkshire, UK. Image: Christine Grosart
One's photography doesn't half improve when you are given advice and assistance by one of the best in the business. Self taught, Mark Burkey has a mantlepiece full of awards for his cave photography and a club full of novice cavers who all enjoy having their photos taken, for practise.
Mark was holding the flashguns at the bottom and was looking at them when I accidentally hit the shutter and they went off, momentarily blinding him.
Swearing came up the pitch, which was met with a "Woo Hooooo!!!" from me as my 'accident' had actually come out really well! This looked promising.
I don't know how long I made Rich hang there and one flash gun revolted - not good enough batteries in the flash guns, apparently.
But I was super chuffed with the results. After years of struggling with pitch shots I finally, thanks to tuition from the expert, had something publishable.
We had a smashing few days, catching up briefly with Steph and Mike from Yorkshire Dales Guides who have a wonderful set up not far from the Helwith Bridge close to where we were staying.
What I love about the caving instructor business is that everyone are friends and we all support one another. It's great to see another lady cave leader going places and creating an amazing facility to get the next generation into such a fantastic sport. They cater for all ages, abilities and disabilities.
We also caught up with Jane Allen and her husband Tim. Jane is a force for change in British caving and my goodness did we need it.
Hugely driven, she owns the UK Caving Forum and set up 'New to Caving' which is a one stop shop of how to take those first steps underground.
Clean, up to date and easy to navigate, the website is a fantastic and badly needed resource.
I was thrilled to see one of my WetWellies Caving images up on the wall in the caving cafe of choice, Inglesport. Jane had organised a photo competition and the top three were displayed in the cafe.
Even better, we came across the 'New to Caving' flyers which also had my image on them - of Veronika, who had been bought a WetWellies Caving experience by one of her relatives. What an amazing story to take with her back home to Canada.
Finally, we managed a curry in Settle with our good friend Dave Ryall. A 'proper' cave diver, Dave has been a good friend over the years and I missed his company and cheeky humour a lot. I was disappointed that his wife, Sue - mad as a bat - wasn't able to make it but my liver was grateful...
The visibility in the Dales that week was, according to Dave, like 'fast moving treacle'. That was one up on Guinness!
There was only one site that was even remotely diveable. Best done in wet weather apparently, as a solution cave the visibility didn't succumb to the peat tannins that other caves in the Dales did.
Except it wasn't in the Dales. It was in Cumbria and over an hour drive away. Oh well.
Christine and Mark at the entrance to Pate Hole
Mark and I kitted up in semi dry suits and put on our 7 litre sidemount cylinders and set off inside Pate Hole.
I don't mind crawling so much, I don't mind carrying cylinders so much - but Pate Hole was a royal pain in the a**!
The large cobbles were rounded so your knee just slides off and cracks another rock - every step of the way.
It's hot, sweaty going and your bottles need to be rigged right to avoid smashing your teeth out - something I perfected many years ago.
After god knows how long crawling, we finally got to a canal. It looked like it was about to sump. We had crawled 100 metres fully kitted in high water. In normal conditions this was 300 metres...
I'm too old now for this sh*t....
Relieved to be in the water, we set off into a cave neither of us had dived but were super excited about it.
Paralenz (no video lights) footage of Pate Hole, Cumbria.
The visibility was excellent and Mark and I enjoyed swimming the low bedding plane that was normally crawled.
Then the cave changed and we met a deep rift where the cave briefly surfaced and then plummeted down to 30 metres. It was seriously impressive and we were very keen to come back with bigger bottles another time. Ideally when the cave is resurging!
I love introducing people to caving for the first time.
Ryan McShane was keen to join our cave diving project so we needed to get him underground and moving through caves.
He had done a little cave diving and was a decent climber so not surprisingly he made light work of County Pot to Wretched Rabbit, or, 'Wretched Rabbit the wrong way round'.
I was glad Mark brought the ladder as my levitating days are long gone but it was a fun trip and reminded me of how fit I was in my youth!
We headed in almost convoy down to Sheffield where we had a few things planned at a nice little mine in Bakewell.
Holme Bank Chert Mine. Image: Christine Grosart
The first job was to get to grips with some dry survey practise with the ever helpful Jim Lister. I was super rusty and Rich had not done it before, so we spent two days sorting out the Disto-X and trying to learn a non iphone!
I also wanted to get to grips with cave diving photography and the crystal clear visibility in the shallow mine was the perfect place to practise. It was 8 degrees though so whilst I was cosy on my KISS rebreather, Rich was a little grumpy in the images - something that didn't go unnoticed by the British Society of Underwater Photographers judges!
Stunning Ribblehead viaduct and Whernside
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