Anything is possible.
Caroline negotiates a waterfall in Swildon’s Hole cave, Mendips. Image: Christine Grosart
“We’re just in the bar, I’m the one in the sparkly top!”
And so she was. Not just a sparkly top, but cowboy boots as well!
Chester Storyhouse was beginning to fill up. Caroline Bramwell and I were two of eighteen women selected to ‘star’ in Louise Minchin’s award-winning book “Fearless: Adventures with Extraordinary Women”.
Natasha, Louise Minchin, Caroline Bramwell
Caroline’s story is extraordinary and I won't spoil it too much here, as she wrote a superb book called ‘Loo rolls to lycra’ as well as featuring in a chapter of ‘Fearless’ where she overcame the rather taboo subject of having a stoma.
To many people, having a stoma is of course lifesaving but in a bittersweet blow can also be life limiting and even life ending. A close family friend of mine was so desperate to have his stoma reversed but he embarked on surgery to do it, with devastating results. He succumbed to septicaemia and passed away.
Caroline was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis during her pregnancy with her second child and endured this debilitating illness for four years. As a result, her business collapsed; she became confined to her home and was unable to meet with clients, eventually leading to hospitalisation.
The procedure she underwent was a panproctocolectomy, which involves the complete removal of the bowel and the closure of the rectum—often referred to colloquially as having a 'Barbie butt'. Following this surgery, an ileostomy was formed, meaning the stoma is created from the ileum (the end part of the small intestine). In contrast, a colostomy would be made from the large intestine.
Instead of passing waste into the colon and rectum, waste exits through the stoma and is collected in an external pouch.
Caroline's story was one of such severe pain and debilitation that to have what she calls a ‘bag for life’ was the only way to get her quality of life back. And what a way to do it!
Caroline went from being a self-confessed couch potato, to learning how to swim and embark on a triathlon whirlwind.
She was determined to make sure that she was not limited by the lot that she was given and started testing the boundaries of medicine, which to be honest, were pretty outdated and archaic with regards to what an ostomate can do.
I had featured in Louise Minchin's book “Fearless” for my caving adventures. Caroline's eyes lit up when she found out about this.
“I'd love to do that” she said, but likely saw a look of consternation cross my face. Caroline was used to the medical profession casting doubts on her abilities to do anything other than breathe, now that she had a stoma bag for the rest of her life.
But somehow, she had got lucky. Sitting in front of her was not only a caving instructor but a paramedic and someone who was equally determined not to allow any physical setbacks to stop her achieving her dreams.
“Of course I'll take you caving” I said, not really thinking it through. “How hard could it be?”
Our first attempt was completely thwarted by my crashing my road bike during training for an Ironman. Luckily, as an Ironman triathlete herself, Caroline completely understood and we put the trip back a couple of months until I felt able to navigate a basic caving trip. This was still sketchy, as it turned out that I had a torn rotator cuff.
Just to be on the safe side and also to assist with underground photographs, my caving friend Elaine kindly joined the trip to help us out.
I went through my usual pre-cave briefing that I used as an instructor and it wasn't long before both Caroline and I were far more interested in the caving aspect than the stoma issue. The only thing we needed to consider, was the use of an assisted hand line. Quite often novices need this to help them up the near vertical climbs in the cave when they are not used to that sort of thing. This involves wearing either a caving belt or a harness. Obviously, this poses the risk of sitting on top of Caroline’s stoma. So, we spent the evening trying out different configurations and eventually settled on one that would work.
We packed some medical spares in a waterproof caving pot just in case and Caroline took the precaution of taking Imodium for the trip.
We went through the usual jovialities of kitting up into caving gear and looking like Teletubbies with helmets on. Elaine had the most awesome furry suit covered in sheep!
Elaine in her ‘woolly suit’
Caroline and Elaine chatted incessantly as we walked across the fields to the cave and for a moment, I remembered why I enjoyed being a caving instructor so much. I loved hooking people up to the point that I almost became irrelevant and I take pleasure in matching up my friends from all my different walks of life and activities.
Caroline stared at the entrance of the cave, Swildon’s Hole, with much the same trepidation that Louise Minchin had done. The difference being, Caroline was a little bit more aware of what she was getting into and was as excited as she was nervous.
Caroline sets off on her first excursion underground
I dumped the unwieldy camera box onto Elaine and we slithered our way down the cave, following the water and Caroline took it all in her stride.
It wasn't long before we met the first obstacle - Jacob’s ladder, where I needed to apply a harness and a hand line. Caroline managed this without any bother at all and we set off into the cave, watching her settle in and enjoy the scenery more and more as she went.
I played my usual trick of taking photographs on the way out, as this gives cavers a bit of a break from the uphill climb to the surface. In caving, what goes down has to come up and I always warn novices that as soon as they start to feel a little weary on the inward journey, it is time to turn for home. The outward trip is usually way more energetic.
Elaine climbing a cascade
Caroline stared into the black abyss as she looked down the 20 foot pitch, our turning point. I could see that she was keen to come back another day and perhaps go all the way to the sump. This meant a doubling in distance, time and difficulty of the trip.
We turned tail at this point and headed back, stopping on the odd occasion to have a snack and take some photographs.
Lying face down in a waterfall in the dark, posing for photos, I think Caroline at this point had completely forgotten about her stoma! I think we all had.
We surfaced as darkness started to fall and as we were all wet, it made sense to keep the chill off Caroline by wrapping her in a survival bag.
I can never understand why people carry survival bags but don't use them. The foil ones are useless but the big orange plastic ones make an immediate difference to your temperature, especially walking back across the fields in the wind. I simply dry it off, fold it up and use it another day.
Caroline reported after the trip that she was covered in bruises and aching from head to foot, but that she’d had the most brilliant day and her daughter was keen to give it a go as well. Whilst I may not have been able to convert Louise Minchin into the joys of caving, I had at least had some success in converting this triathlete, despite her medical hurdles to overcome, into being a caver.
Caroline in `Swildon’s Hole. Image: Christine Grosart
Abime de Mas Raynal
It occurred to me that I hadn't been to this wonderful cave since about 2003. I was very much looking forward to rigging it this time, rather than being pushed back behind 'some bloke' who always assumed that it was a man's job. Bollocks to that, I say.
Suntan rigging the Mas raynal super direct route on my 3rd ever SRT trip.
In 2002, on only my 3rd SRT trip, I went 'over the edge' and did the main hang or 'super direct' route which is 106 clean metres straight off a rusty iron bar in broad daylight on a single rope.
The only interruption is a re-belay some 30m from the crashing river below.
Abseiling the multi pitch route in the Mas Raynal
The water heads North West to Source du Sorgues and is typically blue and cold.
The multi-pitch route is friendlier and has some snaggy, slimy green slopes on route to the final hang.
It is partially P-hung and partially requires spits and hangers - so it's advisable to take some hangers.
Ashley, my CDG trainee, wanted to do the main hang on 8mm. He rigged it but only ascended it and used our ropes on the way down.
The 'window' 3/4 of the way down the mas Raynal indirect route. Image: Christine Grosart
The cave is like Alum Pot on speed. I think it is a little bigger in dimensions but the main hang is about the same.
Sunlight pours down the main shaft and the chilly gloom of the massive side inlet makes for some great silhouette photos.
Mas Raynal super direct. Image: Christine Grosart
Cave Diving Group Anniversary
We had a great time in Wales recently at the Old Rectory in Llangattock for the 71st anniversary of the Cave Diving Group of Great Britain.
We spent the Friday afternoon diving in a cave called Porth yr Ogof in the Brecon Beacons, to take some visibility measurements and collect some data for our conservation project, Project Baseline South Wales Caves.
On the Sunday, Rich and I joined award winning cave photographer Mark Burkey and his wife Jess for a casual trip into a cave called Ogof Ffynnon Ddu. We played with video shots for an upcoming project and Mark showed me some tips and tricks to get more out of my camera underground – we think you’ll agree the results were stunning!
The Dark Room
I won my first cave photography award when I was barely 21 years old.
Photographer of the Year 2001 (ish)
The image was nothing short of a masterpiece.
Using a canon 35mm film camera which claimed to be waterproof, I diligently choreographed my Uncle Phil Hendy and my friend Phil Short in all sorts of poses around a cave called Shatter, in Somerset.
Shatter is beautifully decorated and we took a lot of time and effort to make the photos work. Several hours, in fact.
Towards the end of the trip I lay down in a muddy puddle and shot the 27th image on my 24 exposure kodak film... (people under 25, I may have lost you at this stage...)
Worried, I asked everyone to turn their lights off while I fumbled in the dark to rectify the issue.
The issue was not to be rectified.
The camera was empty.
On a positive note, it was the most realistic image anyone had ever shot of a cave.
After all - they are completely dark!
The image of Shatter cave I took some time later…..
Recognition at Hidden Earth National Caving Conference
Thus, I was quite surprised and very excited to be asked to give a talk on cave photography at Warminster Camera Club in January.
I was slightly apprehensive as, whilst I do take photos underground and pride myself in the images I take for WetWellies Caving clients, I’m still loathe to call myself a ‘cave photographer’.
Fortunately and with some help from my talented friends, my photography improved a lot and I started to win prizes for it. I learned a lot from Clive Westlake and Mark Burkey, both with very different styles but I often feel like I’m yet to develop my own (no pun intended!)
My good friend and super nice guy, Paul Duckworth, persuaded me along.
I wasn’t sure how to go about this talk, so I decided to make fun of myself and it wasn’t long before I had the audience giggling up their sleeves and I think I enjoyed the talk as much as they did!
It is something I would definitely love to do again.
Here's what they said: The Dark Room - Christine Grosart
Three of the best - by Christine Grosart
"The China Shop" Boreham Cave, UK, 2012. Cave Diver: Dave Ryall. Image: Christine Grosart
"Cathedral Pitch" Lost Johns, UK. Image: Christine Grosart
Veronika from Canada on her first ever caving trip with WetWelies! Image: Christine Grosart, Owner WetWellies Caving
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.
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.
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
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 ;-)
Coudouliere
Jean Tarrit by the entrance of Coudouliere.
The Dutch were eager to head over to Coudouliere and make a few parts of the entrance boulder choke more Suex friendly.
This seemed like a good opportunity for me to deploy my Disto X and PDA combination and get some survey data of the dry passage leading to the sumps.
Over the last 6 months or so I’ve been trying to build up a paperless system and with help from various people, I now have a working upgraded Disto X which measures distance, compass and clinometer readings.
This talks to a basic PDA via Bluetooth and stores the data in a neat free program called Pocket Topo. This also enables the user to sketch and draw cross sections as they go.
Even better, the data can be transferred via another neat program called Top Parser (Andrew Atkinson’s genius) to Therion survey program. Therion makes my head hurt and we were fortunate to have Jan Mulder (NL) along who was far more confident with it than me.
Gour pools in Coudouliere. Photo Rick van Dijk
One advantage of Therion of other programs is the ability to tie in additional data without having to re-draw – it simply adjusts the drawing as you go.
But even so, it is not easy to learn and earlier this year I organised a weekend of all things Disto and Therion. It was oversubscribed so I should think we’ll be doing another one over the winter.
I had left my tippex in the car, which I was going to use to mark the survey stations. But we were saved by Pedro Ballordi’s pink nail varnish which Anton took a shine to…
Ash in Coudouliere
We surveyed the boulder choke down to a junction and took the right hand branch, which led to a different sump, via a steep slope which needed a rope. Pedro set about putting some bolts in and rigged up a rope. The rock was similar to the Perdreau, with poor rock for bolts and we ended up tying into a huge boulder instead.
With this part of the survey done, we headed out and were met by a scooter making it’s way up through the boulders. Now that scooters fitted, the next trip would be less problematic.
We retired to the pub in St Jean de Bueges for cold pressions all round.
Gours in Coudouliere. Image: Rick Van Dijk
Aven de Rocas
It was somewhat unfortunate that he had left his ‘pains au chocolate’ in our daren drum!
Chris concentrating at the pitch head
In 2012, the CLPA discovered several holes in a rough field, very close to Jean’s house in Le Besses.
For a few years I had joked that he had a cave in his garden.
The digging efforts of ‘Academie de Rocas’ had discovered several pitches, some with waterfalls and two of impressive dimensions.
The front cover of the most recent journal of the CLPA was adorned with the biggest pitch.
Phillipe Vernant kindly offered to take us down Rocas and show us around. As part of the digging team, he knew the place extremely well.
Rick Van Dijk was up for his 3rd SRT trip here and Ashley and Rich stayed on the surface to sort out the radio location equipment, trying to get an accurate fix on a known chamber with a known survey.
Graham Naylor had built us a Nicola 3 prototype and two aerials to try to radio locate the large chamber at the end of the big sump in Coudouliere.
Jean Tarrit
Now that the trip was off, we went to get a bit more practice and get a few more people trained in its use.
The entrance was a typical, muddy dig, with red slime everywhere. The ropes were bit quick too, covered in a layer of thick mud.
Still with a wobbly ankle and a newly damaged shoulder (from getting the boulder choke wrong in Coudouliere), I took my time. Some easy meandres later and the impressive pitches were met.
Christine in the entrance of the Aven de Rocas
At the bottom of the final major pitch, we unpacked the radio location aerial and switched it on. The surface team began laying spools of line among bushes and, despite a fluctuating signal, thought they had got a fix.
Phillipe and I sat around for an hour putting the caving world to rights, while Rick sat in a higher chamber sorting out his camera for the return trip.
It was somewhat unfortunate that he had left his ‘pains au chocolate’ in our daren drum!
Christine enjoying the ‘no footholds whatsoever’ Y-hang rebelay….
Once the hour was up, we switched it off, packed it up and made our way steadily out of the cave.
My right shoulder was becoming fairly useless at this stage and I took quite a while to get off pitch heads, but this seemed to please Rick who was happily snapping away with his camera and achieving nice results.
Once back in daylight, the surface team looked a bit sheepish.
They thought they had got a fix, but the numbers and signal had been fluctuating wildly and they couldn’t work out why.
This rang a bell.
I looked up and to my horror, the cave entrance was completely surrounded by overhead powerlines.
In fact, three of them created a perfect triangle and the cave was right in the middle of it!
Graham had warned us that overhead lines would cause big fluctuations in the signal and he wasn’t wrong!
It would not have been an issue over Coudouliere – but here, the village was infested with them…
In any case, the fix point was GPS tagged and the co-ordinates given to Phillipe. He took them home and put an overlay if the cave survey onto Google Earth and …voila!
The fix was smack bang on top of the chamber we had been in.
This seemed far too good to be true…so we made plans to visit another cave – L’Esquirol – where I had never been before, to try again and make sure it was not a fluke.
We retired to the café in St Maurice de Navacelles which is always a welcome refuge after caving and diving trips.
Beautiful pitch in the Aven de Rocas
Grotte Banquier
Rich and I had the opportunity to have an early morning 60m deep dive yesterday, at a discreet location. We did lunch and chilled out the rest of the day, whilst sorting out directions for the Grotte Banquier.
Rich in Grotte Banquier. Photo: Christine Grosart
Thanks to Elaine Hill and Clive Westlake, we got it together and after driving up some lengthy forestry track, we parked up and did a bit of casting around before finding the right path to the entrance. A short fixed ladder leads to some well travelled and well decorated passage, which heads down to the lake and then the sump. This would be an easy half an hour carry with dive gear, but quite hot! The sump then leads to 1,600m of apparently quite fine passage beyond.
Definitely one to come back to with dive kit.
Rich in Grotte Banquier. Photo: Christine Grosart
Rich in Grotte Banquier. Photo: Christine Grosart
Episode Cevanol
The rains which had thwarted the Coudouliere project - and had also killed two people in Montpellier the week before we arrived - were not done with us yet.
Overnight, during Rassemblement Caussenard, the heavens opened and a serious storm caused rivers to burst their banks. Drive ways simply slid into rivers, caves were in flood and landslides were everywhere. Roads began closing and the rain showed no sign of stopping.
We decided to head home a day early.
Images: Tim Chapman
L'Esquirol
Christine about to abseil into the abyss
I had heard about the cave but had never got around to actually going there. This is not surprising as it really isn’t easy to find. Jean Tarrit met us at St Maurice de Navacelles and we followed him through some winding lanes and through an obscure farm fence and down a track to a clearing. The cave was a short walk up from the parking spot.
With only 4 hangers between us, rigging it was inventive and I set about it carefully. Ashley followed me down and we set up the radio location aerial on a flat bit of floor on the other side of some big decorations.
Ash then buggered off for half an hour into some wretched, muddy crawl while I set up my camera and tripod to take photos of the pitch.
Ash ascending the entrance pitch. Image: Christine Grosart
Meanwhile, Rich and Jean set about doing the location on the surface and, true to form, they got a good 'null' with the help of dive spools in a prickly bush.
Ash came back absolutely plastered in red mud having found the most horrid passage in the cave. I photographed him as he headed up the pitch and followed shortly.
Rich then kitted up and headed down the pitch to have a look around the chamber and retrieve the underground aerial.
Christine talks Rich over the edge
Pleased with the job, we were heading back to the camp site when we found Jean searching the car for his lost phone. We searched everywhere but could not find it either at the cave or in the road. Fortunately he eventually found it - in pieces in the road a little further up from where we had stopped.
Not a great ending to an otherwise pleasant day.
Croatia Calling
Croatia is a beautiful country and one I have been very lucky to visit many times.
My partner, Richard Walker teaches technical diving in the small fishing port of Krnica, Istria and I have been out to Croatia to dive in the sea and the caves on many occasions.
Over the last couple of years, Rich and I have been visiting a particular cave in Croatia, near Rijeka called Izvor Licanke. After a couple of reconnaissance trips, we explored completely virgin underwater cave last year and we were determined to return and continue the exploration.
The cave is a resurgence, meaning that the underwater passage meets daylight as water pours out from underground into the river and lakes downstream. There is a short, shallow ‘sump’ or flooded passage which soon surfaces in a couple of lakes and some huge passageways beyond. A high boulder climb up to almost the roof, leads back down to the river again and a short distance upstream the second sump is met.
Sump 2 was first dived by French explorer, Frank Vasseur way back in 1998 and he dived for 140 metres to a depth of -36 metres. Due to local politics the team and everyone else were denied access and the sump remained unexplored until 2016 when Richard and I, having spoken to Frank, extended his line with the efforts of only a small team of ourselves and our Dutch friend, Rick Van Dijk.
The slightly awkward cave entrance
With permissions in place, we were able to apply three days to the project; one for carrying the diving gear through the first sump and the dry cave to sump 2; one for the exploration and one for bringing all the gear out again.
Rick Van Dijk and the 2016 equipment stash This year, Rick joined us again and I also invited my ex Cave Diving Group trainee, Ashley Hiscock, who was making quite a name for himself to come along and help.
The previous year we had struggled with time to shoot any meaningful video and I flooded my DSLR camera in the first sump when a dry tube failed, so we were keen to have someone along to do the images and video for us so that we could concentrate on the task in hand.
We had just the person in mind. But there was a catch…
Can I come?
Licanke project 2018. Image: Mark Burkey
Licanke project 2018 - Day 1
It was that time again.
Izvor Licanke lay quietly in wait for the usual suspects to return and uncover the secrets that lay in this huge, water filled cave. The same team returned for the 2018 assault on the end of our line in sump 2, this time using closed circuit rebreathers.
This made a lot more logistical sense. It meant we could do multiple dives while only transporting the same number of cylinders as last year. The plan was to only use those cylinders in an emergency, in the case of rebreather failure and each diver took their own full set of 'bailout'.
Robbie Varesko, our Croatian interpreter and minder was a triathlete. He had been doing the equivalent of iron mans in Croatia and he was itching to get into the cave this year.
Robbie Varesko - an incredible asset to the expedition.
So, Rich Walker gave him his old Fourth Element proteus wetsuit (it has a gaping hole in the arse but Robbie seemed not to care - until he got into the 6 degree water!), Rick Van Dijk donated a helmet and diving/caving light and I loaned him some knee pads. He sourced his own wellies.
Mark Burkey returned with his camera and the promise to shoot more footage for the film about this cave. Ash Hiscock drove down again bringing dry tubes and gas banks. We headed up to Fuzine and settled into our accommodation. Same place as usual with lots of stuffed things on the walls.
Robbie and I didn't mess about and got straight into the sump, ferrying through the bailout bottles and the drytube and we were ready for the next days diving.
