Into the Blue
New cave passage in the Event de Perdreau Fourmi, discovered 2012, Screen grab: Christine grosart
Today was an excellent day - but not without a few teething troubles to get around first.
I picked up a missed call from one of my work colleagues, who was asking where I was. France, was the reply. It seems the great shift screw up had raised its ugly head again, but I doubt I have much to worry about as I am certain I booked this leave. In fact, I booked it in January. So, I tried to forget about it and concentrate on the cave diving.
We headed up to the cave and Jean had brought more friends along to help us. They were practising their SRT in the cave which seemed as good a reason as any to come along.
Jean and Claudie helping in the dry cave
Rich and I dropped the pitch and started to get our gear together. Next problem, Rich finds the team spare mask has shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces. It had been in a pocket on one of the harnesses and not protected by a French Pot and had somehow got broken. Never mind. We can live without it and we have another anyway.
The sump is blue and inviting. I get the camera ready and Jean and friends watch us set off into sump 1, before heading out to the sunshine to await our arrival. We tell them we will be 2 hours at most.
Surfacing in the airbell shortly after passing sump 1, Rich and I can't really get our act together and we soon notice a little panting going on. Carbon dioxide. Great.
Chris at the top of the ladder beyond sump 1
We take things slowly and rig the ladder, before hauling the 12 litre bottles up and getting everything into sump 2.
Kitting up in sump 2 was fairly easy this time around and I get ready with the camera. We have a plan to shoot some video of the sump, especially our discoveries from 2011 and 2012. We don't hope for much as it is a small, fiddly sump covered in powder-like silt. But we gave it a go.
We get shooting and with plenty of time and gas, get to photograph and film everything we want to.
Kitting up in sump 2
Then, we had one last job to do.
There was one bit of a chamber left to explore. I had always had a feeling there was more to it than just a boulder pile. So, I dispatch Rich off to take a quick look and a minute later he returned to say it was "Going".
Woo hoo!
Line reel tied in and I sieze the (rare!) opportunity to film exploration in progress.
Rich swam along with his reel and made some nice tie offs and the cave started to head downslope in a fractured, friable passage. It was sculptured and pretty and the water ahead was azure blue.
Chris climbing out of sump 1
Behind Rich it was patchy, rust red and bits and pieces rained down from the roof as the first bubbles ever disturbed the rock.
As the visibility went to zero, I paused at 24m and heard Rich scratching around. I figured he wouldn't be long and steadily, hand over hand on the line, fumbled my way back to the tie off with Rich just behind me.
Happy, we thumbed the dive and had a pleasant swim home in patchy visibility. I stopped to photograph a worm, the type I had not seen before in a sump.
Surfacing back at the airbell, we de-kitted, pleased with the days work.
Not surprisingly, after a recent chest infection and a cold, I had some trouble descending back into sump 2 to get home. Fortunately my bottle of trusty Otravine got me to depth but wasn't keen on getting my sinuses back up again.
Sump 1
It's a divers worst nightmare (well, one of them anyway) and despite hanging around on the way up trying to get my sinuses to let go, it was obvious I was going to get a reverse block.
I did and it hurt a lot, making my eyes water and temporarily blind. Rich took my bottles off and I eventually heard the relieving squeak, followed by some blood and the pain subsided. Not pleasant.
Jean was at the top of the pitch waiting for us as we surfaced. He was worried as we were half an hour overdue. This was probably due to our taking our time in the CO2 ridden airbell. We apologised for worrying him but he didn't mind and we showed him our photos to cheer him up.
Chris holds the empty line reel in sump 2, Perdreau Fourmi
A gang of cavers had showed up to help carry all the gear back in one run, including a very small child who was lugging 2 tackle bags and going better up the hill than I was!
A cold beer in St Jean de Bueges followed by pizza in Laroque seemed a fitting end to a very pleasant day, all things considered. Finally things are going our way.
2011 discovery in sump 2
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.
Event de Rodel
Today we had plans to go the Event de Rodel.
This pretty little gem of a cave is one of the easier ones to access, but still requires a carry and some crawly, stoopy caving to get to the waters edge.
Andras in the Rodel
It was a much easier carry this year and all except Andras opted to dive in wetsuits. The gear was carried through scratchy scrub a short distance through bushes and up a short, dry riverbed. We then changed into caving grots and chained the five sets of diving gear to the start of the sump.
It soon became apparent that my trainee, Jarvist, was capable of shifting twice as much gear as everyone else in half the time - so we blundered along and let him get on with it!
We were a little alarmed by Andras' 10 litre cylinders, so he devised a hardcore technique for carrying them through the cave!
Even more alarming was his sidemount set-up - which had clearly been designed by someone who had never been in a dry cave in their lives, never mind had to carry diving gear through one!!
Andras watched in awe as Rich and I glided through the water easily in our minimalist UK sidemount set-up. He'll be borrowing one of ours tomorrow to see how he likes it.
The Rodel didn't disappoint and I shot some video of Rich and Andras, which had pleasing results - except the LED torch was causing red dotted stripes due to a problem with certain power settings. I couldn't fix this underwater so we had to make do with what we ended up with.
Source du Sorgues - The Picnic
Chris in the Sorgues. Image: Richard Walker
The Sorgues is in Aveyron and is a great little cave to finish the trip with.
We invited Mehdi Dighouth to come over for the day and Rich and I set off to the cave to have a picnic before diving.
Oz and Joe set off to the Durzon - because their instructions had the GPS co-ordinates mixed up!!!!!
The Sorgues is a beautiful river emerging from the cirque rockface and feeds the fish-farm just downstream. It used to be the case that divers were asked to hose off their drysuits before entering the water but now the fish-farm seem not to care and divers are welcome here.
We settled down to lunch by the weir and Mehdi produced some home-made Fois Gras and some fruit jelly thing which was amazing.
We were still waiting for the others to show up and without a mobile signal here, wondered just how long we should wait. Rich still needed fills from the compressor so couldn't dive with me until Oz and the compressor arrived. It was decided that I should go for a dive with Mehdi and Rich could dive with the others when (if) they showed up.
Mehdi and I set off through the maze of boulders and concrete tunnels which fill the entrance. I first dived here in 2007 but didn't remember much about the cave as I was pre-occupied with a top-heavy independent twinset, having moved from sidemount to backmount gear myself, without any advice or training. I was uncomfortable throughout and didn't enjoy the dive.
It was great this time to know that I could just get on with it and relax.
Chris in the Sorgues. Image: Richard Walker
We dived to what I consider the end of the cave. The main, spacious passage just ends and the way on is a small, narrow rift which goes up to about 3m depth from 31m and nobody has been any further. It is reported to be tight, nasty and a dead-end boulder choke - so we stay in the big stuff!
With loads of gas to spare, we turn round and I get the opportunity to waft my HID around and have a real good look at this cave. The geology is beautiful and there are ribbons of calcite protruding like a dragons back all along the edges and the floor. The water is typically clear, with a blue tinge and no decompression is required for such a short dive.
We surface to see that the others have arrived and Rich is getting his cylinders filled. Elaine and Duncan set off for a short dive and Elaine returns with plenty of gas, so I offer to take her in again behind the filming crew. Rich, Oz and Joe have a lengthy dive briefing for the camera work and Mehdi sneaks in for another dive behind them. Elaine and I stealthily follow them all and we are treated to a fantastic view of four divers, all with bright filming lights and HIDs, spread out down the passage. Elaine is thrilled with her dive and we call it a day.
The wonderful Sorgues. Image: Rich Walker
Mehdi returns and gives me an impromptu lesson on his Megdalon rebreather. I always said I would never go over to RB because there is so much I can do on open circuit to last me a lifetime - and I haven't got anywhere near my limit of open circuit yet. But maybe in ten years time I may think differently.
We end the day with much giggling and silliness as Joe asks Mehdi for an interview about the Esperelle. Both Joe and Mehdi are extremely professional - you get the feeling they have both done this sort of thing before....I am in the background asking Mehdi questions in French and the video looks amazing.
Then it's Rich's turn to be in front of the camera and Joe's techniques for shedding a little golden light on the subject has us in stitches.
All too soon it is time to go. Mehdi has to go and give a talk at the speleo congress and we have to shoot off as we've been invited onto the Hortus Plateau - aka middle of absolutely nowhere - by the CLPA for a pizza party!
Christine, Mehdi, Elaine, Osama, Joe, Duncan, Rich
The seven hour lunch
The impressive Millau Bridge
We arrived at the camp site in one piece yesterday. The tents are up (one for us, one for the gear....) and shopping done.
I'm still sick with some sort of chest infection off the back of a cold, so today we tried to take it easy.
I had a phone call from my good friend Jean Tarrit to tell us he was coming to our campsite and we were to have lunch at his house in Larzac to discuss plans for the two weeks.
Jean Tarrit
Fuelled with coffee and coughing like a donkey with asthma, I was driven via some stunning scenery to Larzac - the long way round as the Gourney's are closed for repair work in the Vis gorge.
The drive took ages but we finally met up with Jean and headed to his house.
It was a beautiful, typically French rustic country home with big beams and huge fireplaces.
We were spoiled from the outset with several courses, including crevettes (shrimp), magret de canard, sautee potatoes, salad, bread, cheese, tarte au poire and a 12 year old Bordeaux.
Many hours later we went for a short wander to take a look at the view over the Larzac plateau which is cave hunting heaven.
The viz gorge, Herault, France
Back at the house, we discussed the geology of the caves we were pushing, fault line directions and made plans for the week. Rich let out the occasional snore as he nodded in the armchair.
The plan is to go back to Garrel on Saturday but this depends on me being well enough and we can put it back a week if we need to.
A Grand Day Out
It was not a pretty sight at 9am this morning!
Last year we were chased all over the French countryside by Jean Tarrit and his friend, Jean-Claude, who were desperate to find us and show us an exciting dive site in a cave called the Garrel.
Ongoing cave. We planned to dive the Siphone des Pas Perdus.
I had visited the Garrel in April 2003 and remember it as an easy, dry and pretty cave with no tackle required. I don’t recall there being a sump, but Nathan Boinet the local activist in these parts, had been dipping his toe in the sumps at the end of the system, some of which came to nothing early on and one which was looking to ‘go’ – but he was diving back mounted 7s and couldn’t fit through the etroiture (squeeze).
So, we were invited to take a look using our ‘techniques anglaise’ (sidemount) and were promised a large group of ‘slaves’ from the CLPA to carry all our equipment.
We were due to meet the French cavers at 9am near St Jean de Buéges but the troops were not to be rallied.
Tim Webber and Jarvist Frost arrived last night having made awesome time – but they were paying for it in exhaustion.
Duncan Smith and Elaine Hill also arrived yesterday – but Elaine was staying firmly between her tent and the toilet block, having eaten something dodgy.
Duncan was up and about, Rich was dragged out of his pit by me and there was no sign of life next door.
The plan was for Tim and I to take a look at this ‘squeeze’ and see if we could pass it. I would go first and sort the line and have a look, then, assuming I would be too fat to fit, as Nathan had insisted on a ‘thin diver’, I would hand over to skinny Tim to continue.
So, having had a minor epic trying to find bread for breakfast, we got on the road and Tim would show up later with Jarvist in tow.
The French team were at the side of the road, half kitted up and there was a buzz in the air. Lots of banter and greetings and introductions went around and after a degree of faff, we set off – minus SRT kits. This concerned us a little as the others all seemed to have them…….Nathan assured us that the climbing was easy and we weren’t to worry. So we didn’t.
Five minutes in to the entrance we were met with a 15m pitch!!
Never mind……The French guy ahead of me descended and Duncan behind me lent me his descender. I attached it to my belt, abseiled down the pitch and sent it back up the rope…..
Dry cave passage in Garrel on the way to the sump.
I could see this being quite a fun trip for those of us minus rope gear.! However, the French were obliging and over the course of several rope climbs and abseils, I employed just about every technique in the book – including those with red crosses through them! I used a stop, figure of 8, Italian hitch and krab, one or two jammers depending on what I could scrounge at the time, a full kit at one stage – loaned by Jean-Claude who can free climb just about anything – someone else’s cows-tail hauling me from above and quite a lot of brute force and ignorance!!
It was excellent fun and Jean was correct in his time estimation. It took 4 hours to get our teams and two sets of divers gear to the sump. There was climbing, crawling and boulder chokes by the bucket load and it was very, very hot and sweaty in there!
But the banter and morale kept everyone going with frequent breaks.
We arrived at the sump and it was large, blue and clear and very inviting. I was desperate to get in and cool down!!
Chris kits up in the sump pool
Everyone arrived on the boulder slope and began unpacking their lunch. It was a natural amphitheatre, with graded seats for the cavers to watch the divers kit up in comfort.
We treated ourselves to sausage roll, taboulé, bread and cheese. Nathan became insistent that it would be better for two people to dive together as the second diver would not get to see anything. I was unsure about this, but as he had dived it and we hadn’t, we went along with his suggestion and Tim and I kitted up together.
The line was broken at the very beginning, so we tied the reel off and set off down the sand slope in zero visibility. I went in front with the reel and we laid 20m of line until we found Nathan’s broken line in situ. We tied into it at a good belay and the water suddenly became crystal clear as we moved away from the sand slope and into a level passage with a boulder floor, about 3m high and 5m wide.
Tim Webber
We patched up the line in one place where it was needed and soon came to the end of Nathan’s line, marked with a 45m tag, just at the start of the squeeze.
I had a good look at it and it didn’t look too bad, so after a quick chat with Tim, I set off through the squeeze and passed it easily, stopping for a moment to make a good tie off at the end, before turning slightly rightwards into bigger passage.
Tim duly followed and continued tying the line off behind me. We moved forward until the passage seemed to come to a bit of a break down and spotted a higher passage so moved on up into that and went forward some more. We laid about 42m of new line altogether after the squeeze.
The biggest problem in this sump was the visibility. It is a static sump so there is no flow to help you. The silt seemed to rain down in clouds from the roof – probably because there had never been any air bubbles in there before to dislodge it.
Furthermore, the roof sloped upwards so bubbles were travelling up the roof ahead of us and raining silt clouds down like swirling mists of powder, right in front of our noses and interfering with our visibility.
This problem began to obstruct progress and I got to a bit of passage where the way on was less obvious and it looked to be breaking down. I stopped to have a good look and was engulfed in red swirling powder – so I thumbed the dive and tied the line off, cut the reel free and we set off back home in awful viz.
Following the thin line home was much easier than I anticipated and we soon arrived at the sand slope and looked up to see the dozen or so cavers lights glowing on the embankment in expectation, all staring at us through the ripples on the surface of the water.
I gave Nathan and the expectant audience a brief explanation of what we had found – in dubious French – and received a round of applause and what looked like an explosion of paparazzi!!
We cleared up, had some water and food and started the journey out en masse, which was not without amusement!
Still minus an SRT kit, I scrounged all sorts of items on the way home. The other brits were having similar epics and we ended up fighting over the sole karabiner for use with an Italian hitch!
The Garrel team 2012
The journey out was a little slicker and we stopped in the ‘Salle de dejeuné’ which Jean explained was the resting place for the original explorers.
We arrived at the last pitch and I was given an SRT kit from somebody and made my way up the pitch. Rich was also donated kit from somewhere but I have no idea how the others got out!
I arrived at the traverse line and was faced with a French caver, lying on his side looking like he wanted to die!
He said in English (cue French accent): “Christine, please can you 'elp me..? Can you take my equipment because I am very, very tired….”
I said “Of course!”
He went on to explain: “I cannot feel my arms or my legs any more!”
Poor guy!
He had left his jammer on the rope and couldn’t face the return journey of all of one metre to retrieve it!!
I offered to take his bag the last 15 metres of uphill crawling and he insisted we do it together!
We surfaced to the flashes of cameras and dusk was settling.
Garrel team 2012
A gang of us returned to the campsite for a great BBQ cooked by Rich and far too much wine!
A grand day out!
Success!
A huge thank you to the CLPA and friends for their support and images.
"Has anyone seen my Eagle?" by Richard Walker
The Aven de Rouet looks like a goer on the survey. A straight down shaft to about 70m, and then ongoing horizontal passage. It’s right next to the road as well, so why the hell haven’t I heard of it before? Needs a look, I think to myself.
Christine and I headed over to the site on Monday night to confirm that the cave was where we expected, and to look at how we’d need to get the gear to the water. We’ve learned that nothing is easy here.
Sure enough, 30m from the road, across some flat ground, we find a bloody great hole in the ground. It’s about 10m in diameter, and dropped to depth of about 20m, where the water was.
There was a steel gantry jutting out over the top of it, and this looked a perfect point from which to lower the gear. Two steps away was a steel ladder down to a small gravel platform perfect to stand on while suiting up.
This was looking too good to be true, so how come I’ve never heard of this place before?
Weird. Needs a look.
We got up almost before lunchtime on Tuesday and started blending gas. 15/55 for me, Christine and Andras, and a couple of deco gasses for good measure. Tim and Jarvist were going to have a play with some trimix too on a short dive after ours.
Blending was creative, as ever, in these sorts of places but we all ended up with something useable in the end. We loaded the cars, and sent Tim and Jarvist to set up the pulleys and ropes while we ate lunch. Seemed reasonable to me. All the time I’m thinking “why haven’t I heard of this place before?”.
We arrive at the cave to see Tim stood on the gantry with an elaborate network of slings, carabiners, stops and pulleys dangling over the edge, and Jarvist at the bottom explaining how things will bang into the wall as they descend.
They fiddle around a bit, make some more complications and we have a working 3:1 pulley system, with a releasable deviation, which makes it go round a corner.
It’s so easy, I still wonder why everyone doesn’t dive here, and why I haven’t heard of it.
We lowered the gear down (OK, Tim lowered the gear down) and Jarvist makes a neat pile of it in the pool, and we three head down to the water like professionals.
Andras starts screaming when he sees the toad in the water.
Apparently he doesn’t like them.
Christine wanted to kiss it, but I reminded her that it needed to be a frog for that to work...
We put on our gear and did our checks floating in the water, and remarked that the blue water had gone a bit mucky with our movements. I was sure it would clear out below us though, and said so like someone who knew what he was talking about. So far so good. I still can’t believe I’ve never heard of this place - it’s such an easy site.
Andra, Rich and Christine in the Rouet.
We descend, Christine in front, Andras and then me. Following the line through the surface muck, and sure enough, the water clears and we are treated to pale limestone walls and a vertical passage.
It’s not very big, I think.
No matter, I’m going to drop these decompression cylinders pretty soon and then the clanging will stop. The Oxygen gets dropped in a small (1.5m round passage), and hangs on the line that has a convenient loop in it. Someone has clearly been here before and understands that you need to drop gear off.
The line turns into 9mm climbing rope, and continues to drop vertically through the pretty, white, cave tunnel. Which is still no more than 1.5m across.
We are three divers, stacked vertically.
There is some difference in approach to dropping down. I prefer the head down and swim, while the others seem to prefer some sort of feet down, reverse climbing strategy. The 9mm rope gets replaced by 5mm stainless steel cable. This is an odd choice, I think. I’d hate to have to cut that if I got tangled in it.
Still, visibility is good, and the line well laid. Still don’t understand why more people don’t dive here, even though it’s a bit tight.
More gear gets deposited and we start to descend. 30m, still nice clear water, pretty passageway, small. 40m, same. 50m - the rope ends.
Quelle horreur!
There is some old thin cave line arranged into a not-so-neat birds nest, with ends trailing out of it. Christine decides that this is too deep to be arsing about laying line in a tight passage with potentially much more loose rubbish beyond, and we reverse our direction back towards the surface.
Shame, it’s a nice looking cave and I’d have liked to see more of it. Can’t understand why I’ve not heard of it before.
Bubbles. Seemingly innocuous things.
Children make them with soap and play with them for hours. They are in beer and champagne. They could be considered to be fun things in some quarters. In a cave, they tend to float up along the walls.
If those walls are covered in a fine layer of silt, such as you might find in a cave that was not well travelled, then the bubbles dislodge the silt and rapidly reduce the visibility. If that cave is vertical, then those bubbles do that all the way to the surface, getting bigger all the time.
In fact, Jarvist and Tim were watching the pool while we dived and said that it turned into a “muddy silty vortex” within minutes of our departure.
They elected to not dive.
Meanwhile, back in the water, the visibility has dropped to something like tea with a splash of milk. Never mind, it’s a vertical cave, and we have a big 9mm rope to follow. We wriggle and turn our way back up the passage and soon arrive back at the 21m stop. We all managed to switch gas, not that it was really needed given the short dive, and continue out. Lots of gear plus steel wire. Nice. Fortunately only a few minor hang ups, and we’re soon at the oxygen pickup, and ready to head out.
At this point, Christine decided that she didn’t like it anymore and managed to reverse the team order.
Exactly how, I do not know, but she and Andras got past me in a 1m wide tunnel. Andras claims that it had something to do with Chris grabbing his testicles in a modified “touch contact signal” for “move”.
He moved. Like a rat up a drainpipe.
We surfaced exchanged a few “pleasantries” and decided to get out. I’m starting to understand why I haven’t heard of this place.
Then the fun started.
I looked up to see 2 locals stood on the gantry waving. Cave diving is often a spectator sport, in the same way people like to watch car crashes or why Romans went to watch criminals get eaten by lions. Turned out that he was a local caver and had been in there before.
Best to not do it with lots of people, he said.
Visibility gets bad apparently...
Well, they were nice and we chatted for a while. They left and enter local no. 2. His communication was less easy to follow. Basil Fawlty probably taught him how to talk to foreigners. Speak louder and faster when they don’t understand. Get more frustrated. Speak louder and faster.
He wasn’t angry, although he did look like a farmer, and therefore liable to say “quitter ma terre” at any point. Probably loudly.
He mentioned that he had a similar hole on his land. Bottomless, apparently, and if we wanted to go and dive it, we’d be very welcome. “Just like this one?” we asked - “Oui” came the reply. “Merci Messieur, mais nous partons demain”. He wandered off to shoot something.
More gear came up the magical winch thing.
Then two girls get out of a car and start running over towards us. They are flapping their arms and waving at us.
“avez-vous vu mon aigle”, or “Have you seen my eagle?”
To help with translation, they were flapping their arms and cawing as well.
Seemed obvious to me. I was tempted to say that it had grabbed my pet toad and I was very upset, but my French isn’t good enough. They seemed very upset, and continued driving around, looking for their eagle.
We stopped for Pizza in Laroque on the way home, which is a lovely way to end a days diving, eating nice food watching the river run, and wondering why nobody dives in that cave.
The Bloody French Cave
The CLPA had been keen for the last few years for us to go and visit the Event de Cambon.
Yes, that’s the entrance….
Frank Vasseur had dived the short, shallow sump about 20 years ago and to their knowledge, nobody had ever been back.
Now, even in his 20s Frank was no slouch. In fact, he was probably considerably fitter and harder than he is now.
I did make a feeble protest that I couldn’t see what we would achieve that Frank could not, but it was information that the cavers wanted rather than caverns measureless. They were intent on digging down from the top of the gorge and this cave was important to them to know if it connected or not.
We said we would take a look.
According to the description, Frank had surfaced and immediately encountered several climbs which got higher and higher. As he was alone, he made a retreat.
Nobody knows what happened after that and Frank could not remember much about the cave at all.
The CLPA wanted us to survey the sump, the dry passage beyond and get a compass direction.
How hard could it be?
So, we met up in St Maurice de Navacelles to have coffee with our sherpas – or ‘slaves’ as Jean prefers to call them and picked up a Disto-X for surveying beyond the sump.
In convoy, we set off down the twisty hairpin bends of the Cirque de Navacelles and parked up at river level by the Vis. The walk to the cave entrance was relatively flat but about 800m.
Christine kits up at the sump edge
Some enthusiastic deforestation then ensued as the French began clearing the snaggy branches and cleared away a grubby little cave entrance. It had filled with stones from the winter rains but by the time Rich and I had rigged our cylinders, the entrance was dug out again.
I went for a quick look inside.
Hmm. This was going to be a fun kitting up spot. Nowhere to stand up, nowhere really to sit. It was what we were used to in the UK but it was a long way to go to dive something like this in France. Oh well.
We passed the gear in to the cave and Rich went ahead and kitted up first. I remained just upslope of him, regularly kicking stones down at him while he thrashed about trying to get his fins on.
Frank’s old line was there but we needed to lay our own knotted line for surveying. The sump pool had gone to zero so surveying was looking less and less likely.
Chris about to dive
Once ready and crammed into the tiny muddy pool, we set off downslope through a squeeze with a rubble floor and sloping roof.
The sump was about 40m long as described and 7m deep. The water cleared after the squeeze and had better dimensions.
On surfacing, there was a near vertical rift – made of mud – and a ladder hanging down from above which was just out of reach and no means of getting to it. It looked as if Frank had dived the sump when water levels were somewhat higher.
Noses turned up, we returned to the start of the sump pool to report our findings. The viz had gone to zero and not good enough for a proper survey.
Then, as if our failure was not enough, then began the thunder. Torrential rain and thunder and lightening crashed all around us and the Cirque de Navacelles while we tried to pack our gear up.
Rich and I elected to walk back in our wetsuits as our clothes were sodden.
We got back to the van and took it in turns to get into the back and change. It was miserable and getting colder.
Jean invited everyone back to his house for a welcome cup of tea and to dry out a little. We made it up to ourselves by watching the video we shot of the new passage in the Perdreau.
Jean was in danger of having a power cut, so we headed back to our campsite to inspect the damage.
Water had infiltrated the front porch of the tent, which was not entirely unexpected and Rich had already moved electrical items to higher ground that morning.
Water had also infiltrated Rich’s Rude Nora caving torch battery which was now no longer working. Meh.
We decided to drown our sorrows in a local pizzeria – but each and every single restaurant in the region were closed. So, back to the campsite for a tin of sausage and beans and leffe beer. We’ve had better days, but that’s the nature of cave diving. It ain’t sun and stalictites all the time.
Stunning Sorgues
Chris admiring the calcite 'ridge' in the Sorgues. Image: Richard Walker
The Event du Sorgues is one of my favourite resurgence flops in the area. The only problem is that it is too short!
It is about 220m long and ends in an impenetrable, vertical rift which is too tight to pass in any kit configuration.
This is desperately frustrating as it is the major resurgence for the mighty 'Mas Raynal', 4Km upstream.
It is, however, beautiful, with no access restrictions (despite having to practically drive through somebody's living room to get to a parking spot - don't take any vehicle bigger than a Berlingo!)
Chris diving the Sorgues. Image: Rich Walker
It is heavily managed with dams and weirs built in to presumably control the water which flows through the fish farm. The water is cold, about 8 degrees and is almost always blue and clear.
I was intent on getting some photos here so we took the expensive camera kit, filled our cylinders, Rich gave me an impromptu lesson on his JJ CCR and just as my eyes began to glaze over, the bottles were ready and we went diving.
The Sorgues is geologically beautiful, with calcite ridges protruding from the floor and almost perfectly square passages with boulder strewn floors. Rippled sand catches the light as you swim mid passage, able to see your own shadow on the floor in the video lights.
The average depth is about 26m so you have just enough time to go to the 'end' and back within decompression limits. We were taking our time over photos and carrying a heavy tripod to mount the back-lights was a little tricky, so we didn't quite reach the end but we weren't far off when we turned for home.
Chris in the Sorgues. Photo: Richard Walker
Bambi on Ice
My feet keep sinking!” Mark protested as he spluttered out another mouth full of chlorinated pool water. “I’ll never get the hang of this”.
A chilly, dark, damp evening at a swimming pool in Bristol was to be the first of Mark Burkey’s cave diving lessons. Well, not strictly true. 15 years ago he undertook a PADI open water course on his honeymoon…immediately followed by his Advanced open water course.
He had not dived since and admitted to never feeling completely safe with the training he had been given or the experience he’d had.
Mark jumps into scuba diving
He instructed me to treat him as a complete beginner and that matched my plan entirely.
His first job was to join the Cave Diving Group. Never an easy thing and neither should it be. Qualified divers mentor new members and trainees in all aspects of cave diving in British sumps, which are usually small, cold and miserable.
The CDG dive sidemount for this reason and the group has been doing it for a very long time, decades before the commercial sidemount courses emerged.
Mark moves on to diving in open water
Training is free, as the group is an amateur organisation, but it takes several years as there is a lot to cover, much experience to be gained and success is solely reliant on the motivation and time constraints of both mentor and trainee.
I once pointed out to a group AGM that training in the CDG was not indeed free. It costs me several hundreds of pounds a year to train a new diver…
Mark, being well known as a thoroughly decent bloke, active caver and phenomenal cave photographer, plus being proposed by me, had no difficulty in being elected unanimously. The deal was that I would train him in back mounted gear (as appropriate for this particular cave) and we would write a specific training programme for him around that.
He would join specifically for the trip to Croatia and then once the job was done, let his membership lapse. If he suddenly fell in love with cave diving and wanted to continue, he would become my responsibility and trainee. Mark felt this was highly unlikely.
The penny starts to drop
With a little time around the CDG meeting, I introduced Mark to the diving gear he would be using. It was a twinset and wing set up, GUE style and identical to mine. I walked him through gas analysis, how manifolds work, different types of cylinders, how to switch regulators and where all the inflators and deflators were. We did some dry skill runs and Mark got the opportunity to build and strip down his equipment.
Mark is put through intensive diving training and is an exemplary student
Roll on a week and Mark had driven a long way for the first of his diving lessons, so we made the most of it and arrived at the pool a little early to join the public swim before my scuba club arrived. The idea that he needed to be a decent swimmer had escaped him and the first job was to fix his comfort in the water. He was not a natural waterbaby.
Legs waved around everywhere, sinking occasionally happened and effort was overriding finesse and efficiency; All of which needed to be fixed before we even put our fins on. The hour swimming lesson resulted in a steep improvement and I began to realise that Mark takes education very seriously, likes getting better at things and more often than not, gets new stuff right first time.
I was beginning to think I could definitely work with this guy.
Mark enters a new world, making new diving buddies
The scuba club began to arrive so I popped outside to bring in Mark’s gear as well as my own. My friend Jayme, a solid GUE diver and all round great helper of all things, accompanied us to help out and shot some video to help with the feedback. The biggest surprise to Mark was the difference in how ‘We’ do things as opposed to how ‘He’ had been taught in Lanzarote on his honeymoon.
We don’t wag our legs up and down, dragging up the silt. Rather, we frog kick and glide. We don’t do our skills resting on the bottom. We establish neutral buoyancy and the ability to hover in a horizontal trim, completely still; no matter how long that takes. Then the skills are just monkey see, monkey do.
This short film shows his progress after 2 pool dives and 7 open water training days.
The initial dives were like bambi on ice. Establishing stability in mid water is tricky when you have been taught to do your skills kneeling down and at lift off, keep swimming to stay off the bottom…while doubtlessly over-weighted and negative. By the end of the hour in the water Mark knew what was expected of him and the penny was dropping.
After another pool dive, we were ready to get hold of a 7mm semi dry and move into open water. Caving in a drysuit sucks. You either overheat or damage the suit and there is really nothing pleasant about it at all.
We were very fortunate to have been in contact with Apeks, who were very happy to support Mark for the expedition with a complete set comprising wing, backplate, harness and regulators. This meant that we did not have to worry about borrowing equipment and could simply get on with the task in hand.
In Licanke, there are several hundred metres of sharp, bouldery caving so it made sense, owing to the short first sump, to cave in wetsuits. Only Rich and I would be forced to do two journeys in drysuits, to cope with the cold on the exploration dive.
Mark goes through pre-dive checks under the close eye of Christine
Mark was put through the ringer. But he seemed to be enjoying it. He was following cave line blindfolded, doing lost line searches, emergency valve drills, S-Drills, mask removal, gas failures, more fin kick finesse….It seemed like overkill for such a short sump but we could not afford to have anyone on the expedition who was a risk.
He would have to pass the sump a minimum of 8 times and although he would be chaperoned by either Rich or myself, we wanted him to have enough stability and know what to do should anything go wrong.
Mark took it all in his stride and soaked it up like a sponge. It was not long before he began to look like a cave diver.
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.
"You scared the sh!t out of me!"
I made a hasty exit from the 7 degree sump, wondering why I couldn’t have chosen a different hobby…
Izvor Licanke - class of 2021.
It was an early start in the Licanke house.
Anton and I didn’t mess about getting changed and heading into the cave, arriving in plenty of time to dive sump 2.
Anton elected to follow me as he had never dived this sump and it was milky visibility. Fortunately one of my back up lights has a mind of its own and often decides to turn itself on at depth. This gave Anton a welcome ‘lighthouse’ to follow in the gloom as we crossed the sump and we soon met our scooter drop, somewhat prematurely, and swam to the surface to de-kit.
As I surfaced, the dive line felt a bit flimsy in my hand. I grabbed onto it so as not to de-rig Anton and at that moment, it snapped just above the water’s edge.
That was lucky.
I waited for Anton to get out of his gear. He could see what had happened and in silence I repaired the line and we started moving our gear through the dry cave.
After a few journeys to sump 3, we had a brief chat before setting off through the sump. It only takes 4 minutes to cross sump 3. Anton was on a mission and had got all his gear to sump 4 before I had even exited the water.
He got into sump 4 first and reached up for his bailout bottle, which was lying on a ledge just above the water. The bottle seemed to catch on something and as he pulled it towards him, it nose-dived violently straight onto a sharp flake of rock. A loud hiss and puff of gas was followed by silence.
Oh shit.
The rock had taken a chunk out of Anton’s regulator hose.
I stared at it in disbelief. This cave had bitten just about everyone in one way or another and now even Anton had not escaped its clutches.
Bugger.
Anton declared he could fix the hose back at sump 2, but could not dive any further into the cave.
It was down to me now.
As before, there was nobody who could come and get me in the event of a problem.
I got into sump 4, clipped off my line reel ready for deployment and set off. I knew that the line went about 100 metres distance, dipping to 28m depth, before it ended at about 10m. After that, who knew what it would do?
It took a while to get to the end of the well-laid line. I was taking it steady and trying to get a feel for this sump. It was much like the other sumps; sandy, undulating floor with the occasional jagged rock here and there. I found the end of line with some of it bundled neatly under a big rock. It was safe and secure, so I tied into it, feeling huge relief that finally we were getting somewhere.
The cave gradually undulated shallower and I was laying line at about 10m depth through easy going, large passage when I suddenly hit a huge, vertical wall. Looking left and right, I could see no ongoing passage - the only way was up.
Laying line up a sheer wall on a manual rebreather is tricky. I took my time, making small tie offs wherever the opportunity arose and there weren’t many of them. As I got to about 4m depth I started looking up and sure enough, there was the glistening ripples of air surface. I bobbed to the surface only to crack my helmet on a roof projection.
Arse.
Moving away slightly to the side, I was now floating in a perfectly round, turquoise pool.
Where the hell was the way on?
Just across the pool was a large flake of rock slicing across my view of the otherwise circular sump pool. That must be it.
Swimming carefully on the surface over to the rock flake, I stuck my nose around the corner.
There lay a perfect de-kitting ramp, a flat stream passage with cream, orange and black walls and a ledge which looked like a perfect de-kitting bench!
Brilliant!
I de-kitted, turned off all my bottles and wandered down the brand new stream passage. The roof was about 30 metres high, the passage was a couple of metres wide, bigger in places and the stream flowed gently towards me under my feet.
It was beautiful and for that moment, it was all mine. My own piece of planet earth that nobody else had ever seen. It had never seen light, never been walked on and I had no clue how long this would last.
As I walked down the easy going passage, stopping to have a good look up into the tall roof, I let out a “Woo Hoooooo!!” of delight. At this point, I realised I had left my Paralenz dive camera clipped off to the nose cone of my scooter in sump 2.
I didn’t actually mind at this stage and concentrated on not tripping over and hurting myself, or putting a hole in my drysuit.
It was far too soon but some 70 metres later, I came across another perfectly round pool of turquoise water.
I walked straight into it to check if it was a lake, a duck or a sump.
It was a sump.
This was the cave that kept on giving. I had found sump 5.
Izvor Licanke survey 2021
With only one bailout bottle (again) I didn’t chance it. I wouldn’t have enough gas to make any meaningful progress and bail out if I needed to.
I took a compass bearing of the passage, counted my paces back to sump 4 and kitted up to dive back to a waiting Anton.
As I surfaced, excited to tell him the news, my BOV (bailout valve) started to free-flow and we had quite a job turning it off. I lost quite a lot of diluent gas and this was a concern as I still had two sumps to dive home.
As we were sorting out the problem, I felt something strange by my right hip. I reached behind to locate my line reel and found it had unclipped itself and rolled back down the slope, underwater.
With a lack of diluent I figured it would have to stay there, it was not worth diving back into the sump to find it.
Anton and I dived back through sump 3 and embarked on the painstaking carry back and forth to sump 2. Once all our gear was safely stashed, we unpacked the mini dry tube and began a grade 5 survey of the passage between sump 2 and sump 3. This was a relaxing affair and felt like a serious achievement to finally get this done and dusted.
It was finally time to dive home. I dispatched Anton into the sump first as there wasn’t much kitting up space for two people. As I turned on my rebreather, I realised I barely had 10 bar of diluent left. This was not good. Scratching my head, I worked out a way of plumbing in my bailout bottle to my rebreather and this worked remarkably well. The partial pressure of oxygen was easy to manage and it was a surprisingly comfortable dive home.
I surfaced to a very concerned team. Mark was particularly upset.
Anton did not know that I had needed to rectify a rebreather problem and of course, this took time. When he surfaced, he told the team I was a few minutes behind. In fact, I was an hour or so behind.
I had not even started kitting up when he’d left and the team were getting more and more concerned.
Anton did not have enough battery remaining on his scooter to come back looking for me easily, so they waited and waited, getting more and more worried as time passed.
They were pleased to see me, but much like when a child runs out into the road, you greet them with a bollocking.
Lou, doing her favourite thing
It was dark when we finally surfaced from sump 1. The guys had sorted pizza for us and beer. I was almost too tired to eat it.
We had been underground for 14 hours and underwater for 124 minutes. Sump 4 had been passed, new cave discovered and sump 5 was there, just waiting to be dived.
After a day off and an evening at our favourite ‘Bear’ restaurant, we headed back into the cave to recover all the equipment. Possibly due to familiarity or maybe just motivation to get the job done, the gear all came out in half the time it took to go in.
As usual, I was bringing up the rear and did a final ‘idiot check’ beyond sump one to make su
re all items had been taken out of the cave. I kitted up into my twinset to dive home.
“Where’s my hood?”
Vaguely remembering that I had packed a hood for safe keeping in a pot - which had doubtless headed out of the cave in someone’s bag - I looked dejectedly at the Santi woollen beanie that was lying on a slab of rock.
That would have to do.
I made a hasty exit from the 7 degree sump, wondering why I couldn’t have chosen a different hobby.
From left to right: Richard Walker, Christine Grosart, Mark Burkey, Louise McMahon, Anton Van Rosmalen, front: Fred Nunn.
I cannot thank the team enough for all their hard work and support on this project, members both past and present. Also, we must thank the staff and friends from Krnica dive centre; those who arranged permits to dive the cave, loaned us cylinders and sorted our gas.
We also wish to thank various diving and caving outfits who have assisted in some way, along the way:
We must also express our gratitude to the Ghar Parau Foundation for yet again giving us a grant and likewise, the Mount Everest Foundation for again selecting our project for an award.
We also wish to thank various diving and caving outfits who have assisted in some way, along the way:
Santi Diving; Halcyon Dive Systems; Suex Scooters; Fourth Element; Little Monkey Caving; Narkedat90
"It sounds crazy enough to be fun"
Sump 2 in Izvor Licanke is committing.
We worked out that if you go as fast as possible in the milky visibility on the scooter, you can just about pass it without having to undertake any decompression.
I scootered alone through the sump, my brain completely focussed on the thin, white line and keeping the speed up on the trigger and enough oxygen coming through my breathing loop.
Close to the end of the sump, as it started to ascend, I dropped off the scooters and made my way up the wall from 45m to the surface.
Surfacing in dry passage without somebody to chat too is both disappointing, but also relaxing.
The time is your own and you don’t have anyone else’s problems to concern yourself with.
I was impressed with the cave passage and made 3 journeys with my fins and suit bottle, then my rebreather, then my bailout bottle.
Hauling cylinders. Image: Mark Burkey
We renamed this piece of passage 'Helen's Highway' after our good friend and CDG treasurer of over a decade.
It was befitting of the whole team rather than one individual. After a cave diving and technical diving career of over 20 years, diving all over the world, to the shock of everybody, Helen took her own life at the start of the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.
Helen was one of those women I looked up to, wished I could be like and her generous, kind and very thoughtful nature was something I aspired to.
She once told me (when she sent me a Christmas present and I hadn't sent her one) "You don't give to receive". That was Helen all over. She didn't deserve to die that way.
It took me 20 minutes to get to sump 3 while carrying equipment and 15 minutes to go back to sump 2 empty handed.
I took it steady as I was wearing a drysuit and didn’t want to puncture it, but also moved methodically and efficiently. Being a caver of 26 years definitely has its advantages. You cannot be stumbling or uncoordinated beyond a sump.
I quite often chat to myself when I’m alone in a cave. Usually coming out with swear words and exclamations of incredulity when encountering something that is a nuisance.
Not far from where sump 2 surfaces, is an annoying boulder choke. Huge rocks balanced precariously and haphazardly atop one another block the passage. There is a convenient hole just the right size for me and a KISS rebreather to get through. I tried not to look too closely at the boulders - and tried even harder not to brush against the ones above me.
I trudged back and forth to a gravel ‘beach’ believing that the lake ahead was the start of sump 3.
Once all my gear was there, I started looking for the dive line. As I got down to water level, I realised this was not a sump at all, but in fact another lake.
Marvellous.
More swear words came out loud.
I moved my gear again, item at a time across the lake which was out of my depth and finally after a bit of rock-hopping, spied sump 3 and the line tied off properly above the waterline and well back on dry land. My ex-trainee had done good.
It was a comfortable kitting up spot and I was soon in the sump which only took 4 minutes to cross. I surfaced at the edge of a sloping ramp which led around a corner. I couldn’t see any further into the cave from the water, due to a huge rock flake obscuring my view. I knew that sump 4 was only a couple of metres further on and, given I did not have enough bailout with me to dive it, figured getting de-kitted was pointless.
Feeling a bit deflated, I set off home.
As I prepared to dive back through sump 2, I tested my 'go to' bailout bottle. This one stays with me at all times and the regulator is necklaced for easy access. I took a breath and got a complete mouthful of water. I checked the mouthpiece but it seemed intact.
Looking closer to try and decipher the problem, to my horror, the actual second stage body of the regulator itself had split. Clearly this regulator could not withstand a bit of caving.
This was completely unfixable. I was faced with diving home with only one bailout bottle and with no buddy, could not steal anyone else's.
I did not hang about on the way home and took a big sigh of relief when I reached the slightly shallower part of the cave, as I knew one bailout bottle would now get me at least to the decompression cylinders staged at the bottom of the shaft.
This trip was not one to be done solo and I vowed not to do it alone again. There were too many eggs in just one basket.
I surfaced to find a very chilly Mark and Lou waiting to greet me. They got me out of my equipment quickly and after some warm water with nothing else in it, we bagged up some items that needed to be taken out and plodded out of the cave.
Once I had something of a phone signal, I called my friend and cave diving buddy, Anton Van Rosmalen. The Dutchman was in the south of France and was wrapping up his own cave diving project in a super deep system called Coudouliére. This neighboured a system I and my team had been exploring and they were currently only 25 vertical metres away from each other…
Anton borrows Pedro Ballordi’s nail polish…
Anton had visited Licanke briefly in 2015 and not returned. This was his opportunity to see the entire cave for himself and do some exploration here.
He took an hour to think about it and line some things up, before he replied to say he was in.
He laughed down the phone “It sounds crazy enough to be fun!”
He had no idea…..
The good news for Anton was that, despite driving 14 hours to Fuzine and arriving in something of a ‘space cadet’ state, he had very little work to do. Ok, apart from completely rebuilding his rebreather and charging everything he owned, the good news was that all the scooters and bailout bottles were already in the cave.
All he had to do was dive... and cave... wearing his rebreather…
Luckily Anton dives the same unit as me, a manual KISS. He hadn’t arrived long when I was already eyeing him up as a spare part dispenser.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got a spare BOV have you?” I pondered.
“Of course”.
I knew he would have.
The front of mine had fallen off somewhere in the cave and I was worried about gravel ingress jamming it open. I put the spare in a pot ready to go into the cave.
We assisted Anton on getting his rebreather to sump 2 and did some housekeeping.
I re-lined and re-surveyed sump one and Fred, Lou and Mark set about finishing the dry cave survey between sumps 1 and 2 as the original data had been long lost. They did some bolting and photography and generally wrapped up the list of 'jobs' this project produces.
Rich continued convalescing and Anton headed back to the house to finish preparations.
The team decided to take an extra day off, knowing that the push dive would take a very long time. And it did...
This expedition has received generous assistance from several organisations and businesses listed below. We are grateful to our Croatian friends for their help and support over the last 6 years.
The expedition reports, funded by Mount Everest Foundation, are available to read here:
Funding and support:
Santi Drysuits, Halcyon Dive Systems, Mount Everest Foundation, Ghar Parau Foundation, Suex Scooters Warmbac
"We had all become distracted by the loss of a 5 grand scooter..."
Rich and I conducted the important but tiresome task of sorting cylinders to be filled, checking regulators, fixing regulators, dealing with fizzing pressure gauges and cracked o-rings and analysing each cylinder, before packing them into their own tackle bags for transportation through the cave.
This is all done in a relatively pleasant environment of Krnica dive centre and a dip in the sea afterwards is always welcome.
The team began to arrive at the airport and we loaded the rental van with Js of oxygen, trimix and air banks and Mark’s entire collection (almost) of camera gear.
We headed up to Fuzine and moved in.
Dry chamber between sumps 1 and 2. Image: Mark Burkey
The next morning we headed to the cave entrance. We had never been here in August and were shocked to see the water levels had dropped dramatically. Sump 1 was still a sump, but it added extra faff having to lower equipment down onto dry land rather than the convenient deep pool we had been used to.
Furthermore, inside the cave the normally flooded deep lakes which we scootered equipment across were now wading depth. This meant a prolonged carry with each of the 15+ bags, scooters, rebreathers and camera gear.
Another factor was that the low water levels exposed rocks that had never been trodden on, as they were usually underwater.
We weren’t long into the carry when Mark found one; carrying a heavy dry tube, he trod on a slab which I normally caught my knee on when scootering across the lake - and it snapped right under him.
I heard shouting and hurried back to the spot where Mark had ended up. His knee had shot down a slot after the rock had broken and twisted. After a quick assessment (good job I’m a Paramedic) I was happy to move him and after the initial shock, he felt better and had a good range of movement. His thick neoprene wetsuit had supported him enough to prevent any further damage and he wanted to carry on.
It was a stark reminder that we were thin on the ground for support and we couldn’t afford to lose a single person. Added to the extra time and effort involved with lower water levels, we knew this trip was going to be tough.
The carry was also interrupted by my nagging concern that I had only seen 2 scooters carried into the cave. I knew there were 3...
After some discussion, 2 divers were sent back to sump 1 to look for the missing Suex XK1. Somehow it had come free and was hiding in an alcove on the wrong side of sump 1.
Several hours later, as I headed back to the lakes to get another cylinder bag, I heard an almighty bang and loud voices. Then silence. Back at the climb, nobody was there so whatever it had been could not have been that bad….
It turned out that Rich had attempted the awkward climb up into the boulders and slipped, falling backwards whilst wearing his JJ rebreather; the huge slab of rock behind him bending the frame.
He was unhurt but we vowed that despite the climb being short, we should put in proper bolts to discourage people from free climbing it with only a hand-line - especially with thousands of pounds worth of heavy, expensive gear on their backs…
Rich pointed out that we had all become distracted by the loss of a 5 grand scooter and needed to concentrate. With such a small team, two of whom had never been in this cave before, the pressure was starting to show.
It seemed to take an age to get all the gear to sump 2 but it got there and we set Fred on the task of checking all the cylinders and regulators. A few had succumbed to the carry and we switched them out for new.
Setting up at sump 2. Image: Mark Burkey
It had been a long day and the team elected to take a day off the next day rather than launch straight into the push dive. This was a wise decision.
We spent our ‘day off’ brushing up on cave survey, knotting more line and sorting cameras.
The next morning, Rich and I got into our drysuits and the team got ready to see us to sump 2 and off into the unknown.
We had not even got as far as the boulder pile when again, I was called back. This time, Rich was in trouble.
He was coughing incessantly and complaining of exhaustion. He could barely put one foot in front of the other and he wasn’t even carrying anything. We feared the worst and sent him out of the cave.
Did he have covid?
I carried on to sump 2 whilst thinking on my feet about what to do. We were a man down and there was only one diver left capable of pushing the cave. It was all down to me. I’d have to do it alone...
Funding and support:
Santi Drysuits, Halcyon Dive Systems, Mount Everest Foundation, Ghar Parau Foundation,
A tall order
Caves remain the last frontiers on Earth that cannot be discovered unless you go there in person. Most of the easy pickings have long gone.
As the covid-19 saga rolled on into 2021, the likelihood of me being able to get to Croatia with a team to continue pushing the cave Izvor Licanke, looked gloomy.
As June approached, the travel restriction hokey-cokey continued and getting even the most enthusiastic divers to commit was proving impossible.
Travel through France was a no go and with a heavy heart, yet again I had to cancel the expedition.
Preparations had been stop start - how on earth do you plan an expedition when you don’t know who can come, when or even if it will take place and how you will ultimately get there.
Nothing was open, nothing was really working and, admitting defeat, I took a chance on August.
Figuring that holidays abroad and getting people moving would be good for somebody’s economy, I took the first of many risks, that partly by luck and partly by judgement, paid off.
For some reason August was rammed for most people so it was with a small team of 5 that we headed out to Croatia, with a tall order ahead of us.
My poor car!
The 2019 expedition had yielded a further 2 sumps beyond the deep sump 2 and the dive line ended some hundred or so metres into sump 4.
We had no idea if sump 4 would surface or plummet deeper. This is both the beauty and frustration of cave exploration - no human has ever been there; it cannot be photographed from space or planned by flying over it or studying it as you can with mountains. Even the world’s deepest ocean trenches have now been mapped.
Caves remain the last frontiers on Earth that cannot be discovered unless you go there in person. Most of the easy pickings have long gone.
We got lucky with Licanke in that access problems for the local cavers and cave divers globally had been lost for 20 years, but we managed with the help of locals, to gain legal access Licanke.
Thus, the end of the line laid by the French prolific cave explorer Frank Vasseur, was ready for the taking and with his permission (always ask, never just take) we began exploring the cave.
Since 2015 my team have now extended this cave by a further 1,229 metres, bringing the total length of the cave system to 1623 metres.
What we lacked in numbers in 2021 we made up for in talent. We are always fortunate to have a National Geographic and globally acclaimed underground photographer, Mark Burkey, on our team, He was taught to cave dive by my own fair hand and has let rip ever since, photographing beyond sumps all over the place in some really quite hard-to-reach places.
Louise McMahon. On the right.
Louise McMahon was new to the team and relatively new to cave diving, Highly intelligent and a fast learner, she brought various skills with her but most importantly, is a computer whizz and she offered to re-survey the cave system as far as sump 2 and produce a proper survey of the whole known cave.
Fred Nunn was a last-minute acquisition. I had taken him caving a few times and he took it all in his stride. He had thousands of dives under his belt, all of them in the sea, but it was not a difficult task to up-skill him in the cave diving skills he needed to cross the first short and shallow sump and he passed his course with flying colours.
Fred is often described as ‘Heath Robinson’ - a real problem solver. We hadn’t long invited him when he was already making lead flashing for the dry tubes and weighting systems of all sorts to tidy up our attempts and sinking unwieldy camera boxes and dry tubes.
The two push divers were myself and Rich as our chosen third partner was unable to get out of Mexico due to covid.
It was what it was. We knew it would be tough - and it was.
With thanks to Ghar Parau Foundation and the Mount Everest Foundation for supporting
this expedition.
With thanks to Santi Drysuits, Halcyon Dive Systems and Suex for their generous support throughout this expedition.
The 'Pizza Party'
We finally wiggled our way across the plateau and met another CLPA member, having trouble finding the correct electric fence…
Following a fun day at the Source du Sorgues, we headed back south again to follow Nathan’s directions to the ‘Pizza Party’. The CLPA had organised a farewell party – which was really just an excuse to hang out and show off their pizza-making and wine-drinking skills!
We weaved along tracks up on the plateau getting further and further from civilization as it began to get dark. Oz and Joe followed in their van, wondering where this mad woman was leading them now.
I wasn’t in the least bit bothered as the pizza party was being held in the same vicinity as the Calaven de la Seoubio.
Some CDG friends and I pushed this cave in 2007 and passed 7 sumps (the 8th had disappeared!!) and several kilometres of muddy caving with diving kit, to drop a climb at the limit of exploration and find tens of meters of new dry cave until a final, impassable (at the time) lake was found.
It was my first taste of virgin cave and it took four days of work and an 11 hour trip plus a set-up day, to get there.
On that trip, we radio-located a chamber in the area of sump 7, as we thought it was quite close to the surface. According to the radio-location, the cave was only 30m below the plateau.
The CLPA that evening began digging with their bare hands, looking down every crack in the limestone pavement to find a draught. They have subsequently embarked on several digging missions, including the ‘Aven de Verriére’ and the current project, the ‘Aven du Team’. Each surface dig has reached a depth of around 20m but has yet to yield anything promising. Jean Tarrit pointed out that the Seoubio may well be destined to belong to divers only.
The Hortus Plateau is a barren limestone landscape, which must hold the key to some serious cave somewhere...
We finally wiggled our way across the plateau and met another CLPA member, having trouble finding the correct electric fence. We found it and negotiated it and drove down some pretty Berlingo-hostile track until we found the group by lots of voices in the scrub!
The geologist
Oz and Joe by this point must have really thought I was totally nuts – Oz had already declared he was never going to another pizza party again! Ahhhh, but they hadn’t been to one like this before….
The CLPA had been struggling to find a productive use for the digging spoil they had been producing from the Aven du Team. Some genius thought it would be a good idea to use the limestone pieces from the dig to build pizza ovens!
We stumbled in the near darkness through the scrubby bushes and over the cracked limestone pavement which clinked as you stepped on loose slabs and walked into a clearing where the pizza ovens were roaring with flames.
The wine was flowing, the pizza dough was being rolled, cans of allsorts of toppings were appearing and Jean was in full flow about caves which could connect with the Perdreau, other projects he had in mind for us and the other club members seemed to be queuing up to question us about the project.
Jean and Christine talk caves and eat pizza
It was a simply fantastic evening. The laptops came out and we showed the club the footage Joe had shot in the Gourney-Rou and the Gourney-Ras. They were suitably wowed and then the pizza started circulating – delivered by the same guy who had run down the hill with my cylinders!!
I’m seriously considering joining this club!! They even made Oz his very own vegetarian pizza – but not without a certain amount of p!ss taking!!
It was a real shame to have to leave this great area and such great people. Next time I think we may need to take hammocks and stay the night on the moonlit plateau.
We packed up the tents with some sweaty effort the next day and had a dip in the pool before heading steadily back up the road to the UK. One final treat was in store – a restaurant which we came across purely by chance! It is called L'Ateliére du Gout and we had some of the best French food ever encountered!
The same sadly couldn’t be said of Seafrance…….but we did get a great sunset in Calais and a long, tiring drive home.
Gourneyrou
The rope is needed for the cave entrance. Water levels are extremely low and there is a dodgy metal ladder in place, but getting twinsets and stages into the water requires ropes and elbow grease…
Having recovered from our day off and Oz and Joe having had a great day out in the Mas Raynal, we decided to go to the Gourneyrou.
Rich and I had planned on a 'big' dive in here to the 70m slope which is on the approach to the infamous 90m, gravel-filled U-bend. We weren't sure we would get this far as we had sacrificed one bottom stage of 15/55 for use in the Gourney-Ras and another each for use in the Perdreau. But we had intact trimix in our back-gas and a travel Ali 80 of 32% for the 300m long shallow section.
Oz and Joe only had enough gas to film the 300m level so Rich and I dived first.
Chris and Rich kit up
I hadn't been here before and after a brief excursion down the wrong path, Oz spotted the correct one and we were shortly joined by the French CLPA members, who had been trying to catch up with us over the last few days. Jean Tarrit and friends had showed up for a day out, to meet up with us in person and to thrust an armful of maps and paperwork into my grasp for a proposed project next year. Another one!!
Jean is a fantastic guy. He speaks good, fluent English and has a great sense of humour and has us in stitches. He is wonderful for morale. Not least because he invites his mates along, who pick up our cylinders and run off down the hill with them!
Osama and Joe set off with their cameras
The rope is needed for the cave entrance. Water levels are extremely low and there is a dodgy metal ladder in place, but getting twinsets and stages into the water requires ropes and elbow grease.
Everyone got their gear into the water with the help of the French guys - and the amount of banter they were dishing out was great fun too!
Rich and I kitted up and set off into the crystal clear water.
We dived along an inclined rift until about 12m depth where the cave became spacious and more interesting. It undulated, between 20m and 30m and we followed allsorts of line, from SRT rope to dental floss. The line clearly breaks in winter floods and allsorts of attempts had been made at finding various types of line.
Lowering cylinders into the Gourneyrou
We came across one line break and Rich put a gap line in - not realising that by barely touching the rock, it would stir up a whole cloud of powder which just sat lingering in mid-passage.
We dived on and dropped our 32% travel gas not far from the drop down to the deep section. We had switched onto trimix and started down the gradually descending passageway and it wasn't long before we met depth...50m, 60m, 70m....That'll do......
We turned on the steeply dipping gravel slope, just short of the 'elbow' which causes allsorts of decompression games for anyone wanting to go beyond it.
We dived home and began our deco at -21m. At which point, during the gas switch, my primary light went out.
Now, anybody who knows me will know what I am like with lights. I can kill anything. I amazed Rich in Ginnie Springs by all my lights going out on one dive - back-ups and all - which was even more inconvenient as it was a night dive!!!
So, a bit annoyed, I deployed my back-up which is a decent extreme-tek (this torch was the best thing I ever bought - thanks to Nadir Lasson and Clive Westlake for suggesting it) and continued my gas switch. We hovered decompressing while Rich tried to sort the light out. The switch had been somehow knocked off and it soon came back on. I re-stowed my back-up and we carried on working our way up through the decompression stops. Again, we did more than we needed, but took into account the whole picture of the carry, heat etc and aired on the safe side.
Even so, we barely did half an hour in total.
At 12m I saw Rich doing what looked like a flow check.
Now what?!
He had bubbles coming from his right post. Only little ones, so we carried on and switched onto oxygen at 6m in the awkward inclined rift while Oz and Joe passed us heading in for their dive.
Rich and I sat around for a bit doing not-a-lot, which is customary after deep dives which involve hills and hot weather. Jean and his CLPA mates started hauling gear up for us and our stages were out of the water and up on dry land before we were!!
Joe and Oz came back with some amazing film footage of the sump and after sitting around for a bit, we all made the steady plod up the hill with twinsets and stages. It was a bit cooler than our day at the Gourney-Ras and it was noticeably better for it. We managed to pack up, get some fills done and have a bite to eat before I managed to persuade Rich to come skinny dipping in the Viz river!
Chris climbs out of the Gourneyrou after her dive
It looked stunning and I thought it would be the same temperature as the Herault. It wasn't!! The beer was cooling on the side and after dipping my big toe in, we decided that a swim once round the 'island', dodging enormous trout, was in order - and then out!
After a beer, we headed back into town to find Joe and Oz who had set off in search of the nearest pub. A grand day out and well worth the effort.
Gourney-Ras
T-shirts are soaked with sweat within minutes and we get grubbier and bloodier as we go…
“You said it was only 5 minutes from the road! Again!” they wailed.
Well, it is if you don’t mind a bit of downhill scree-skiing and aren’t carrying a twinset……and stages…..and deco gasses…and drysuits…..and camera gear….
The Gourney-Ras is a stunning site in the Viz gorge. A crystal clear river flows down the impressive valley, cascading over waterfalls and invites canoeists and swimmers to take on the mild rapids and plunge pools.
It is about 30 minutes from the campsite to get to the start of the track, which is perched high up in the midst of the hairpin bends of the cliff. An iron gate (usually open) marks the start of the track. It is only just doable with a van and a small car may struggle a little – ground clearance is helpful. It is slow progress. A sheer drop on the river side of this narrow track makes for some bum-clenching driving and although it is only a few kilometers to the parking spot, it takes another 30 minutes.
Christine decompresses in the Gourneyras. Image: Rich Walker
Oz and Joe have already gone off me at this stage as my version of ‘only 5 minutes’ is not the same as theirs, so I prefer to tell them very little and allow them an element of surprise and adventure!
I’ve visited the Gourney-Ras once before in 2002, but had never dived it and it was long overdue. The path is mainly scree, which slides off down the very steep slope as you tread on it and the first thing you are faced with is a steep clamber over rock slabs. We tied a rope to a tree and set off down the path using it as a hand-line. Elaine started rigging the next bit and shortly we had a rope pretty much all the way to the water’s edge. The steep descent through the tall trees opened up into a large cirque, with a green and stagnant looking resurgence pool at the foot of the cliffs. The massive boulders in the river bed mark the path the flooding cave takes down to the river Viz, which was flowing noisily by a few hundred yards away.
Tiny fish, pond skaters, huge and colourful dragonflies, butterflies and the occasional snake adorn this neck of the woods. It is a tranquil and pleasant place to be.
It is hot though. Sweat pours down your face and into your eyes and doesn’t let up as you plod up and down, up and down the steep hill, hauling on the hand-line as you go to ferry diving equipment to the sump pool. T-shirts are soaked with sweat within minutes and we get grubbier and bloodier as we go, trees and bushes cutting at your legs, grazes forming as you slip or catch a shin on a rock and mosquitoes and flies enjoy feasting on any bit of you that you can’t swat…..
This is resurgence-flopping Herault style!
First visit to the Gourneyras in 2002, carrying for other divers.
Once at the water’s edge, we watched Elaine and Duncan set off into the pool with a pair of 7s each. The Gourney-Ras goes deep quickly, but the best view in the house is reported to be from just down the slope. 7 litre cylinders are fine to get just that view, but we wanted to go further into the 50m section to see the impressive passage beyond the daylight zone.
We kitted up and Oz and Joe set off ahead of us with the video camera. We followed a short while afterwards and dropped our decompression gases off. We continued down-slope at a just off-vertical angle and soon reached 50m depth where we approached a left hand sweeping bend with a white cobbled floor.
We saw Oz and Joe’s light beams swinging towards us around the bend and Oz swam towards me, giving me a slow and exaggerated double ‘OK’ sign over and over….Assuming this was because he’d had such a great dive, we swam on and down the largest cave passage I think I have ever seen. Something in Florida such as Manattee springs may be comparable, but the cave was so dark I couldn’t reach the walls with my torch. Here, the white limestone reflects light brilliantly and there is an azure blue tint to the water which looks to be sparkling in the light.
Diving towards the light. Possibly the most stunning decompression stop ever.
Screen grab: Joe Hesketh.
We dived somewhere between 150m and 200m along the 50m section which was still ongoing at that depth and showed no sign of dropping off deeper yet. We’d planned on a 60m dive but that depth wasn’t achievable with the gas we had so we thumbed it on gas and swam back steadily to the corner.
I was plodding along in my own little dream-world when Rich flashed his light. I looked at him and he pointed at me to look up. I craned my neck back and looked up the slope to see the best view I have ever seen underwater. In the distance above us, was an electric blue shape of the entrance towering above us, with the silhouettes of Oz and Joe decompressing in the middle of it, their torches like pin-pricks of light. I couldn’t take my eyes off it and we had a steady ascent, enjoying the view as we went. I realised then what it was that made Oz give his display of appreciation.
Christine at about 45m in the Gourneyas. Image: Rich Walker
We had minimal decompression but we almost doubled our stops for several reasons. The effort and amount of sweating involved with getting to and from the sump inevitably leads to divers sweating out more than they can replace, so dehydration is a real issue. The cave is at altitude and the water is only 11 degrees. There is no immediate help and the nearest chamber is 4 hours away. The cave is pretty remote and a bent diver would be disastrous because of access issues, so we were extremely careful. We carry a full airway, oxygen and fluid kit with us on trips like this.
We waited some time before attempting to carry gear back up the hill to the vans. This is very much mind over matter as it’s unavoidable that it will be hard physically. You just have to keep going and eventually we got all our gear out as dusk fell.
Chris in the Gourneyras