Christine Grosart 23/10/2023 Christine Grosart 23/10/2023

I had just lost Rich Walker...

Morning broke and the team were treated to myself and Rich arguing over our identical 5mm wetgloves…

This is normal. It’s pre-dive stress and we had to get rid of it somehow. Better with each other than the rest of the team.

Breakfast and coffee out of the way and normality resumed, we headed to the cave via the local shop, to get some provisions. The underground food was getting complaints, so Ash and Rick, given that we had very little to carry on this day, decided that they were going to cook hot dogs.

We ventured into the butchers to purchase some BBQ food for the evening and Rick sought out some European looking sausages in a jar from the supermarket.

But we needed buns. So, spotting some likely looking hot dog buns, Ash gathered up a good handful…

Chris and Rich ready to set off into sump 2

Myself and Rich got into our drysuits and it was a careful caving trip to sump 2, trying hard not to slip over and rip them. We took 5 minutes to ourselves whilst floating in the lakes to talk through our dive plan and deco schedule on the fly – we simply didn’t know what depth this cave would go to or where it would go next, so we opted for 60 metres maximum depth and a total run time of about 40 minutes from the bottom of the shaft.

This gave us 10 minutes to get to the end of last years line and another 10 minutes at whatever depth to lay some more. I was running the line again and Rich would be trying to jot down a survey behind me. We also knew that we needed to bridge the buried line with a spare spool, so that went in the kit list as well.

I would go in first and tie off the ‘good’, larger camera to the oxygen drop to give me something to do on deco. I’d take the go-pro all the way but, having lost the attachment which tied it to the new halcyon cordless torches, I’d have to hand hold it, which is a bit tricky really when laying line! I’d have to see how it went…

On unpacking the bags of ‘stuff’ I realised I had left the carefully cut out and laminated “Eurotek Divers Get Everywhere” cookie back at the ranch. Oh well, that was the least important item. And forget to take the glory marker…..

Kitting up was a relatively chilled affair. Rick helped me on with my 4 sidemount bottles and Ash did the same for Rich. We had lots of light from the filming lights, which was quite welcome and the promise of hot dogs when we came back. Mark had a good go at taking photos and video but the water was chilly and I was itching to get on with it, knowing how cold it was last time. We had a lot of dexterity work to do with camera, line reels, bottle juggling etc so opted for 5mm wet gloves again.

Next time we’ll definitely go dry…

Setting off the visibility was noticeably clearer than last time and we soon passed the oxygen bottles which Ash had placed. Going along the right wall we got a birds eye view of the shaft and could see that the line was not in a good place against the overhanging wall. Frank had doubtless had very little option as he’d experienced much worse visibility. I had a good look and spotted a much better route for the line which we would be replacing on a follow up trip if the cave ‘went’ this time.

The line was laid in 1998 and was thin and had been given a good battering by the winter floods every year since. Typically for Frank, it was well laid and belayed, just needed re-routing in the shaft.

The shaft was my worry. I was very pleased that Rich agreed with me that we would not hang about there decompressing, rather we would rattle through it and fix the deco at the bottom and the top. The mud on the overhanging wall turns the visibility to zero and coupled with a frail line, we were worried about it snagging on our multiple bottles and breakages. A line break in there would be a nightmare and pretty dangerous.

We soon met the 50% deco bottles and continued down the gravel slope to bridge the buried line. Rich set about doing this and we went on, enjoying the cave and its stunning visibility. It didn’t take long to reach the end of Frank’s line and the beginning of ours from last year. It was still in good condition and we carried on in gently undulating cave at an average depth of 38 metres until I recognised my last tie off. I unclipped my line reel and tried to keep relaxed.

Going into unknown cave is exciting and it takes experience to keep your cool. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast, I thought. I didn’t want to waste time fumbling about, so I sorted my regulator switch and tied in the reel. I signalled to Rich and he signalled back, digging out his wetnotes and compass.

We were off! The cave, to my relief, didn’t really trend much deeper.

We did reach 50m at one stage but it stayed roughly in the 45m mark. The undulating sand dunes in the floor were rippled and pretty. The left wall continued sweeping around shallow bend and the right wall could be seen about 10 metres away. I found good tie offs every 15 metres or so.

As much as I wanted to just string out the line as fast as possible, the nature of the cave means that line breaks Unknown territory right ahead are inevitable as it takes thunderous amount of water in flood. Tie offs would make future issues easier to fix. I kept swimming. The go-pro became a pain with the line reel so I reluctantly clipped it off.

My gauges began to threaten to turn me around. I was approaching my gas margins and the cave was still going… At -43m I met a gradual slope upwards with hardly any tie offs. Typical. I went a few metres further and found a slab of rock in the floor. It wasn’t perfect but it was all we had. I wrapped the line Chris reels out the line around it, cut it free and Rich and I both thumbed the dive. The release of pressure as we turned is instant.

Of course, you’re not out of the woods. Mountain ascents don’t count if you die on the way back down. But for 10 minutes Rich and I had a fantastic dive along the new passage, especially as I was now behind him and could enjoy the view with the benefit of his silhouette behind his light.

Rich was swimming about and clearly enjoying it. We negotiated the sand slope and had some bottle juggling as we ditched the very buoyant Ali 80s and got rid of them onto a leash. We clipped the 50% bottles on and did our gas switch in deteriorating visibility. We set off up the shaft. Rich was now just behind me and all seemed to be going well.

As the shaft became more awkward, we went single file. I was just thinking that it didn’t seem as bad as last time, when the unthinkable happened.

“Oh Sh*t!” I repeated it several times in my head and also out loud to myself through my regulator. “Just keep calm, keep your head….you have loads of gas to go looking for him and he has plenty of gas too…..”

Despite loads of training and plenty of “Oh sh*t” moments over many years cave diving in less than desirable conditions in British caves….nothing quite prepares you for that moment when your boyfriend is in acute danger.

I had just lost Rich Walker.

The broken end of the line flailed behind me and I stared at it in horror. We knew this would happen. A 19 year old, thin exploration line in a slightly off-vertical shaft, which gets battered every winter by floods and melt water from the mountains above the cave entrance, with sparse, psychological belays and zero visibility…add to the mix a bouquet of spent ali 80s and there we had it. An emergency.

I gathered up the loose line to stop it forming another hazard and wrapped it around a nodule of rock on the sloping wall. Trembling, from both fear and the cold, I unclipped my exploration reel whilst staring into the fog in the hope of seeing his light. There was nothing but silence and the glow from my torch. I tied in the line reel and set off to where I had come from. Rich, doubtless thinking I was trying to assassinate him, calmly deployed his search reel and headed upwards, following the overhanging wall.

No sooner had I set off down the shaft, we ran into each other. Fear turned to overwhelming relief and the sicky feeling turned to butterflies.

We tied our reels off and made our way to the 6 metre oxygen drop, shivering in the 7 degree water at the end of a 97 minute dive. We had just discovered beautiful, virgin cave passage but for 5 extremely concerning minutes, it barely seemed worth it. We finished our deco, cold but relieved.

On surfacing, Mark was at the ready with his camera. I gave him 5 minutes to get is shots. Poor guy, but I was super cold and by the time Rick waded into the sump pool to help me off with my gear, I was shivering uncontrollably.

We really, really needed those hot dogs!

Ash and Rick eating the hot dogs…with bread! Image: Mark Burkey

We climbed the small boulder pile to the make shift kitchen to be met with a very sheepish Ashley, who was poking the sausages around in the boiling water.

“The bread fell in the water…” he lied.

“You mean there is no bread?!!” I wailed.

Like two naughty school children, Rick and Ash started giggling and Mark hid.

“Well, on the upside…they were covered in sugar!”

Ash had bought the Croatian equivalent of iced buns instead of hot dog rolls and we felt a little more smug.

Rich and I scalded our fingers fishing the hot dogs out of the boiling water and ate the lot in minutes.

Ash raided Rich’s wetnotes, wanting to know how much line we had laid. We didn’t know and didn’t care. Last year we only laid 42 metres at 42m depth on our first dive in sump 2. In France we had laid 42 metres on our last dive in Fourmi Perdreau. I had laid 42 metres in Garrel in 2012……

“You’ll never guess what!” Ash called out.

“Don’t!” I said “DON’T tell me it’s 42 metres!!”

Ash laughed.

“Nawwwww…you laid 99!!!”

Bloody 3m knot intervals. That’s going to change next time…..

Christine Grosart 23/10/2023 Christine Grosart 23/10/2023

"That was a f***ing epic dive!"

Day two, and we were on schedule.

All the bottles, harnesses and lead had arrived at the bottom of the climb. Ash replaced the rope on the climb, which was looking a bit frayed. Chris carrying a dive cylinder in the dry cave Mark wielded his camera, shooting video for our short film and this was expectedly time consuming, but it was important to get the lighting and the focusing right.

Once at sump 2, Rich decided that standing still was too difficult and somehow manage to step backwards and trip over a small, sharp lump of rock. I turned to see him doing a backwards flying angel into the streamway. Unfortunately, he landed on another, larger lump of sharp rock which caused an impressive bruise on his thigh which seemed to grow day by day.

Whilst by our standards, the caving was easy, you cannot take your eye off the ball for a moment in this cave as it is so seldom travelled and the rocks are sharp and friable.

Boulders move and hand holds sheer off. Rescue from outside isn’t really an option, so the team tried hard to exercise care.

Ash set off into the sump and returned half an hour later, spluttering about having had a “f***ing epic dive!” The visibility was crystal but as expected, had gone to zero in the 21m deep shaft where mud clings to the roof and exhalation bubbles bring it down. Ash also reported that Frank’s old line was buried for several metres on the sand slope beyond the 21m deco drop, so a spool would be needed to clear it. He’d had a go at pulling it out but it wasn’t budging. To push that amount of sand upslope, there must have been some serious flooding over the winter.

Satisfied, Ash left with his bottles and we re-grouped to take some still images and a bit more video. It took 8 flashguns to light up the main passage and the results were stunning. We stood in precarious positions, looking this way and that way, while Mark composed his shots. The dry cave is big, with sharp black rocks and boulder at foot and reddish mud walls closer to the roof. There are some decorations but not many and the boulder choke with rocks the size of cars, is hot and sweaty and slippery going. It’s always a relief to get back into the streamway again to cool off.

Main passage between sumps 1 and 2. Image: Mark Burkey

Lunch was an interesting affair.

Ash doesn’t really eat anything other than Haribo and Nutella and usually opted to go without. We found some tins of tuna salad which survive sumps quite well, but this time brought them through in the dry tube with some forks this time…. They weren’t very nice but they were edible. I bought some jaffa cakes and thought chocolate and cherry sounded pretty cool, but they soon invited complaints. It seems gastronomy is an issue underground so we definitely needed to work on something better to keep the troops happy the next day.

As we surfaced from sump 1, Robbie was there – as he always is – to pull the twinsets out of the awkward concrete pumping station. Rich looked at my twinset and picked up the go pro which had been clipped off to my harness. “Ooh, that doesn’t look good…..” Water was sloshing around in the housing. I opened it quickly, pulled the battery out and Mark gave me some silica gel to begin the possibly pointless task of drying it out. The cave had killed the second camera in as many years and I was quite annoyed. Luckily Ash had one and offered it to me to use in the second sump, for which we were very grateful.

The days were always followed up by cold beers, housed in Rick’s huge ice box. Robbie found us a nice restaurant, which served up trays of delicious food…we had pork, sauerkraut, huge balls of home made gnocci and a meat stew. The local wine was superb and we always made an effort to get out of the cave in reasonable time for tea. Nobody wants to still be in the cave late into the evening so the extra days were welcomed.

I was a little nervous about the next days dive. There is always a lot of pressure. We had brought these guys out to help us, spent 3 months training Mark to cave dive, Ash had driven 2 days to be here, Rick drove down from the Netherlands….even though they wouldn’t have batted an eyelid if we had failed, we definitely did not want to let them down.

I went through my check list in my head over and over and at some point, fell asleep.

Christine Grosart 23/10/2023 Christine Grosart 23/10/2023

We're gonna need more lead...

Richard Walker was already in Croatia, settling in for several weeks of teaching technical diving courses once our cave exploration was over. Ashley Hiscock drove down from the UK in remarkable time and didn’t manage to get arrested once!

He brought the larger items, such as the two dry tubes for camera gear, food, filming lights, flash bulbs and flashguns. Mark and I had tested our pelicases and ‘depth proof’ camera boxes in a local quarry and they all flooded.

We decided that the camera boxes could not be trusted, so we would dive them through flooded, dry them out the far side of the sump and re-pack the camera gear from the dry tubes into them for easier transportation through the cave.

Rick Van Dijk Rick Van Dijk drove from the Netherlands and brought some cylinders and extra gas in case we needed to top up the bottles for sump 1. Ash and Rich play ‘sink the dry tube’

Mark and I flew on a convenient new flight from Bristol to Pula. The journey was uneventful and we spent the flight going through our plan to make a short movie of the project. Mark is a superb photographer but he had never really got into shooting video, so this was a great opportunity for him to give it a whirl. We spent a day in a welsh cave practising and getting camera settings and lighting right before the trip, which was time well spent.

One important job was to get the dry tubes weighted for diving through sump 1.

No matter how much you fill them, they seem unsinkable! They need a lot of lead and Ash and Rich had fun trying to weight the ex Gavin standard body scooter with two nose cones, in the sea! At least we would need 2 kilos less in the cave. Even then, it rode like a wild animal…

Christine analyses and marks up cylinders in Krnica

Robbie from Krnica Dive Centre came with us and he was in charge of making sure logistics went smoothly. He located our accommodation and did all the Croatian speaking for us. The gite style house was warm, comfy and had the best BBQ room we’ve ever seen. It was also home to an extraordinary array of stuffed animals, from bears to fighting pheasants, stoats and deer heads. It was a bit strange but caused a few giggles.

Morning from our bedroom looked sunny and pleasant. After breakfast and a plan of the day, we headed to Licanke, a short drive from Fuzine and set off into the cave.

Mark was undertaking his first cave dive, chaperoned by Rich and myself and had no trouble at all. He thoroughly enjoyed it and surfaced on the far side of sump 1, grinning from ear to ear. We shed our twinsets and started drying out the camera boxes while the dry tubes and exploration bottles came through with Rich, Rick and Ash.

Mark dives sump 1 in Izvor Licanke. Image: Mark Burkey

The next job was to inflate the Halcyon life raft. We acquired this odd bit of kit many years ago and were never really sure what it was for. It turned out to be quite useful for cave diving projects and to date, has never been in the sea! The gear stash The deep lakes were the first obstacles in this cave. Dropping heavy bottles in here would have been a nightmare and swimming them across the lakes very cumbersome and time consuming.

We worked out that the best way to do this was to load the life raft with bottles and scooter it across the lakes. Mark set up the filming lights and shot some great video of the whole affair. We set aside 2 days for the filming and to get all the gear to sump 2. Half the job was done on day 1 and we were on schedule.

Chris moving gear across the lakes using a scooter and Halcyon life raft

Christine Grosart 23/10/2023 Christine Grosart 23/10/2023

Nah, he can't dive...

Mark Burkey is a caver – and a bloomin good one.

In recent years he has been making a name for himself on the cave photography circuit, winning several awards and his images are in high demand from media publications and promotions. Rich and I were on the lookout for someone who could take high quality images of the project and also shoot video for our short film idea.

Now, neither Rich, Rick nor I are bad cave photographers but our attempt at documenting the project in 2016 failed miserably. First, my DSLR flooded in it’s underwater tube which rendered it useless for the remainder of the trip. The three of us were preoccupied with getting half a dozen cylinders and other diving equipment to the sump and back in 3 days so the media took a hit and we returned with almost nothing.

Put simply, we could not carry the kit, organise the trip, dive the sumps, explore the cave and video ourselves doing it. Not in the quality we wanted anyhow. We needed someone else to take on the job.

“What about Mark Burkey?” Rich tapped away on Facebook messenger while he was in some far flung country teaching a diving class.

“Nah…he can’t dive” I replied, wishing he could.

The first sump was something of an obstacle to regular dry cavers. It was only 40 metres long and no deeper than 6 metres. But even so, it was not a free dive, the water was 6 degrees last time and the visibility deteriorates inevitably as the divers drag negative loads through the sump for transportation on the far side. “Well, you’ve got 3 months to teach him…..” Rich said. I did.

A Mark Burkey image of Rick in sump 1, Izvor Licanke.

But what were the chances?

First, he would need to be free for the trip. Then he would need to want to do it and be prepared to document the whole project, which we already knew was hard work. I had only caved with him once and he barely knew me. Then he would not only need to learn to scuba dive but cave dive too. It was a tall order and I brushed off the idea whilst struggling to think of somebody else.

I was bored at work one afternoon, which is a rare occurrence and thought to myself “Stuff it…he can only say no”. I phoned him up.

Mark had been to my talk on Croatian caves at the Hidden Earth conference a year or two ago and seemed excited about the project. He would check the dates, check the flights and all being well, would be able to come along. It wasn’t long before he called me back and said he was pretty much on.

“Oh…um…there’s just one other thing” I said. “You need to learn to cave dive by June!”

A hearty laugh came down the phone followed by a definite “OK!” The adventure had begun.

Christine Grosart 23/10/2023 Christine Grosart 23/10/2023

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.

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…

Christine Grosart 23/10/2023 Christine Grosart 23/10/2023

The Master Cave

Izvor Licanke is a fantastic opportunity for so many things and so many of the team.

I often look back at excursions like this and smile at how everyone got something out of the trip. Not just the push divers at the sharp end, but everyone.

Only a few years ago Rick Van Dijk was taking his first steps with WetWellies Caving underground as a totally new caver.

Now, he is caving all over France and Belgium and has become a part of the furniture on the Licanke project.

Ash Hiscock is making a name for himself in the deeper, longer caves in France and Spain and I'm quite proud to have brought on a trainee who is not only still cave diving but exploring at a high level.

Robbie Varesko is a talented GUE tech diver and is phenomenally strong. As a triathlete, he makes light work of dive kit underground. He was there originally as a minder, to look after the permits and help us with logistics but as the years went on, he was desperate to get in the water and join the project.

Now he is a solid member of the team.

Rick in Izvor Licanke. Image: Mark Burkry

Mark Burkey's first real cave dive was in Licanke. From being virtually a non-diver he got a crash course over three months with me to make him safe at least in sump 1.

Now he has bought all the kit, has become a trainee in the CDG and has been enjoying diving all sorts of sumps around the UK. I look back now and cannot quite believe how far he has come - especially as it was never intended!

Rich Walker has probably gained the least from the project. He is a wreck diver so caves are lower on his interest list. He has explored enough virgin cave in Bosnia and France to keep him happy and he's done huge dives in Eagles Nest and stunning dives in Mexico. I often wonder if there s much more that this project can give him.

He does though add a lot to the project. His maths is excellent and the bailout strategy and deco plan always gets run through him before being finalised.

I think the only reason he comes back is because there is no crawling involved...

Chris scootering out of the cave in sump 1. Image: Rich Walker

For me, this is everything I ever dreamed of and more. I don't know of any other women right now who are laying virgin line at 50m in 7 degree water on rebreathers and scooters.

This, of course, being our net move.

The project has stripped me of every penny I have earned in the last 4 years. I have literally ploughed every coin I have into it.

I've had to buy a rebreather and now scooters...cave exploration doesn't come cheap at all.

Fourth Element and Otter have also supported members of our team and Halcyon have also been brilliant in helping out with lighting, most notably the interchangeable batteries which are a godsend on the cordless lights.

Discovering part of this planet and being the first person ever to go there is hard to beat. It was so good I made a film about it.

The terms 'Adventure' and 'Exploration' are very confusing these days and have very different meanings to how I understand them.

Being out on a limb and beyond any sort of rescue is where the real adventure starts.

If somebody was there before me, it's not exploration.

Christine Grosart 23/10/2023 Christine Grosart 23/10/2023

That's when the fun started...

Everyone agreed that a day off was in order.

This meant Ash heading in a straight line with no wavering for a Mcdonalds.

Rick, Mark and Robbie also headed into Rijeka while Rich and I stayed at home drying out and repairing pretty much everything we own.

The next day we were ready to go again, with Rich and I aiming for one last push at the end of Ash's line.

The whole thing was made harder by the fact that we now had another 207 metres to cover at around 50m depth. It was going to be a chilly dive.

We arrived at the sump pool in good time and I fitted the assumed faulty MAV (manual addition valve) after a service.

After some fettling it now appeared to be working. It was doing everything it was supposed to in pre-dive checks and giving me all the right numbers. It was good to go.

Robbie helped us kit up an I cannot understate the importance and value of having a diver who knows what they are doing, helping you get ready. Little things like dropping dry gloves into the water would mean dive over. Robbie was superb and a huge asset to the team. Things would definitely have been much harder without him.

Ash followed us down to 38 m depth with a Paralenz camera mounted on a tray with Light Motion video lights. He had been given a crash course in videography which was definitely not his thing, but he filmed us thus far and then handed the camera over to me and I continued filming Rich while Ash returned to base.

Rich and I continued until we met the start of Ash's line.

I was totally relaxed and enjoying myself. The visibility wasn't so great and we were moving a little slower than the pervious year as I didn't want to even get close to raising my breathing rate on the CCR.

I filmed for about 20 minutes, finally dropping the camera as the cave began to undulate significantly.

After what seemed an age, we came to the end of Ash's line and, contrary to what he had told us, the cave looked to trend immediately deeper.

I called Ash lots of things out loud and Rich began laying line while I surveyed behind, declaring we had 5 minutes run time more, regarding bail out strategy.

Rich laid another 36m of new line and the cave started to trend deeper, still ongoing, ending at 42m depth. He cut the line free and we packed up and headed home.

That's when the fun started.

Not long after we had begun to head home, I noticed my oxygen percentage was creeping dangerously high and it seemed to get worse the deeper we went. I repeatedly flushed the loop with 15/55 trimix to bring it down, but this only relieved the issue temporarily.

With only a 3 litre bottle of diluent (more than enough to do this dive several times over) I knew that flushing the loop every minute or so would mean running out of diluent - and I did.

It was inevitable that I would have to bail out.

Bailing out seems to be something that rebreather divers are afraid of and they don't seem to want to do it readily.

I had practised it many times and it was really no great drama.

We had 1.5 times the gas we needed to get home - each - plus bailout decompression gas each - so it was no big deal to simply switch to open circuit and dive home.

To this day I don't understand why CCR divers are so afraid of bailing out and if many had done so sooner, they might still be alive.

Chris carrying a Suex scooter on a KUBI scooter back pack, just before sump 2. Image: Mark Burkey

The biggest problem was the camera and light arms. Every few metres it seemed to snag on something so I threw it at Rich who man handled it home.

I switched the oxygen off to help manage the loop volume and had a swift dive home, switching between bailouts and bailout deco gas and we completed a thankfully short 40 minute decompression.

Ash nonchalantly showed up at 6 metres completely unaware of the situation. How, I don't know, but he also seemed to miss the fact that I was no longer on my rebreather!

Not spotting much amiss he carried on down to 25m as instructed and cleaned up the messy stash of bottles at the bottom of the shaft.

I fiddled about trying to get his underwater ipod to work (I couldn't) and Rich caught up with me at 6 metres.

The cause of the oxygen issue had long been thought to be the MAV (manual addition valve, which injects oxygen into the breathing loop at the press of a button) but on closer inspection and a thorough service, evidence of an oxygen fire in the oxygen regulator is likely to be the culprit, causing the interstage pressure to become very unstable. This meant that too much oxygen was being forced into the loop at depth. A high PO2 (partial pressure of oxygen) is toxic to the human body and can lead to a seizure. Nobody has ever survived a seizure underwater.

The whole unit has been serviced and the offending regulator replaced.

Ash, Robbie, Rich, Christine, Rick, Mark

Christine Grosart 22/10/2023 Christine Grosart 22/10/2023

Just a little swim

Rich elected not to dive this time, to allow time for his flooded undersuit to dry out.

Ash and I set off into the cave with a plan to go straight to the end of the 2017 and start laying new line in sump 2 beginning at a depth of 42 metres.

Cave passage on the approach to sump 2. Image: Mark Burkey

Arriving at the sump pool, I was having difficulty adding oxygen to the loop. The faulty MAV had been plaguing me for a while and despite repairs, was still intermittent. The oxygen injection was now not even working at all.

This was a no brainer. The unit was faulty and I could not dive. Ash was already geared up in the sump pool so, after a brief discussion he asked if he could 'go for just a little swim'.

I told him to stop mucking about and to go to the end of the line and see what happened - or this cave wouldn't get pushed out at all!

Ash sets off into sump 2. Image: Mark Burkey

Ash quickly reached the end of line, picking up a bailout stage en-route, and tied on the reel. After approximately 2 minutes of laying line, a stage was dropped.

In 3-4m visibility he got very excited about a ramp which went from -46m up to -25m but this quickly dropped back down.

In 17mins 207m of line was laid, approximately half at -40m average and half at -30m average, on a 101min dive.

He surveyed the line on the way home and we were relieved that the cave seemed to be trending shallower, although it still hadn't done the honourable thing and surfaced.

The gauntlet was now laid down for Rich and myself to get back on the horse, rebreather seemingly fixed and try to make more progress on our last day.

Chris tows gear across the lakes in the Halcyon Life raft. Image: Mark Burkey

Christine Grosart 22/10/2023 Christine Grosart 22/10/2023

Chain Gang

Izvor Licanke project 2018 - Day 2

After the usual "what shall we eat today" faff of breakfast and cave food, all the divers went through sump one and carried the remainder of the gear including a dry tube with camera gear and food.

The divers on CCR (rebreathers) Richard, Ash and Christine dived their units through sump one and pushed their twinsets and open circuit gear through ahead of them for daily ferrying trips, with the plan to leave the rebreathers at sump 2. Only the small rebreather bottles and suit inflation bottles would come out of the cave each day, along with any spent sodalime. This was easy to do as the dry tubes were reliable.

We all carried our own rebreathers to sump 2 which wasn't as horrific as I envisaged. I had two guys balancing me over the boulders as a slip or fall would not only damage me but damage my unit. The rest of the way it was fine. The team chained all the gear to the sump and began setting it up for the push dive. A makeshift kitchen and 'clean' area was created and bailout bottles were tested and some niggles sorted out and repaired.

The boulder chamber in Izvor Licanke. Image: Mark Burkey.

One SPG had got smashed in the carry and a few hoses had developed leaks but in the grand scheme of things, that is the best we could have hoped for after taking the fragile kit through such hostile conditions. Nobody complained and just switched the parts out for new ones.

Ash and Christine did a quick foray into sump 2 to pull out the nasty old thin line that had caused Rich and Christine some aggravation last year and a thick caving rope was put in its place. This was much stronger, easier to see and easier to feel in the poor visibility shaft. Ash also retrieved Rich's search reel which he'd be moaning about for the last 12 months.

Mark set up his video station, having bought several expensive video lights for the project and set about lining up various shots for the film Christine planned to create.

Rick Van Dijk in Licanke. Image: Mark Burkey.

The priority this year was video footage, both in the 'dry' cave and underwater. We were fortunate to have got hold of some Paralenz dive cameras. Rated to 200 metres depth and small enough to fit in your pocket, they were an obvious choice to take with us. With neat video lights from Light Motion, we hoped to get some decent footage of the underwater passages.

Mark Burkey waves to his Mum after he promised her he would never go cave diving….

Christine Grosart 22/10/2023 Christine Grosart 22/10/2023

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.

Christine Grosart 22/10/2023 Christine Grosart 22/10/2023

“Just like a parrot”

Osama and Christine set off into sump 2.

Oz and I quietly trudged up and down the passage between sump 2 and sump 3.

It was mostly walking, with an awkward boulder choke soon after sump 2.

There was a convenient hole to pass through but it was better not to touch anything above you and not look up. The sizeable hanging death was best out of sight and out of mind. We hadn’t managed to find a suitable way around it.

Christine carries her rebreather from sump 2 to sump 3.

Mauro didn’t get the memo and I bumped into him just after he’d passed through the boulder choke stating; “f****ck man if that stuff decided to come down now…..” .

He shuddered and carried on moving our bailout bottles.

Rich and Mauro saw us off into sump 3 which is a short and pleasant dive, before surfacing in the extremely irritating bit of passage before sump 4.

Only 8 metres long, this passage is extremely sharp and the entrance and exit at sump 4 has a needle-like layer of rock, perfect for tearing drysuits, stabbing knees despite knee pads and ripping hoses. This slab of rock on the entry to sump 4 (best done by giant stride in, levitation out…) was responsible for ripping Anton’s hose off his bailout in 2021.

Oz and I got away relatively lightly. His oxygen regulator unraveled itself in the pool, so we had an odd 5 minutes with me trying to fix it while Oz circumnavigated the pool doing doggy paddle. “Stay still for god’s sake!” was the best advice I could offer.

Reg fixed, I unclipped my mask from the safe place I had put it on the washing line, immediately dropping it into the sump that eats gear. Oz went down to rescue it, recovering the line reel I had dropped in the very same spot last year, at the same time….

Sump 4 goes on a bit, for several hundred metres and touches 30m depth at one point. It has an annoying vertical ascent with hardly any belays about 2/3 of the way through, then takes off again at 11m depth. I came across my tie off from 2021 and the line was still in good order for the final ascent.

The passage between sumps 4 and 5 was just as nice as I remembered it but of course, shorter.

Sump 5 was waiting, right where I left it.

Oz and I became a bit more chatty now that we had made it to the start of exploration. It was something of a relief to tie the line reel off and set off underwater into virgin territory.

I was hungry. The cold water and significant exertion of caving with a rebreather (forgetting we’d just done a 50m deep, 600m long tech dive…) meant hunger and thirst were real issues.

I ignored it and set off laying line into sump 5. The visibility started out murky from where we had trodden up the gravel while kitting up. It soon went instantly clear and in typical Licanke fashion, did not offer up any suitable belays in any suitable places.

I ran the line reel down to about 15m depth and marveled at the big, blue expanse ahead of me. The cave looked to be going ahead and off to my right, but it soon closed down. Scratching my head, I heard Oz calling for me (he was a little way behind, sorting the Mnemo surveying device). Divers can talk quite well on rebreathers, so I tied off my reel and swam back to see what the problem was.

Christine laying line into the brand new sump 5.

Oz was surprised to see me but swore he hadn’t called out for me. Clear as day I’d heard someone shout my name. Freaky.

I shrugged and went back to my line reel, casting around for ongoing passage. Half of me hoped for a continuation but the other half prayed that this would be the end of the cave and we could stop this 7-year nonsense and go home, carrying on with our lives, having fun elsewhere.

I had tipped literally thousands of pounds into this project, as had my team, and we did start to wonder just how much more we could take.

Oz caught up with me and pointed upwards.

Oh no.

Going up on rebreathers while laying line is stressful and it didn’t help that I was low on oxygen. I had a spare bottle back at sump 2 but I had to get back there first. All these ups and downs burn through oxygen on rebreathers and I wasn’t up for another ascent, which might be futile in any case. I started up the smooth wall and with only 50 bar of oxygen left, thought ‘stuff this’ and came back down, giving the line reel to Oz.

I picked up his Mnemo on the way back and started moving my bottles and rebreather back to sump 4, getting some of the work done for when Oz returned. At least I’d managed to film the dive on my Paralenz dive camera.

Another half an hour or so later he surfaced. The cave had continued very shallow, at about 2m with the occasional air bell. This is a nightmare on a rebreather so I had no regrets about not continuing.

Meanwhile, back between sump 2 and sump 3, Rich, a self-proclaimed introvert was spending hours at the mercy of an extremely excitable and talkative Italian.

He had worked out though that if you turned the helmet lights off, Mauro went silent.

Rich quickly exploited this tactic of ‘saving batteries’ by turning the lights off to get some peace and quiet. Explaining to us later he said he was a bit like a parrot – they go quiet when you throw a blanket over their cage!

To keep themselves occupied, I’d requested that they get some nice images and video from the decorated side passage in between sumps 2 and 3.

Of course, with no check list and the Italian method of ‘winging it’ the go pro didn’t make it through sump 2.

So, the guys had nothing to do the entire time we were gone.

Check lists. They are the future.

Christine has help kitting up from Mitch in sump 2.

During one of these pitch black siestas, Rich and Mauro both jumped up and turned their lights on as they both heard Oz and I returning. They made their way to sump 3 to greet us, only to be faced with nothing. There was nobody there...

They looked at each other, confused and slightly rattled...and spent another couple of awkward hours waiting for us.

Back at sump 5, Oz and I were making our way back home. I was now very hungry and feeling energy sapped. Food was available at sump 2, but we hadn’t brought any further in. Oz donated one of his baby food gel energy pouch things. It was utterly revolting but it gave me a short boost to get me back through to sump 2.

Rich went and got me some food when he realised his life was possibly in danger due to my hunger and I soon got ‘back in the room’ having eaten a tuna pasta tin of cat food.

Nutrition. We put that on the list for next time….

Due to excellent planning and timing, shortly after surfacing from Sump 2, the four of us could hear voices. The support team of Mark, Lou, Luke and Mitch had arrived and we were extremely grateful to see them.

We had been underground about 15 hours and discovered a couple of hundred metres of new underwater passage, which was still going. In addition, we completed the dry survey between sumps 4 and 5 and the remainder of sump 4. We left forward pushing bailout bottles at sump 5 as well.

We even got some video. That was a seriously productive day out.

Chris and Rich beyond sump 1. Image: Mark Burkey

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 7 years.

Izvor Licanke Expedition Team 2022: Mark Burkey, Louise McMahon, Luke Brock, Mitchell Parry, Richard Walker
Push divers: Christine Grosart, Osama Gobara, Mauro Bordignon.

The expedition reports, funded by Mount Everest Foundation, are available to read here:
MEF Full Expedition report

Funding and support:
Santi Drysuits, Halcyon Dive Systems, Mount Everest Foundation, Ghar Parau Foundation,
Suex Scooters Warmbac

Christine Grosart 21/10/2023 Christine Grosart 21/10/2023

“You have no idea how much sh!t we are in….”

Osama Gobara, fondly known as ‘Oz’ watched despairingly as his cave diving buddy Mauro ‘faffed’ in only a way that Italians can faff.

“It’ll be fine” was the reply in a slightly high-pitched, laid-back Italian accent, dismissing Osama’s worries as he threw bits of diving and caving gear in the car.

Oz, gripped with dread, knowing what it meant to be late and disorganised for any expedition of mine, tried to warn Mauro…especially as they were already a day late.

“You have no idea how much sh!t we are in!” he told Mauro. He knows me too well.

All assembled for the pre-trip final briefing

Despite over 6 months of meticulous planning on the part of the British contingent (except Mitch Parry, who apart from occasionally using a computer once a week, had also got the flight dates completely wrong…) Oz and Mauro decided that it would all come together in the last 48 hours before the expedition.

Wrong clothing, wrong gas and wrong equipment was quickly put to bed by a few sharply worded Whatsapp messages from myself and they rocked up a day late, having never met any of my team before.

This didn’t look good. I could feel undertones of doubt about my choices of extra push divers and I started to feel uneasy.

I knew Oz would pull it out of the bag but Mauro was a complete unknown to me and my team – they would both have to pull their socks up.

After all, everyone was here to carry their kit. All 25 bags of it, plus 5 scooters and 4 rebreathers…

After the 2021 expedition where I discovered yet another sump, sump 5 and some really nice but far too short walking passage, we re-evaluated the Licanke expedition. Now in it’s 7th year, it was just no longer safe to keep ending up with one diver pushing alone so far into the system. We decided to bring in reinforcements.

Finding push divers for your expedition is hard.

First, they need to be CCR and scooter capable in a 50m deep, 7 degree sump; they need to be happy carrying their rebreathers and all their bailouts in a drysuit in dry cave; they need to be team players and be prepared to join the ‘big carry’ in and out of the cave; they need to be able to lay line well and survey, both underwater and above water; they need to be able to solve any problem either above or below water but most of all – they must not be a dickhead.

We don’t want dickheads on our expedition, especially if I’m at some stage to hand the end of my line over to them. I’ll only do that for people I like, who pull their weight and earn it.

Rich Walker had religiously come on every exped since 2015 at quite some personal expense and discomfort. He dislikes caving anyway, so doing it in a drysuit and rebreather really doesn’t appeal to him. By his own admission, being beyond a deep, reasonably long sump like sump 2 in Licanke, made him uneasy. His expertise is in the water; he's just not a fan of getting out. I needed someone who didn’t mind this level of exposure and was prepared to push further.

So, while Rich was happy in deep support mode, Oz and Mauro were brought in to leapfrog the exploration. The exped was now 2 weeks long with rest days factored in, as the cave was getting longer – and harder.

Once they had got their pile of half-built KISS Sidewinder rebreather bits into some sort of machine that could support life, we had a briefing. Using a combination of huge printed out survey and the laptop hooked up to the telly, it was quite comprehensive. We then had the worlds biggest whiteboard and magnets to move people and gear across the cave to finalise the plan.

Chaining large amounts of equipment over the huge boulder chamber is the most efficient way of keeping things moving.

The next morning the ‘big carry’ ensued. It was pretty slick. Scooters, rebreathers, bailout cylinders, deco bottles, bags with drums full of regulators all made their way to sump 2.

Regs were tested, rebreathers built and checked and scooters checked for batteries and damage.

Owing to several items being forgotten last time, we made use of A4 wetnotes and pens at the start of sump 2. These were for check lists to make sure no divers set off into the blue yonder minus a camera, food, tackle bags, suit gas bottle, spare oxygen etc. Once you had set off, there was no turning back. The plan to cross sump 2 has always been to go hard and fast on the scooter trigger to avoid decompression. It is a committing dive.

After a day off and some mandatory last minute faffing, the plan was for me and Osama to go straight to sump 5 and dive it. We also needed to survey the remainder of sump 4 and the dry passage between sumps 4 and 5. I had been alone the previous year so a proper survey had taken a back seat.

Osama and I set off a few minutes ahead of Rich and Mauro. I towed the spare scooter and Oz the forward pushing bailout bottles. Rich and Mauro followed on with 'safeties' staged through the sump at key points and decompression bottles for the 'home' side of sump 2.

I also took a bunch of polyprop ‘washing line’ to help protect the thin exploration line at the exits of the sumps and set about rigging this on the far side of sump 2 before the others appeared.

Everyone had made it past sump 2. The game was on.

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 7 years.

The expedition reports, funded by Mount Everest Foundation, are available to read here:
Expedition Report 2022

Christine Grosart 21/10/2023 Christine Grosart 21/10/2023

Wild World

Osama and Mauro at sump 2. Image: Mark Burkey

I was well and truly broken after that 15 hour day. I didn’t ache so much, but mentally I was wrung out.

I asked Oz how many days off he though he’d need before going back. He gestured “two” with his fingers while inhaling a mouth full of Mauro’s incredible mushroom risotto.

That was me out. I needed at least 3 days off and even then, wondered if a trip in excess of 15 hours wearing my rebreather was something I wanted to do that week. Again.

Mauro was super fired up at this point. Having seen the carry between sumps 2 and 3, Rich had no interest in going there with his JJ.

We agreed that there also wasn’t much value in having people sitting between sumps getting cold all day and as Osama and I had already moved the push bottles forward to sump 5, there was no point in Rich and I crossing sump 2. Each time a diver passes that sump there is elevated risk. Rich’s JJ had broken in numerous ways in any case so he had carried it out the cave. I left mine in and rebuilt it, so there would always be one standby diver with a fully functioning rebreather, quick access to a drysuit and fully charged scooter ready to help beyond sump 2 in case of an emergency.

Chris and Mitch in Izvor Licanke. Image: Mark Burkey

Osama managed to flood his KISS sidewinder when he carried it to sump 2. I always carried my rebreather fully built and waterproofed but for some reason the guys decided to do it their way. Some faffing ensued and after some stolen sofnolime, the unit was back working again.

Oz and Mauro set off while Mark snapped away with his camera and Lou rounded up rather less than enthusiastic volunteers to help her complete the survey.

Lou had done an incredible job or resurveying all the dry cave between sumps 1 and 2 as we could not access the old data. This is the beauty of this expedition; everyone gets to learn lots of different caving and cave diving expedition skills in a relatively comfy environment. A short 7 degree cave dive between you and daylight being ‘comfy’…

Rich, Mitch and myself posed in various positions throughout the cave while Mark Burkey tried to take pictures he hadn’t managed to before and he came out with some stunners.

Chris and Mitch in Licanke. Image: Mark Burkey

The next job was to go back to the houses and cook for the guys when they came out. The accommodation this year was 2 houses close to each other with excellent and comfortable facilities. We had tried to get a ‘camp boss’ – someone to take care of the cooking, cleaning, shopping and general domestic duties while we faffed and fixed broken things and recuperated.

Unfortunately, she got injured and wasn’t able to make it, so we put our best cooks to work to batch cook for everybody and re-heat stuff for the divers who came out late.

Back in the cave, Oz and Mauro were making good progress to sump 5 and continued laying line in irritatingly shallow cave. It surfaced, then sumped, surfaced, then sumped again…it carried on like this, with intermittent sandy air bells until they finally crossed what was now sump 8.

Not believing there wouldn’t be another sump just around the corner, Mauro set off walking in his diving gear.

The cave got bigger as he walked down a clean washed stream way, a canyon, which got higher and echoed more as he went. He went back to Oz and they shed their diving gear and set off into new, galloping size passageway.

Screen grab of 'Wild World' beyond Sump 8.

Getting bigger all the time, they filmed with the go pro and tried to estimate the size and distance they were travelling. Soon, the canyon broke out into a huge boulder chamber. There were precariously balanced boulders the size of cars everywhere and some stalagmites close to the walls. The big breakdown chamber reminded me of a smaller version of the Salle de la Verna.

Trudging up and down the big boulders, Mauro was non-stop singing “OOOOH Baby baby it’s a wild world……doo do do dooo do do….”

Oz is deaf to him, so carried on trying to measure things mentally.

They came across another sump. Sump 9.

Neither of them had a mask or diving gear, understandably, but as with the others it was blue, clear and inviting.

Filming with the go pro as they walked back, they made their way back to sump 2 where they took a 15 minute break and a short snooze before heading back through the deep sump.

Some of the team went back into the cave to meet them and get the news. They had been underground about the same time (15 hours) plus a bit of faff at the start.

There was still a lot of work to do. All their discoveries needed to be surveyed and they wanted to do a bit more filming.

Owing to Mauro’s incessant singing, we decided to call the new, gargantuan chamber; “Wild World”.

Izvor Licanke had not done what she had promised. We were sure the cave would close down.

Instead, she opened an enormous, 30 metre high can of worms...

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 7 years.

The expedition reports, funded by Mount Everest Foundation, are available to read here:

https://www.mef.org.uk/uploads/uploads/MEF_22-36_FullReport.pdf

Christine Grosart 21/10/2023 Christine Grosart 21/10/2023

“You need to stop doing that”

Some of the best, if a little uncomfortable advice I was given when I was a Cave Diving Group trainee, came from none other than Rick Stanton.

As a diligent and conscientious trainee, I would spend hours poring over cave surveys before I went diving. I would work out the gas I needed, what size cylinders to take, whether there would be any decompression and the depth profiles.

It wasn’t a bad thing to be learning, but of course I was diving in caves where others had been previously and lines were in situ. They had been surveyed and, in many cases, photographed and filmed (less so in the UK, I hasten to add).

The CDG refers to these dives as ‘Tourist and Training dives’ in its newsletter, which is the bible for finding out about submerged caves not just in the UK, but around the world.

Anything where nobody had ever been before; a new discovery, was referred to as ‘Exploration’.

You can see then why it irritates genuine cave explorers to hear the latest cohort of cave divers saying they have explored this cave and that cave - and then being immediately disappointed to find they just dived a tourist route. The word is getting muddied by those who think that because it is their first dive in the cave, it counts as ‘exploration’.

The term in the cave diving world is very clear cut, to distinguish between new discoveries and ‘tourist’ dives along existing line. If you are not the first person to go there, it is not exploration.

Chris practises line laying on her KISS rebreather, using a Santi drysuit and Halcyon wing, backplate and torch.

“You need to stop doing that” Rick said, bursting my bubble. “I know you’ve been taught to study cave surveys but that won’t help you when you go into new cave”.

I was 26 years old and about to undergo my qualifying test in the CDG.

I didn’t dawn on me then that Rick was already looking at my future in being a cave explorer and I shrugged off his comments as something only he did - and carried on studying the survey in front of me.

He was right though. If nobody has ever been there, not only will there be no line in place to follow but you will have no idea of what the cave will do.

You get a hunch of course, from years of caving and cave diving experience and having dived other caves in the region.

I have an unfinished geology degree so have an inkling of what a cave might do.

But Licanke was acutely unhelpful.

Christine prepares for one of her early exploration dives, extending the end of the Garrel, France, 2012.

Caves in Croatia had a habit of plummeting super deep, 100 metres + and when we hit 50m in Licanke, we feared the worst. Decompressing in 7 degrees was miserable. Given the cave already had a dry section, we figured it would do one of two things; Go to surface, or plummet deeper.

Really, really unhelpful.

All we could really do was plan for how deep we were prepared to dive and how much deco we were prepared to do on any given dive. That would determine the limit of exploration.

I’m not in the habit of winging it and sorting it out at the the deco stop. That’s silly.

To plan for virgin exploration, we simply look at our logistics, capabilities, gas available and time available. Put simply, based on what we did last time, we make a personal decision on what we are prepared to do this time.

I was very fortunate to learn from the best. Supporting divers such as Rick Stanton, Jon Volanthen in their explorations and learning to cave dive with Clive Westlake.

It really is that simple. Conversations go along the lines of “I really don’t want to do more than 3 hours deco in there tomorrow” or “We’ve only got two bottles for pushing….so how far will that get us if the average depth is 30m, 40m or 50m?”

You need to know your swimming speed, scootering speed given the conditions, plan for various average depths and decompression contingencies.

Thermal factors need to be considered and lots of ‘what ifs’.

What if we lose a stage bottle? What if we lose a scooter? What if the rebreather malfunctions?

We try to mitigate all of the ‘what ifs’ and inevitably, the cave will throw something at us that we hadn’t bargained for. That’s exploration.

I kitted up into my KISS rebreather and performed my final checks.

Rich was unable to dive, which meant several things:

- I would only be able to carry enough bailout gas* to get me home from sump 3, thus I would not be able to undertake exploration alone on this dive.

- I was also towing a back-up scooter which limited the amount of extra bailout I could take.

- I would need to carry all my equipment through the dry sections without help and this would be extremely time consuming.

- There was nobody able to rescue me if I got trapped beyond sump 2.

I set off, disappointed that this was only to be a recce dive, but I already had a wild and cunning plan in my mind to salvage the expedition - I just needed one phone call.

*Bailout gas is contained in open circuit scuba cylinders, which are used as a safety factor to get a diver home in the event or rebreather malfunction or failure. Rebreather divers should always carry enough bailout gas to get them home from the furthest and deepest point in the event of rebreather failure.

Christine Grosart 20/10/2023 Christine Grosart 20/10/2023

"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…

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.

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.

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.

Christine Grosart 19/10/2023 Christine Grosart 19/10/2023

"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.

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:

2021 Expedition Report

Christine Grosart 19/10/2023 Christine Grosart 19/10/2023

"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...

Christine Grosart 18/10/2023 Christine Grosart 18/10/2023

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.

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 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.

Ghar Parau Foundation
With thanks to Santi Drysuits, Halcyon Dive Systems and Suex for their generous support throughout this expedition.

Christine Grosart 17/10/2023 Christine Grosart 17/10/2023

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!

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.