It was the 7^th year of CHECC and the team put on the best event yet in my opinion (except the first one which was just special). It was at the Rotary centre in Castleton so I decided to try and dive in P8. During the week Jason Mallinson contacted me and at the last minute Dave Ryall dropped out so it was just Jason and I gearing up 12.30 to go caving.

There were supposed to be hoards of students around to rig the cave and carry our gear but we were well ahead of them and decided to lug the kit underground our self. The water levels in the first sump looked normal but when we got to S4 I found it backed up once again. Having come this far and knowing what it looked like we decided to have a dive anyway. The usually 3-4m deep sump was 13m deep instead and when I ‘surfaced’ on the other side I was still at 8m depth! Up the pitch for the S5 bypass was flooded and I reeled out line up to a miniscule airbell before giving Jason the thumbs up to turn the dive....

Duncan, Dave Garman and I made a trip to the terminal choke for more digging fun! We installed a hand line on the muddy slope up to the Generation game and made a quick trip in to the end. After some clearing of boulders we held a little ceremony before putting a portion of Tony's ashes in the water.

Then we set off two snappers – which didn’t go when they were rigged in series the first time so I had to go back and re-rig them, this time in parallel. I wish I had wire cutters strippers down there as it can’t be good for my teeth and I don’t like the taste of mud!

A pleasant and swift exit from the cave was made in order to get back from the Ratfest and the after party back at the Belfry.

On Sunday Duncan and I met up with John V for a dive in Wookey. I got to use my buoyancy bag in anger and carrying a third cylinder. We looked at the climb Duncan was interested in but decided that we’d need to come back with a rope and possibly a drill to make any progress.

  I stayed at Whitewalls for the weekend as it was the CSS fireworks weekend. The hut was unusually busy which was great and I got to meet lots of people I’d not talked to before. On Saturday Duncan and I were up early and out of the cottage by 8.30 so that we could meet John Volanthan at SWCC for 9.30.  The West Brecon Cave Rescue team had scheduled a training session and underground practice for that day so there were also plenty of people kicking around here. However nobody could get on with anything as the team had a real shout – to get a dog out of a tight rifty cave!

Whilst some people went off to sort this out we grabbed Clive Westlake as a Sherpa and headed into OFD1. Dip sump was pleasant if a little gloomy and I enjoyed myself, although not getting very far with only my 5 clothes pegs and the numerous junctions in there. As we finished early we nipped into Gothic on the wayout. As I’d used lead from the dive base at Dip I had to use Clive’s SRT bag full of stones as weight – but as John V said, it’s good to improvise sometimes!.