For the week before Easter myself, Simon Cornhill, Hilary Greaves, MUSC and HUCC went over to Fermanagh in N.Ireland. We teamed up with some of the locals I know and set about diving several sumps which in some cases hadn't been dived at all and in others hadn't been dived for a long time.

Divers: Chris Jewell (BEC), Simon Cornhill (CDG), Hilary Greaves (OUCC)
Support: Local Irish cavers - Stephen McCullagh, Aileen Connor, Tony Furnell, Stephen Read, Gaelin Ellife + members of MUSC.

Ferry from Holyhead to Belfast, 10 days staying at Gladagh Glen near BlackLion in Fermanagh. Sharing the hut with Manchester Uni Speleology Club and Huddersfield uni - 22 people at its peak!

Shannon
One of the primary objectives of the trip was to dive the terminal sump in Shannon cave. This extensive stream cave was first explored down to the sump in the 80's The before it could be dived a section of cave known as George's choke collapsed. Later in the 90's the main entrance also collapsed. Since then a new generation of Irish cavers began digging in from a nearby cave - Polltullyard. I first visited the cave in November 06 when the diggers were at George's choke and trying to get through. In March 07 I learnt they'd passed the choke and were back at the end - opening up the possibility of diving the sump. During the Spring and Summer of 2007 I flew over several times for a weekend of caving in Shannon. Initially I inspected the sump with a wetsuit and mask and then helped the Irish cavers with a dig they were hoping would bypass the sump - "Balcony dig"

On Sunday 16^th March, Simon Cornhill and I went to dive the sump. I dived first with a pair of 300bar 3lt cylinders, a 5mm once piece caving wetsuit and a 5mm
hooded vest. Beneath the initial arch...

Dachstein 2007 This was supposed to be the year of the pig – Pig Pen 2 that is. Left at over 700m last year I was returning with one goal in mind - pushing Pig Pen 2 as part of a good team of Dachstein veterans. I also fully expected this to involve camping down there as well.  Due to lack of time off I opted for the middle two weeks of the expedition – although this approach was considered slightly selfish by some people I had stayed right to the end every other year and with a lot of people just doing the first two weeks I figured it would be useful for me to join at the peak of activity. 

When I reached the Weisberghaus on Saturday 14^th of July I learnt that not everything was going according to plan. There had been snow on top of the mountain at the beginning of the trip and this had seriously delayed the rigging of Pig Pen 2. For example it was predicted that the cave would be re-rigged to it’s previous limit within 3-4 days of the exped start. So I understood we were behind schedule when after one week they weren’t even at the limit. Whilst those involved in Pig Pen rested for their next big trip I was eager to go caving as soon as possible and figured I needed a few warm up trips before I headed down anyway.