John Maneely

Last weekend one of my friends and a member of the Wigmore team: John Maneely, died cave diving in France. I didn't feel right to not put something on this page when he features repeatedly in my log book of trips.

I will write something permanent to go on this website after the funeral.
-written on 7th Oct 2008

Picos – Texa Before Christmas, Hilary Greaves persuaded me to join her on an expedition to the Picos, along with Tony Seddon to dive some sumps at the bottom of a 900m+ deep cave.

By the time we departed in July the team had grown to include quite a few of my friends – a team of Irish cavers, Phil Rowsell, Simon Cornhill, Rich Bayfield, Pete Whitaker, Will Stewart and various other people.  Along with Rich Bayfield and Will – I was heading out for the last two weeks of the trip to pick up any diving leads left and help de-rig the cave. Knowing that I might be limited with my diving or not get any at all I did a lot of research on Culiembro – the resurgence for the area – incase we had any spare time.  

As the team were already in Spain I managed to get a txt from Hils before I left telling me the score – that the main sump had gone deep (43m by Tony S), that one had been bypassed and that the final upstream one had been passed and a dry passage explored to a waterfall. My mission was therefore to go out – get straight down the cave and up the waterfall!! 

August Bank Holiday – P8, Bagshawe and Ireby Fell 

Three days of caving… what to do with all that time!! Predictably the weather wasn’t the best and With my various caving friends occupied in other placed I had a bit of a mixed weekend. 

 On Saturday I dived in P8 assisted by Mandy Fu. The water level was very high but as I’d never dived there before I didn’t have anything to compare it to. After the first three sumps I walked along the passage to sump 4 and was surprised to find no line in the water. Fortunately there was an old line reel back in the preceeding passage. After clearing the mud off this I decided that it wasn’t in too bad condition (although it wouldn’t spin). I lined into the sump but.....