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Fou de Bor - October 2010 |
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Log book
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Fou de Bor (Previous Exploration by X.Garza 1986, 1997)
11/10/10 With help from David and Nuria Magdelenea 2 x 12ltrs, 3 x Ali80, two rebreathers, and diving kit for Artur Kozlowski and Chris Jewell were moved into the cave. Each diver would take one cylinder of trimix (15/50) and one of air and an Ali80 of O2 was also left at 6m. This cylinder was also equipped with hoses for adding extra O2 to the rebreathers for the long decompression. Chris used his chestmounted rebreather and Artur a Megaladon.
It had been raining recently but the water resurging outside the cave appeared clear when the team went underground. The carry underground was short but several trips were required and it was some time until everything was inplace at the sump. Eventually Chris and Artur dived at 5.30pm. The sump pool was static and murky after the kitting up process but the divers expected to encounter good visibility later. At the first underwater squeeze the strong flow of the underground river was met...
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Read more...
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Culiembro connected to Xitu |
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Log book
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 We had a successful expedition to Culiembro this summer and I was very lucky to be the one whose turn it was to dive the second undived sump – which connected us to Xitu. It was an amazing team effort and we were all very pleased to have made the connection. You can see see the coverage we received in the Mail on Sunday http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1303152/A-mile-daylight-4-145-feet--deepest-British-caver-been.html
The headlines are not quite accurate – this is now the deepest cave system explored by a British team – rather than a particularly deep caving trip.
I’ll put up lots of photos and the full expedition report soon (probably after Hidden Earth). |
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Deep Well Push Dive - 22nd May |
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Log book
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 Thanks to the excellent support of the Bradford Pothole Club I was able to dive Deep Well during the May winch meet. The previous end was reached by Dave Ryall in 2008 at a depth of 40m and 320m from base. On 22nd May I was assisted to the sump by a large team and seen off on my dive which starts at the bottom of a 25m pitch, broken by a ledge 3m above the water.
I used my chestmounted rebreather for the long and deep dive and left a 3ltr cylinder of oxygen at 6m for decompression in case of emergency.
Loose line was encountered in a couple of places before the end of line was reached. Here the cave was found to pinch in and progress forward was impossible. After retreating back along the line incase an obvious mistake had just been made I returned to the end and spotted that the passage continued high above above. After rising up to 33m I laid 90m of line in a large impressive tunnel generally on a 300-330 degree bearing before the reel ran out. During the return to base 45 minutes of decompression were required making the total dive time 2hrs and 15mins. The end of line is now 410m from base.
Once back on the surface the team made steady progress to the exit where we were winched to the surface at 2am by Scoff and Basher who had stayed sober all night especially for us!
Thanks to Martin Smith, Will Stewart, Kirsty Bamber, Gerik Rhodden, Ian Lloyd, Andrew Hainsworth, Roger Saxton, Pete Davies, Neil Weston, Brian Scoffield, Basher Baines and all the Bradford Pothole Club for their help and support.
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Log book
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Photos of Dave Garman in Hurtle and Joint:
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Log book
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.jpg) On 1st May Joe Eagan and Paul 'Beardy' Swire helped put me in the water for a push dive in Roaring Hole after Jason Mallinsons last dive. Cylinders were insitu but my rebreather, regs, drysuit and undersuit all needed to go in.
Kitting up with the chestmount rebreather took at lot longer than usual but I also wanted to make sure everything was just right before I dived. Treading water at the bottom of the rope I clipped each of the cylinders on before attaching the rebreather and diving off. Going in it took me about 8minutes to reach the head of the rift before the cave descends. From here I swan on between 33-31m till I picked up Jason's line reel and started laying line. The visibility was better for me – around 2m which made a diving much easier however by following one wall into an alcove I was able to turn around on myself and lay 3m of line parallel to the incoming line before I reaslised my mistake.
Once rectified the passage continued large but after only a short distance I reached a section where the cave appeared to pinch in. Dropping the reel off I swam back up the passage for the last 10m looking for what I'd missed but findin nothing. Again I went back to the line and tried following the right hand wall and amazingly swam out into open passage and up a cobble slope to 25m. From here the passage dropped back down and much of my line was at 28-27m depth. In total I laid 90m of new line and ended up spending 2hours in the dive - with something like 18mins of deco. My chest mounted rebreather performed excellently and I was very pleased with the result. Mike Bottomley then appeared to give me a hand out of the water - which was greatly appreciated! |
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Huautla Cave Diving Expedition Website up |
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Log book
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The Huautla Cave Diving Expedition Website is up and running - pretty basic at the moment but I'm hoping to get more information up on there soon.
www.cdg-exped.org - Cave Diving Exploration in Mexico
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<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next > End >>
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Page 1 of 8 |
Last year we passed the elbow of the sump at -80m and ended our line at -35m in a steeply ascending passage. Our final dive had been five hours and so we went well prepared for long deep dives. After a day of carrying kit we made our first dive, a short setup dive. We staged two Ali80’s of O2 at 6m and two 7ltr bottles of EANx30 and EANx38 at 33m and 40m respectively – about 380m from base. 
survey work but combining this survey job with pushing was not ideal and where as previously the total time to surface once through the deep section had been half an hour the extra time taken with the survey meant this had already doubled before we’d even reached the end of the line. At 800m from base one of my PPo2 displays flooded and combined with the extra deco this was enough of an excuse to turn back. There was still survey work to be done in the deep section and if we split up we could both achieve an extension to the cave and the crucial survey. Artur therefore headed on till he reached our previous limit at -52m where a fresh reel was tied on. After a short shaft down to -65m two ways on could be seen – up an ascending canyon to the right or down a smaller passage to the left. Looking for depth Artur chose left and found himself at -96m shortly afterwards and in a massive chamber. He described the cave at this point as a massive collector and what looked like several passages coming in. Having now laid 140m of new line and bearing in mind he was now over 1km into the sump he called it a day. 
