Vince, Jake, Jon, Duncan, Tav and Nick.
After the recent heavy rain, it wasn’t too surprising the ‘lake’ was no longer dry, it had filled with water to a substantial depth. Jon had drawn the short straw, it was his turn in the ‘lake chamber’ and much of his time was to be occupied with pumping/bailing the water, in between emptying and loading skips. Jake, on the other hand, was most comfortable in the dry, dusty dig. Unfortunately, Jake had worn his pub clothes underneath his caving oversuit and had to cross the lake to get to the dig. Caving kit next session! Tav was next in-line, wallowing in a recurring puddle of my creation as I emptied skip loads of water into an inclined dip in the bedding, where Tav had chosen to lie. Duncan hadn’t needed to venture beyond the lake and was comfortable (his words!) at the intermediate corner. Nick had been left to his own devices at the Junction, which turned out to result in a rather disappointing outcome. On our return from beyond the lake thoroughly soaked through we had then to wallow in the complete mess that Nick had created! And there is a large boulder right in the way of operations.
At the dig, Jake had cleared the debris, frustratingly still can’t quite see ahead, but the area is clear enough for the next application of IRS. There’s a block of conglomerate exposed so something solid to drill into, the quantity of calcite here is problematic. It will be a challenge to get the drill and equipment bags across the lake and keep them dry.
55 loads were removed from the cave to the surface, a few of those were completely un-necessary.