Report by Vince
Vince, Jake, Jon, Tav, Nick, Mike, Duncan and Alex.
Quite a turn-out this evening. The potential water levels in the cave was one of the topics of discussion as we were getting changed in the car park. It has been rather wet recently!
At the tunnel entrance, it was noticed that the leat was clear and through the showcave section the sump pools looked quite clear too. Beyond the showcave, the drips and trickles were no stronger than usual, and further on the water flowing down the calcite cascades was normal for this time of year.
Approaching the dig, it was no wetter than it was last week which was unexpected. At the dig there was, however, a deep puddle of water. Tav got in and started bailing, a line was set-up to bucket the water away. It was soon “dry” and Tav started to dig.
Alex provided a shoulder to stand on and I was able to squeeze up into the narrow rift above the dig. It didn’t go anywhere and closed to become too tight after a few metres. Another climb above the access point was also pursued, it also soon closed, just small solution tubes.
With a large team present it seemed like a good idea to conserve the spoil dumping space in the extension and move spoil down to the lower platform, so that is what we did. Everyone was kept occupied. The constant trickle of water flowing out of the extension down onto the platform was noted.
No-one was counting the buckets, but it was a ‘goodly’ few, digging conditions weren’t ideal, very sticky at times. Progress, though, was made!
