About the site

Today’s photos are from the Downstream Imperial section of Jenolan. Jenolan Caves up in NSW see nearly a quarter of a million visitors each year. The show caves and pathway system are extensive and tours run frequently. From a diving perspective, this means timing our entrance so as not to interfere. For Downstream Imperial we moved off the beaten track and down to the water through an area known as the Woolshed.

About the dive

Unlike our through trip on Saturday, this Sunday dive doesn’t allow us out the other end. And instead of swimming upstream against the flow, we were swimming downstream. There are two main rivers in Jenolan that both emerge into the Blue Lake. You can see this distinctly in the surface photo I took back in 2011 – the flooding rains had started to emerge from one stream in muddy brown water, but the second one was still running clear. Our through trip started in the clear stream and went up into the cave. Divers in Downstream Imperial are very close to emerging in the muddy water of that picture (which was clear this time around). Unfortunately the cave flattens down far enough that divers don’t fit, so starting in Blue Lake and doing this dive from the other end is not yet possible.

As we weren’t surfacing in any air chambers along the way the photography was correspondingly more difficult, especially when the off camera strobes refused to work off the bat. After a bit of stop and start we got the sensors positioned in the right place to really show off this part of the cave.

About the photo

I love the rippled effect of the rocks here. I could live without the giant cloud of silt rapidly moving up behind us. Every little ripple contains a teaspoon of ultra-fine silt and once it’s disturbed the flow moves it downstream with the divers. The water clarity therefore wasn’t quite as good as the previous day’s upstream diving. The cave here is a bit larger but with the silt cloud rolling along we had limited time to manouvre multiple divers into view. Adam Hooper is hiding back there in the silt…I don’t think he saw much on this trip!

I particularly like the top shot for having two divers clearly separated. Greg in the front is very sensibly reaching for the permanent guideline with his right hand, anticipating that it’s all about the go dark. And Andreas is just surfacing out of the silt cloud behind into the clear water. The second photo doesn’t have that same clearance between the divers but it does have the beautiful ripple effect front and centre. It was a great dive – I can’t wait to get back to Jenolan again.

About the site

Jenolan Caves are a huge tourist attraction up in the Blue Mountains of NSW. The extensive show cave system sees thousands of visitors every year. The local caving groups are still in exploration mode in the further reaches of the cave, adding to the map each year.

It’s been three years since I last dived Jenolan Caves. That trip was memorable for the first dive on Saturday morning being the only one we did – 10 minutes after getting into clear water, a tidal wave of mud turned up. Flooding rain meant diving was off for the rest of the weekend and with many of the paths flooded out and closed to tours we went for a wade through the show caves.

This time the weather was much more co-operative and I suddenly had an idea of what I missed back then. On Saturday we did a brilliant through trip from the Blue Lake all the way to Upstream Lethe.

About the dive

This was a chain of dives and between each one we would surface under the show caves. It was surreal to come up and see people standing on the bridges and pathways waiting for us before ducking back down into the next leg. It was also great for photography – I was able to make adjustments and give modelling advice each time we surfaced. Finetuning the setup like this produced some shots I’m really happy with.

About the photo

The main challenge of photography here is the silt, similar to Elk River Cave 800kms further south. As well as being piled up on the floor like most caves, the flow of the river puts silt on the ceiling. Bubbles knock it down as we swim past. This means a very limited time in one spot before the water stops being quite so clear. For me it was about leading the dive and finding the largest possible spots to turn around. I gently pivoted with the camera to catch Adam behind me as he approached. The second challenge was finding a good spot to get both Adam and Andreas in frame. I love the top shot here for the framing, the shape of the rocks, and the fact that both the divers and the cave are well lit. The silt you can see gathering on the floor has yet to invade the rest of the photo. And the bubbles going up let you know that yes, we really are underwater!

The second shot was taken just as we descended into the next bit of underwater cave. You can see the line leading down and the cave reflecting the camera flash overhead. We also had a great dive on Sunday in Imperial – photos to come.

About the cave

While I did get a dive in over this weekend just past, a crappy weather forecast led me to leave the camera behind. In reality I should have taken it as the vis and the ocean conditions were fine. But I didn’t, and I find myself with no update for you this morning, so I’ve gone back to the archives to look for an interesting photo that hasn’t had exposure up here yet.

I dived in McCavity Cave (the wet bit of Limekiln Cave) up at Wellington back in early 2012, guided by the fantastic Greg Ryan. I talked about it at the time in the post here, noting how the cave was larger, darker and milkier than I expected and I had to adjust to conditions on the fly. The Shaving Brush formation is a major stalactite/stalagmite pillar in a large central chamber of the cave and was on the photography hit list. Previous photographic attempts had been on film and with the advantage of digital sensitivity I was able to push light through most of the chamber – but not in a particularly artistic way.

About the dive

Divers being what they are, my two buddies decided after a while to move on to other, more interesting bits of the cave. I wasn’t quite ready to leave the formation behind, but also didn’t want to lose them. As I moved in closer with camera in hand I saw this opportunity for a whole new perspective on this massive formation. Rather than trying to fit in all in the one shot I could highlight the detail and emphasise the size at the same time.

About the photos

It’s shots like these where the need for reliable off camera strobes really shows. Both the shot before this one and the shot after had one only diver visible and only one off camera strobe. By keeping in mind the 2 second recycle time on the strobes and timing the peak of the action, I captured both divers. This shot was also one of the first I’d taken where sidelighting the foreground really brought out the red in the rocks. I used this technique to good effect in Murra-el-elevyn a few months later with the bright orange rocks you can see here.

The second photo here is one of my enduring favourites that didn’t see any love from the competitions I entered it in. We were heading towards the exit at the end of the dive when I looked up and noticed the outline of my buddy in a small airpocket in the ceiling. By finning backwards I was able to keep the right angles as he slowly moved forwards. Holding the strobe to light the white calcite pile outlined him as a dark silhouette against the white background. The perspective is distorted here, with the diver 5m away and below me and the bubble of air at arm’s length, part of the reason reflections can be so hard to play with.

McCavity was a brilliant dive – large and shallow with diverse photographic opportunities. Now I’ve looked through these shots again, maybe it’s time to get myself back up there.

About the site

McCavity Cave is used by local cave divers to refer to the underwater portion of Limekiln Cave, part of the Wellington Caves near Wellington, NSW. Approximately a 5 hour drive from Sydney, Wayne and I flew up from Melbourne one Friday night to check out the cave diving. McCavity is notable for a couple of reasons, the first being the underwater stalactites and stalagmites.

The second reason is the unusual entrance. After climbing down through the dry cave to a chamber known as Central Station where gear is assembled and drysuits are donned, divers duck and crawl through the last section down to a small hole. Recent rains had brought the water level up to the top of this hole when we visited.

A seven metre hookah hose from a scuba tank allows you to manoeuvre yourself slowly down the hole in drysuit and harness, as seen in the second photo below. Once underwater, each tank is passed down on a rope and clipped on underwater. Sidemounts in place, the camera was gently passed through next and I moved to the side to let me buddies in.

About the dive

Luckily McCavity is nice and shallow, and I reached a maximum depth of 8m (25ft). This means the ten minute wait for each diver to get in and get geared up underwater doesn’t make too much of a dent in your full tanks. Once Wayne and Greg were ready we headed off slowly down the permanent line in this very dark cave.

Perhaps because I knew McCavity was quite shallow, I was also expecting it to be small. In fact the cave is up to 12m high and 15m wide in places (36ft x 45ft), and black walls and slightly milky water absorb dive lights and give very little back. Looking behind me, my buddies were points of light in black space, and this made co-ordinating shots a little difficult.

In addition to this, the milkiness of the water meant I was seeing a lot of flare around the off camera strobes. Trying to get good shots of the formations was a key aim of the two dives we did here over the weekend. While the flare was a drawback for some shots, it also provided great opportunities for backlighting.

About the shot

This shot was taken towards the end of the second dive, on our way back to the entrance. The line in McCavity runs towards the top of the cave and between the stalactites from the centre of the roof. Swimming back towards the entrance I took multiple shots of divers weaving their way through the formations. Off camera strobes lit different aspects of the cave and the lead diver briefly pointed one backwards, creating a halo of light for the second diver to swim into.

This effect isn’t possible in crystal clear water as the strobe creates a single point of light. The milky water, which had been increased by our two days of diving, helped create the rays of light you see here. The second off camera strobe on the rear diver and the on camera strobes have helped light the foreground and show  the texture and colour of the decorations. I like this photo because it reminds me of diving the cave – formations up close, inky blackness below and dazzling white lights moving through space.

About the caves

Jenolan Caves are a major tourist attraction located about 2 hours drive west of Sydney, in the Blue Mountains. The extensive and highly decorated show caves attract 200,000 visitors a year, and have great infrastructure with lighting, stairs and handrails throughout. There are a couple of options for getting off the beaten track however, with the first being the underwater route between spectacular show caverns. The other is new areas of dry cave that are actively explored by local caving groups. One of these, SUSS (Sydney University Speleological Society) was kind enough to invite me, along with Harry, Ken and Wayne, to do some cave diving over a weekend.

Unfortunately, it rained solidly for the week before our arrival. Jenolan’s caves are active streamways, similar to those found in Tassie and requiring a very different diving style to the still, groundwater-filled caverns of Mt Gambier. Heavy rainfall in the catchment area increases water flow through the caves, reducing visibility to chocolate and making it difficult to swim upstream. With the water still running clear on Friday night we went to bed hopeful, only to wake up and discover that one of the two streams through the caves had turned to mud overnight. The second photo here shows the clear cave water mixing with the flood flowing through the other half of the cave – it was only a matter of time before flood waters made it into both streams.

About the dive

Wayne and I kitted up with an audience of cavers and after watching a small lizard swim across the entrance, I attempted to insert myself into the cave. A tight and gnarly entrance was complicated both by the camera in one hand, and the flow. I put the camera down in front of me to use both hands for maneuvering through the rocks, and the flow delivered it back to me between the eyeballs. After that I resigned myself to using one hand and eventually progressed into a small chamber at the bottom of the first series of restrictions. This gave me time to position the strobes, remove the lens cover and capture Wayne coming out of the restriction.

Given the nature of the Jenolan, the cave diving is generally very silty and low vis – not great for photos. On this occasion I was hoping that increased flow would bring clean water through the area if we remained still. The factor that I hadn’t considered was remaining still in a high flow situation while trying to take photos and not touch anything silty is complicated. As photographic cave dives go, this was a difficult one. The saving grace for pretty photos was the small, decorated air chamber present half way through the dive that can only be accessed by cave divers.

About the shot

Given the small and shallow nature of the caves, Wayne and I were relying on our drysuits for buoyancy and not using wings with our sidemount rigs. This worked well for diving, but under-over split shots require lifting an almost neutral camera rig out of the water, whereupon it weighs about 11kg and I begin to sink. This is reflected in the angle of this shot, which shows the reflections of the underside of the surface.

On the other hand being able to talk to your buddy makes surface shots a lot easier, and we tried a number of different strobe angles on the formations.  As we surfaced inside this chamber, I noticed that the increased water levels had moved some of the formations underwater. I like this shot because underwater stalactites are a rarity in Australia, and this photo shows the whole flowstone as it cascades down through the cave.

There are some more photos from this trip in the gallery.