The joy of Timor is the big tunnels. And the white walls, and the clear water. The karst landscapes creates a lot of dolines and only a few go to water – the countryside makes you work for underwater success. So when one of the beautiful blue surface pools finally does drop into massive going tunnel the elation is incredible.

In this series of photos Dave and Sandy had carefully manoeuvred their way into an entrance pool they discovered last year. This time the water was still clear when they got in. Sandy was able to find her way through the small hole at the bottom of the pool and into the big blue passage beyond. This particular entrance pool is on the other side of a large dry rockpile, with another large blue underwater tunnel at the other end. Sandy left the half empty reel after reaching her air limits, and we returned the following day with extreme optimism.

I joined (hijacked) Dave and Sandy’s follow-up exploration dive to take some photos. Being able to take photos of underwater exploration in progress is incredibly rare. With new caves in Australia mostly ridiculously hard to access, taking the camera into the unknown is usually a step too far. Even if the camera does make it to the end of the line, finding enough time and clear water to take photos of the action is tricky. Cave divers tend to get excited as new cave unrolls in front of them and become reluctant to hang around for modelling.

The first photo here is of Dave picking up the reel from where it was left the day before. You can see the blue water behind him with the silt rolling in as our bubbles hit the roof. In the second photo Dave moved to the left of a large underwater rockpile and I swam over the top to get this shot of him reeling out. The closeup of the roof here shows the incredible porosity of the limestone. I needed clear water for a one time chance at a photo, but Dave needed clear water for a one time chance at finding the way on. After the last photo here it became apparent that we would be working our way around the underwater rockpile for a while. Squeezing ahead with the camera was silly – it both significantly reduced the chance of us breaking through, and left me off the line in poor conditions.

In addition to the silt created by tying the line off on the rock to the left and the silt exploding from the ceiling overhead, you can see the fuzzy water of a disturbed halocline. Challenging conditions for both exploration and photography. The need to find new cave took precedence. Dave headed past me and I grabbed the line, wrapped up the camera and moved into his silt cloud, photography complete.

One of the features of Timor is the very soft limestone that I talked about last week. As well as exploding cave ceilings, this also leads to large breakdown piles in the cave tunnels. Which means that the big blue passages are periodically interrupted by collapses both underwater and above. As you can see from these shots, air chambers provide a whole new playground for cave photography.

Taking split shots in the ocean means waiting for very calm days or finding sheltered spots. Underground, in a place completely enclosed by rock, there’s no need to worry about the weather rippling the surface. When the divers are still the water surface is completely flat. With a rock to stand on and not too much silt in the water, great split shots are not far away.

For the first shot here I used back button focus to force the focus point above the water. I chose a focus point nice and close to the camera, which also brings the underwater section of the image mostly into focus. The on camera strobes were one underwater and one above to spread the lighting around and be sure to trigger the off camera strobes. The two strobes on the diver have both fired and are giving that nice blue glow to the background. I like this first shot for the simplicity – blue water, white rocks, wetsuited diver hanging out with half an eyeball on the camera.

On the second shot I lifted the camera and tilted down, catching the refracted image of the floor below in the water’s surface. This means the light from the off camera strobes is visible both below and above the surface line and the hotspot of the strobe itself is hidden. The body of the diver is also lost, reducing the weirdness of two mismatched halves meeting. And my other buddies are waiting patiently in the background, giving some depth to the size of this chamber.

Splits are good fun when you have a bit of time to spare. Having some air space means easier communication with the models and more chance to get things right. It makes up for having to take twice as many shots for fear of droplets on the dome. Fix the focus, sort the lighting and away you go.

We are back in Timor this week, expanding the limits of the caves we have previously discovered and exploring new caves and new areas. Luckily for me, pushing new areas in known caves means swimming through previously discovered areas first. This makes photography possible – I know what the cave discovered last year looks like, and what’s going to happen when we get in there. I can plan my lighting and instruct my dive buddies for the best shots in otherwise challenging conditions. This Timor trip is the first one where the photography has really come together to show off the beauty of this new area.

The limestone in Timor is soft and crumbly. It’s easy to see ancient and fossilised sea creatures in the walls underwater. There are scallops, barrel sponges, giant clams, mussels and more all pressed between layers of white silt. The wall scenery is fascinating but it also means that the rock is not well pressed together. Each time exhaust bubbles hit the roof we receive a fountain of silt in return. So while the water is crystal clear when I first enter the tunnel, it rapidly deteriorates to zero vis. There’s no in between stage of “ok” vis. It’s either stunning clarity, or can’t-read-my-gauge silt out.

From a photographic point of view this means very limited time for photos. It also means I have to be planned and careful about where I swim. Swimming straight down the middle of the tunnel is the end of photography in that section as the bubble trail behind me brings the ceiling down. Instead, I pick a side and swim along close to the wall. Once I’ve got a bit of distance on my models, a quick look over the shoulder confirms the composition and I swing into the centre of the tunnel. I have to keep moving forward to stay out of my own bubble-created silt cloud, so it’s important to start the photo run behind where I want to end up. Moving backwards is not an option!

Normally taking photos of silt clouds in a cave means someone has made a mistake. Rather than floating along serenely, they’ve kicked up the bottom or run some gear into a mud cone. In Timor the silt is unavoidable and taking photos with it has been great fun. The contrast between the brilliant water clarity and the rocks raining down from the ceiling makes for interesting images. And while I play with photos, the ongoing challenge of finding some more cave to play with is keeping everyone entertained.

To see all of my Timor-related posts, check out this link.

Timor! I have just finished my third annual trip to the karst region of West Timor. In 2013 following some of Stefan Eberhard’s research, Stefan and I went for a quick reconnaissance trip. We spent a lot of time driving around and looking at dry holes in the tropical sun before finding our way into a major underwater system. On the last day we laid half a kilometre of line into massive blue tunnel with crystal clear water beckoning us on.

It was enough of a high that organisation for the next trip began pretty quickly. In mid 2014 myself and five others headed back to the same area for further investigations. The first dive to continue the master tunnel from 2013 brought us up in a nearby doline, connecting the two features with a kilometre of cave in between. Over the course of a week the group turned up two new massive tunnels in nearby dolines. A day on the boat along the coast revealed sea caves with strong tidal flow. It wasn’t until the survey data was taken home and entered that the pattern of the karst became clear. The in land caves were lining up in parallel passages and heading out to sea.

But time was limited and at the end of last year’s trip there were three major leads continuing into clear water where we had run out of line and run out of time. In 2015 we turned up with eight eager divers and some work to do. The bigger group made quick work of connecting the caves along the lines we had expected, with one surfacing inside a bat breeding cave we hadn’t been able to enter from the surface. Having run line through and solved the loose ends we went prospecting from the land and from the sea.

The coast was productive, with three new sea caves heading inland. The full moon last week gave us some difficulties with the tidal flow pumping in and out. Timing slack water accurately on the second boat day let us get about 150m into each entrance as the caves began to split out into wide flatteners with fresh water pumping out. The inland prospecting turned up some fantastically deep dolines and beautiful freshwater pools. Each sighting brought great hopes and then disappointment as the rocks refused to let us through.

After days of crawling through hot, bat-poopy caves we retreated back to a known feature from 2014. A small solution tube and a locally made rope & conduit ladder put us down on top of a large breakdown pile, unfortunately right next to a dead cat. As with caves in first world countries, holes in Timor get used as a handy rubbish disposal chute. Once past the stinky remains the chamber opens out underneath with pools of water on both sides.

Last year Ryan and Steve put 200m of line into one side of the cave and determined that the other didn’t go. After loading tanks in to continue the 200m line onwards, Craig went for a dip in the other pool. He was tempted in by a small blue gap between the rocks and squeezed through to find blue tunnel. Enough was enough and last year’s tunnel was abandoned in favour of the new prospect. Tim and Umbu pulled rocks out until the gap was big enough to fit a diver with tanks. Steve dived through to find a dry rockpile 20m later, with a huge blue pool on the other side.

As you would expect, this all happened on the second to last day. So on the morning of the last day we dumped the tanks down the cave and half the group got to work. Tim and Michelle dropped into the pool on the other side of the internal rockpile and disappeared. Four of us were off exploring nearby prospects in the area. After climbing out of a beautiful fissure with 50m of decorated and water filled tunnel, Ryan and I got the phone call – it goes! We headed back to the dead cat and down to the water.

Given the size of the tunnel and the fact that Tim and Michelle had run out of line mid-tunnel we decided to go as a four. I strapped a strobe to my three buddies and gave the normal lecture about not swimming too fast, even if the tunnel roared off. The vis in the early section was fairly milky from the previous dive, and started to clear a little as we reached the end of the line they had laid. With Ryan reeling out and me sprinting around out in front to snap photos we proceeded down the tunnel.

As the water cleared up the tunnel trended up and we found our way between huge blocks to a surface pool. The blocks continued up to a high roof. After some scrambling around we located a small pool on the other side and put it on the list for next year. A very hot and humid porterage out across the first rockpile and up the main chamber saw us on the surface in the dark, with a pile of wet and muddy gear and an early morning flight home. It was a great end to a tropical cave diving trip.

Interested in visiting Timor for the caves? Drop me a line and I can help you out with logistics and a summary of leads checked and unchecked.

Besides the fun of the main game in San Agustin and La Grieta on the PESH 2015 expedition, there was also some surface activity and trips to smaller objectives. Corey spent a day wandering the jungle and covered a huge distance from our lodgings. The universe being what it is, he found a highly prospective cave entrance on the way home, less than 200m from where we were staying. He came back with this news late in the day and made it sound enticing. Sometime after dark we decided to go and have a look.

After sliding down the hill from the road through some particularly spiky vegetation, Corey relocated the entrance. I was expecting a small hole in the ground that required either a climb up or a rope down. Instead there was a comfortable 1m in diameter entrance hole with a sloping rock floor into a large tunnel. Score! Despite best advice we’d followed Corey down in moderately inadequate caving gear. After a short travel down the passage and one hand line drop it became apparent that real equipment was going to be required. We scrambled out and went back for a drill, ropes and a survey kit.

Equipment gathering (and marking the board up at the fieldhouse) caused a bit of conversation. Besides Corey, Zeb, Katelyn and myself a few other people slid down the hill to come and look at the entrance. The four of us grabbed the gear and proceeded in with Corey rigging ahead while Zeb and Katelyn surveyed and I alternated between painting survey stations and taking photos. While the tunnel was relatively straight and allowed long shots on the survey, the sketch needed to take in flowstone formations all over the place. It felt very similar to the start of the Fool’s Day Extension in San Agustin, with multiple short drops covered in flowstone.

The nice thing about having the high speed people occupied with important jobs is that they don’t move very fast. I was able to place strobes on the floor, grab a few shots of work in action and also hijack Katelyn from disto duty. The first image here is the second last pitch of the evening, taken just before 1am. Corey had just placed the bolt and dropped the rope to rappel down into unknown territory. From the top of this pitch we could see a large room continuing around the corner out of view.

The second picture is Katelyn, perched between two massive flowstone formations above the second or third pitch. There is a survey station up there and I turned around from seeking the next station to see her sitting there taking LRUDs. A quick jog down to fetch the camera and up the rope to pass up a strobe and I had this photo. As it turned out, after a handline and five short pitches the next flowstone decoration completely blocked the presumed way on. By this time it was 3am and there was no airflow to give us any hints. We packed up the toys and headed out with a few photos, a dozen survey shots and about 120m of virgin cave in the bag. Not bad for a midnight ramble.

In Part I I talked about the Huautla System, the trip into the San Agustin entrance and the first dives of Red Ball Canyon sump. So now we were past the two short sumps and into the expected dry cave behind. The cave was heading away upstream and while climbs were expected, the assumption was that the gradient would be relatively flat and the lead would eventually join up with another known cave system kilometres away.

The next underground morning, Dave, Sandy and Andreas headed off to Red Ball Canyon to ferry three divers through sumps 1 and 2 with two sets of dive gear. They took a dry bag of drill and batteries, rigging bolts and rope with intentions to tackle the first waterfall and whatever lay beyond. While they were gone, Scott and I spent the day with the camera. Our first objective was Anthodite Hall which lies above camp 3.

From camp 3 we walked up the rocky hill to the short rope. The opening to the Hall is hidden between the high flat wall and the sculpted ceiling far above. Neither Scott or I had been up there before and the initial passage is not that large. We kept climbing up the rocks past small stalactites. Over another set of rocks and suddenly the ceiling opens up. Anthodite Hall is Huge with a capital H. On the right hand side it has a low mud floor cracked into mud bricks. On the left a giant breakdown pile curls around the wall from end to end.

Of course, taking photos of a big breakdown pile in a massive chamber runs the risk of looking exactly like a pile of rocks. With only one model I struggled to get a true sense of scale of the room. I was lucky to return two days later with Kasia, Derek and Adam to have another go and get this shot. After a few goes Scott and I picked up the strobes and headed for the massive flowstone formation at the top of the breakdown pile.

All along the top wall here there are anthodites – the room’s namesake. Unlike stalactites and straws they stick out in crazy directions. Clustered together on the wall, it was hard to isolate just one to photograph. The anthodites ranged from tiny-on-the-side-of-a-stal to extra large Christmas decoration sized. Scott and I spent some time arranging lights up and down and trying to get the white decorations to stand out from the busy background without blasting them with too much light.

After playing with the decorations until I was happy with these shots, we decided to do a lap of the hall. The first thing we came upon was the underside of this ledge, covered in white formations. I liked the regularity of them. Even better, the flat mud floor close underneath gave me a choice of angles. This was the last distraction before we headed down the rockpile along the wall. Around the low side of the hall there are mud bricks with deep cracks between them. Unfortunately the bowl shape and the distance to the breakdown pile make it really hard to get high above them and shoot down. I wished for a step ladder but it’s an unlikely location to find one. Holding the camera overhead was the best I could do to see the pattern and the extent of the floor. As you continue around the cracks get less deep and the bricks wider. There’s a few interesting rocks which appear to have dropped from above, including one with little crystal rock splinters and pink geodes lying around. After a quick trip back up the rockpile to collect two remaining strobes from the initial photo, we headed out and down. The rope into Anthodite was so old and stiff I had to jump to get it to move through my stop. It was replaced at the end of the trip with something a little more flexible.

After a circumnavigation of Anthodite Hall we had both dried out our wet caving thermals. We decided to head down to the Metro for as many photos as were possible without getting wet all over again. The rock here is beautiful, carved by rushing water. I spent a lot of time fiddling with strobes and trying to light the water appropriately without them washing away. Scott was very patient and I love these shots.

Back at camp 3 for dinner we heard that the diving trio had discovered about 100m of passage above the waterfall, including a very short sump which they had duck dived. They had eventually reached another steep climb that required more aid climbing gear, and turned for home. The following morning Andreas and I headed for the sumps. I borrowed Zeb’s wetsuit which was somewhat large in the torso but good enough for the short dives. The intention was to survey what had been discovered and continue to push up the climb. I left the camera at camp.

We had a semi-successful day with the Canyon refusing to flatten out again after the climb they had stopped at the day before. Andreas placed all the bolts that were available and we ran out of bolts and rope at about the same time. The climbs were black rock covered in huge chunks of flowstone. The water had then eroded the flowstone in waves, in some cases all the way back to the black rock. In a couple of places you could climb small chimneys out of the water. In others you were moving across the face of the flowstone with water running past. Some were incredibly slippery. It was all beautiful too, and I somewhat regretted not bringing a pelican case full of camera past the sump.

When we got back to camp, Gilly, Adam, Derek and Kasia had arrived from the surface. More importantly, they’d brought food including a whole bag of vaccum packed salami. The next day I joined them on a photographic trip back up to Anthodite Hall. From there we headed up Red Ball Canyon, pausing at the waterfall to take some great shots. Instead of going to the Red Ball sump we turned and climbed up into the passage that leads to the Li Nita sump. Previously dived to create the connection to Li Nita cave, it was not on our list for this trip.

After stopped to photograph the ledges we found a lake that started knee deep and got deeper. I placed the pelicase on a side ledge and cracked out the camera to catch these three grinning in the water. I was busy trying to walk backwards to find clear water but as the water crept up past my armpits I realised this was a job for a camera in a housing. We waded back out and headed for camp with a brief stop to photograph the guys coming back through the shower into Red Ball Canyon itself.

The next morning after 5 nights underground we decided enough was enough and it was time to head out. After a glorious rest day on the sunny surface with a trip into Huautla town where we destroyed several roast chickens in one very rapid sitting I felt much better. The following afternoon Corey reported that he had found a cave entrance very close to the highway and we had a midnight exploratory expedition to check it out. The day after that I persuaded Paul to join me on a jaunt to the entrance of San Agustin to take the doline and Fool’s Day Extension photos from Part I of this trip report.

After that I was contemplating my options. With a sore shoulder from a short fall beyond the sump and 2.5 days left before I needed to be on the bus to Mexico City, going back into the cave didn’t seem sensible. On the other hand, there was a lot of gear down there to come out. I packed the camera away on the surface, filled up on anti-inflammatories, added a few painkillers and followed the others back down half a mile of rope. The trip in was much faster the second time around and we arrived at camp 3 in under 5 hours. Andreas and Zeb had gone underground early the day before and we arrived to a note from them saying the Canyon was going strong. Still heading uphill but with the passage getting bigger, they advised that the dive gear wouldn’t be ready to come out from the sump until the morning. After dinner of mixed remains of rehydrated food we went to bed.

The next morning the group was going to make a trip to the sump to grab the dive gear, then start to ferry it and all of the equipment from camp 3 up the Gorge to the bottom of the Space Drop. The intention was to spend the night at the 620 depot atop a pile of gear. From there it was a short but painful trip up the Bowl Hole ropes to the Fool’s Day Extension, the end of which was a day trip from the surface. With a bus ticket on my mind, I grabbed a bag of wetsuits and headed out.

The first trip out was in a group of five and took me 10 hours. The second trip out was solo and I made it to the field house in just under 8 hours. At the top of the ropes of the Bowl Hole series I extracted one wetsuit from my caving pack and deposited it on a handy rock for some other lucky person to carry the rest of the way. Half way up the Fool’s Day Extension I ran into Dave and Yvonne on a photo shoot. The Fool’s Day Extension was much drier than at the start of the trip, and several of the traverses that had been rigged to avoid the water was completely superfluous. 23 ropes and a crawl later I was at the bottom of the Jungle Drop, and shortly after that I was staggering up the stairs to dinner and the best bucket shower I have ever had.

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The diving portion of this expedition was sponsored by Dive Rite who kindly provided Nomad LTZ harnesses and LX20 primary lights.

The Huautla System is composed of passages that were explored from several main cave entrances, and which join up deep below the surface. In 2015 the main caving activities occurred via the La Grieta and Sotano de San Agustin entrances. While I did a day trip into the very top of La Grieta on my first day in Mexico, most of my time was spent in San Agustin. Within the large team of fit cavers we had seven cave divers. Our aim was to push the never before dived sump in Red Ball Canyon and see what lay upstream. Red Ball Canyon sump is in a higher tunnel above Camp 3 and well above the base water level of sumps 1 to 9. With the water being perched above the water table we expected that the sump would be short and shallow. It’s best not to rely on assumptions with undived sumps, and in the absence of information there was only one thing to do – we’d have to go diving.

After a 10pm bus departure from Mexico City for what was advertised as a 6 hour bus ride, I arrived in the town of San Agustin Zaragoza slightly disorientated at 7am (time zone unknown, I think it was about 2am the following morning in Australia). The early news was that the rigging team had emerged from an early foray into Red Ball Canyon having discovered a dry bypass of the sump. As they’d already taken dive gear to the start of the Canyon it was not happy news. I set up my sleeping gear in one of the rented local houses and contemplated the wetsuit and mask that I’d carefully packed. The second half of the dive team was now in the Canyon and continuing to rig upstream. After a rest day on the surface to recover from five days spent underground (Dave, Sandy, Andreas and Andy) and two days spent on planes and buses (me), we headed back into the cave. Given the news, I left my dive gear on the surface.

The entrance to San Agustin is spectacular but there was no time to stop for photos on the inbound trip. I took these entrance shots on a day trip later in the expedition when Paul and I went early to catch the sunbeams down into the cavern. After walking down the hill and skidding down the Jungle Drop in the doline Scott, Andreas, Dave, Sandy and I climbed up an over the bank and through a small crawlway into the Fool’s Day Extension. The Extension leads to the Bowl Hole Series, which includes a 60m drop, 110m drop and the 77m Space Drop with the large, bouncy, free-hanging, free-swinging rope at the bottom of it. This route is a “short-cut” discovered in the late 80s. While there is a little bit of horizontal cave between the 23 short ropes in the Fool’s Day Extension the Bowl Hole Series more than makes up for that. In nearly every case you rappel to the bottom of a long rope and can immediately see the start of the next drop.

Having passed more than a few rebelays I made it off the bottom of the Space Drop and we were at the 620 depot. This massive rock has a good view of the Space Drop rope in one direction and the route to the top of the Gorge in the other. Heavy rains the week before I arrived had filled the Gorge with rushing water and prevented trips for a couple of days. The water level was low again and the trip down the river uneventful. The rocks are beautiful here. Thousands of years of rushing water have worn the surfaces smooth and scalloped, revealing mineral lines and layers. Some of the small potholes have pebbles inside, circling around and around until they are worn away or the bottom of the pothole gives way. It’s hard to be heard over the rushing of the cascades. Despite Sandy’s advice from the previous week’s experience, I did my best to stay dry. Unfortunately there are at least two spots where the only options are levitation or swimming lessons – I should have saved my energies.

From the bottom of the Gorge and into the Metro the water quieted down. With one last swim we were on the hill up to Camp 3. The camping location certainly beats our muddy little sleeping fissure in Elk River Cave. With a wide sandy rockpile to spread out on and a ring of rocks around the kitchen we had underground luxury. I gathered a sleeping bag and inflatable mat and found a flat spot to call my own. Dinner was delightfully rehydrated mystery mixes of various textured vegetable protein, freeze dried chicken or beef, strangely coloured vegetable bits and either powdered potato or quick pasta (and occasionally both). Putting nuts in the dinner mix did assist with providing a texture away from the gluey/slimey side of the spectrum. Breakfast was suitably rehydrated oatmeal and a bit more familiar than the dinners. The joy of caving all day is being so hungry that it all tastes good and being able to turn off your light so you can’t see what you’re eating anyway.

We met up with the other divers at camp 3 when they returned for the day and discovered that they had discovered the sump. Shortly after the deep pool with the dry bypass the Red Ball Canyon streamway sumped for real. Zeb, Katelyn and Victor had retrieved the dive gear from where it had landed near the Metro and got ready to dive. On his first dive Zeb successfully passed sump 1 and surfaced on the other side to see another sump beginning immediately. With more than a few days underground they were ready to head out and it was our turn to take over. I spent an entertaining night staring at complete blackness as I realised I wasn’t quite over my jetlag. The next morning according to the clock but without a single crowing rooster or barking dog, we headed up Red Ball Canyon. The Canyon starts with a short rope up beside this spectacular waterfall.

From the entrance it turns into a narrow passage with varying degrees of steep climbs and deep water. The ridges and ledges in the walls are beautiful. The gearing up spot before the sump is even better. A spacious sandy beach with more than enough head room to stand up. It certainly makes up for the gearing up spots before sumps in Growling Swallet, Burnabbie and Elk’s sump 1. Andreas got his stuff together while I dragged the camera out of the pelican case for the first time. With a few strobes around it was time to capture the moment. We discovered Zeb had used less than 30 bar out of the carbon fibre tanks and they still had nearly twice a normal fill. The water looked clear and inviting. It was an object lesson in not leaving your dive gear on the surface and I may have spent a few minutes sizing up Zeb’s wetsuit for possibilities.

While he was gone, Scott and I scrambled up above the sump to have a look at the blowing hole in the flowstone. In fact, there were two. The first was the size of a fist but looked to open up quick quickly on the other side. The second was twice the size with much more air coming through it but also went for much longer in small dimensions. Neither looked particularly promising as a dry bypass for someone human sized. I was contemplating photographic possibilities when bubbles signalled a return. Andreas surfaced with an empty reel and a grin. He’d successfully passed the slightly longer, just as shallow sump 2 and surfaced in the cave beyond. The canyon immediately headed up a steep waterfall that was going to require aid climbing equipment. So we headed back down the canyon to camp 3 for our second night underground with a few short stops for photos along the way.

Part II of this trip report is now up here. 
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The diving portion of this expedition was sponsored by Dive Rite who kindly provided Nomad LTZ harnesses and LX20 primary lights.

The PESH mission is to run ten annual expeditions to the Huautla System. This April is the second one and continues on with the aims of pushing the known cave past 100kms in length and one mile in depth. There are more than two dozen people participating this year including seven of us cave divers. The “wet” portion of the trip focusses on Red Ball Canyon Sump which hasn’t previously been dived. It is close to the sump that connects the cave to Li Nita and perched well above the main river. In theory it could be short, shallow and easy to pass. In reality we will find out what happens next when we get in there.

Huautla is somewhat isolated from the civilised world so packing has been an exercise in prediction. Unlike most of my travels I’m taking very little dive gear. We are using high pressure carbon fibres tanks which makes my normal regulators useless. Given the distance from the surface and despite the chilly water I will be using my Elk-standard semi-dry rather than my Otter drysuit. And the expedition diving is being sponsored by Dive Rite with new Nomad LTZ sidemount harnesses and LX20 hand held primary lights – perfect for the job. Almost more exciting is not having to pack either of those bulky/heavy items.

So what’s in the bags? A sleeping bag and mat for the hut up top, and a sleeping bag liner for the shared sleeping bags in the cave. Trog suits and thermals including a pair of the Fourth Element J2 base layer. It’s always nice when the gear you’re using has been tested in the cave next door to the one you’re visiting. Dry bags, caving packs and SRT harness with a spare chest ascender and hand ascender for when the teeth wear out on the second 800m ascent. And of course a spare stop wheel for the way down. My Scurion and spare batteries, small Archon video lights and then endless camera gear.

I’m taking my camera housing in case the sump gets exciting enough to warrant underwater pictures. I’m not keen on taking it into the cave because it’s both heavy and delicate on the vertical pitches. But should the diving deserve it, I would be devastated not to be able to take underwater shots. For the rest of the wet stuff the camera will be travelling in a small orange pelican case which I depth tested to 5m on the weekend with minimal leakage. I’ve bought myself a new Canon 50mm f1.8 lens to play with some portraiture and mid range shots.

Much of the team is already on site and the cave has been rigged for this year’s efforts. Despite a little early and unexpected rainfall the trip is going well. By late next weekend when I arrive I’m hopeful that the extra water will have dissipated and it will be time to go diving. While there is internet accessible in the next village down the hill I don’t expect to have many updates for you until I make it back to the world. There will be news on the PESH Facebook page periodically during the trip. Hopefully I will have time this week to write up some of my dives over the last few weeks and schedule these to share with you while I’m away. By this time next week you’ll know whether that happened or not!