Elk River Exploration Report

 Cave diving, Caving, Victoria  6 Responses »
Jan 192016
 
Elk River Exploration Report

All of that floating around in the pleasant tropical surrounds in Truk Lagoon had to come at a price, and it arrived last weekend with 32 hours of painful caving in Elk River. After multiple set up trips to load in tanks to the beginning of sump 5 last year it came time to use them. The plan was for three divers (myself, Steve and Ryan) to traverse sump 7 and emerge in the freshly discovered Hall of Crazy Horses on the other side. We would take through an emergency pack of camping gear, a rope for lowering gear down the 10m high waterfall, and a selection of 7L tanks for push diving in sump 8. I also intended to [read more…]

Cave Diving Kupang, Timor

 Cave diving, Overseas  No Responses »
Oct 042015
 
Cave Diving Kupang, Timor

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 [read more…]

A midnight ramble in Cueva de Eduardo

 Caving, Other, Overseas  No Responses »
May 122015
 
A midnight ramble in Cueva de Eduardo

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 [read more…]

Merry Christmas!

 Cave diving, Caving, Ocean diving, Reef diving, rEvo, Tasmania  No Responses »
Dec 232014
 

It doesn’t quite feel like the end of 2014, but apparently it really is. I’ve had an amazing year with some fantastic diving – from muddy sumps in Elk River and Tasmania to crystal clear tropical water in Komodo to secret caves in Indonesia and scalloped rocks in France. For Christmas I’m headed back to the tropics. Tomorrow I head off to Bali to complete my MOD2 and MOD3 rEvo courses with Marc Crane at Tek Deep Asia. I was very happy with the rigour and detail of my MOD1 course back in 2012 and with a few hours under my belt, these courses seem to be a fitting way to end 2014. All going well I will be surfacing [read more…]

Diving Dreamtime sump

 Cave diving, Caving, Tasmania  2 Responses »
Dec 172014
 
Diving Dreamtime sump

About the cave Growling Swallet is a major sink in the Junee Florentine karst area in Tasmania. Water from the river that rushes into the cave entrance has been dye traced to emerge in the Junee resurgence, several miles away. Unlike other caves in the area Growling has an entrance that doesn’t require ropes or SRT, just a few very sketchy free climbs. The name describes the noise of the river rushing in when in flood, and as you would expect caving is only possible in low water conditions. The way through the cave alternates between following the water and climbing up and over it. From a caving perspective this means that even on the way in (usually downhill) there are [read more…]

Elk River push dive

 Cave diving, Caving, Victoria  No Responses »
Dec 022014
 
Elk River push dive

  We were back in Elk River cave on the weekend, once again searching for a way on and through the current final sump. Over the last year or so we’ve laid 250m of line into sump 7 over several push dives. To achieve those dives there have been 15 trips into the cave – to survey, photography, resupply and explore. As the end of the sump got further and further away the dive required larger and larger tanks. This means each push dive trip requires two or three resupply and stocking trips to carry tanks to the end. One of those was just a month ago, where we carried “normal” sized tanks into the cave. Normal-sized for regular side [read more…]

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