High water pics for Pete

The plan for the day was to go into the DYO cave system in S.Wales and have a look at a sump or two. The hydrology in the cave has changed over the last two years making the cave much more flood prone and the owner wants some of the sumps inspected.

We arrived to find hordes of people visiting the show cave. Finding somewhere to change was a challenge. After wandering through the show cave and crossing over the barrier we encountered large amounts of water sooner than we expected. It quickly became clear that diving wasn’t going to be possible so we dumped our gear and went for a swim/bimble, taking pictures as we went. The water was dropping as we went in as can be seen by the foam marks. While we were in the flow picked up a bit and the level started to rise.

So to keep Pete happy (after his complaints about the Peak Dash) here are some pictures of a cave near to its’ flood point. Apologies for the quality of the shots, caves get very misty when the water is up and holding a camera still whilst swimming against a current can be fun.

This is the normally dry kitting up spot.

The foam on the roof above Andy shows that the passage had recently sumped.

Foam on the water surface is not normal.

Chambers at the start of the cave are linked by short tunnels like this one.

Me hanging onto a wall at the start of one of the tunnels on the way in.

Beyond the tunnels Andy climbs one of the cascades that lead up above the flood level.

Andy swims out through thicker foam near our kit as the water level slowly rises.

4 thoughts on “High water pics for Pete”

  1. Quality forgiven! πŸ˜€

    The laugh I had imagining you swimming in this flood holding a camera to get the pictures 😯 , whilst also keeping your head above water long enough to breath was well worth the disappointing lack of captions to tell us what and who the pictures are of! πŸ˜‰ :zip:

    I had to complain about something – it’s the traditional stereo-type you’ve cast for me… :good:

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