Team: KristianB, JonP, RobE
Prebeers, wetsuits, banter, and off we go. Jon’s first wetsuit-only trip down Cussey and he wholeheartedly agreed that it’s lush, although not great for the suit. This time we took in a 25m garden hose with the plan to syphon Loper Lust. I freedived through first, with it tied around my waist. Hilariously whilst underwater it started slipping down to my knees so I had to grab it with one hand whilst pulling myself forwards with the other. Silly game. Understandably Jon wasn’t keen to do the freedive as “it was not his cup of tea”, so Kristian came through to join me and we set about trying to get the syphon going.
The pipe was relatively easy to prime however the 1.5m of height the water had to lift was enough to suck the pipe flat. Mistake on my behalf, should have bought a more rigid pipe. Therefore only a trickle of water came through. We messed about for a while, straightening and shortening the pipe, but never got more than a trickle through. After a quick parlez with Kristian and I opt to dive back through and let Jon know the bad news. He was freezing by now and happy to just head out. I think he was just mostly sad because I’d won the £1 bet that it would be totally sumped. I dived back to Kristian and we set off to the Vulgarious dig.
The crawl to For Buck’s Sake is now pretty roomy all the way. Kristian went ahead and went straight into the next section, slightly not knowing what to expect. Surprisingly he went through without much issue, and with me behind with the small mattock we got it all “acceptable”. Certainly not roomy or pleasant, but that’s not why people will be coming here, so I think acceptable is good enough.
We then spent 30 minutes in the rift chamber digging away the bank at the start of the next phreatic tube. That was easy work, as I passed mud back to Kristian and he got to practise his netball throw getting the spoil as far back in the rift as possible. We dug enough into the tube to see what we’re up against ahead and it looks pretty similar to the rest of Vulgarious, so should be quite simple digging. Unfortunately the dig is now heading downhill with a little trickle flow into it. This means very quickly we were yet again in squalor. Also as we’re now on the shell bed the brachiopods in the roof will tear apart our wetsuits in no time!
It was 21:30 so we turn around. Back at Loper the syphon was issuing only a very small trickle, which meant it had done nothing useful to the sump level. We try briefly to get it going better and manage to stop it completely. Nevermind, next trip we’ll return with a stiffer pipe, and Jon will probably go the long way round; down Cliffstile and up the sough. On the surface by 22:20 and after a thorough clean in the Saltpan we make the Moon for a very pleasant pint.
