Team: Dream (Rob and Joe)
Just the two of us tonight, after a late farming related excuse from Sam, and we formally renamed our duo the Dream Team. After giving up on Black Draught in an immature spat of frustration last week, I was now totally psyched to be donning my wetsuit and heading for Vulgarious. Water levels in the crawl were at their normal low, but we were both surprised to see that Sump 2 was actually open (just) and pulling a draught!
We ditched out gear and excitedly went to inspect. The first section of the sump had maybe 50mm of airspace so we each navigated through on our backs, helmets off. The lowest bit was only 1-2m long and pretty easy going. We stood up in the middle airbell, reminiscing of being here all those months before on our short diving foray. Joe then went ahead for the second section of the sump on the basis that he hadn’t ever seen it before (he’d been behind me on the diving day and vis had reduced to zero once I’d inelegantly dragged myself through it). This section had much more airspace, maybe 300mm, and was very easy to navigate through. Joe pointed out the tiny squeeze he’d managed to accidentally navigate through by accident, oops! We crawled up the mud bank on the upstream side and basked in the glory of being the first non-diving trip here. Rather than be tempted to go off for a gander we decided to turn around, this time simply freediving the downstream section as it was so short and easy.
Now nice and cool we started the slow job of drilling. Today’s job was to start the lowering of Sump 2, or at least have a go. After a bit of discussions we agreed on a plan and set to work. This started with emptying a perched pool of water with our helmets and wellies, an age-old solution we’d both never tried before and were impressed with the effectiveness! This then allowed holes to be drilled lower down, hoping to get more depth.
Once all 3 holes drills and the gear was installed, we packed up and retreated up Vulgarious to a safe distance. It’s proper filthy in this section and I nearly managed to keep everything clean, apart from the one expensive bit of electronics I had with me, oops! The gear went off with a very satisfying triple boom and we turned tails and fled. Back at Inglorious Joe stepped up and took the tacklebag off me (he’s a star) and after only 2.5 hours the Dream Team emerged into the glorious sunshine. Refreshments purchased in the Mechanics whilst we discussed all the possibilities of how successful the operation may have been. Too much anticipation for my liking…