Team: Rob, Jon and Joe
Rob and I had spent the whole week with bated breath patiently waiting to see the destruction from last trips efforts. The possibility of Sump 2 being open again, and therefore allowing non-diver access into SMMC, had also coerced Jon and Luke into joining us so they can have a wonder round the new streamway. I had arrived a little late and so Jon and Rob were pre-beered by the time I arrived, and with no sign of Luke we quickly changed and headed in.
We slithered along the passage approaching RAT excited to see what levels of devastation we’d created. Rob approached first in stunned silence. My hopes began to rise. As it transpired, he was stunned because everything looked exactly as we’d left it - failure. To add insult to injury there was no draft through the sump into SMMC, and further investigation confirmed the water had risen a few more inches and sumped the duck into the airbell. Jon set about starting the siphon back up so potentially it would be lower for the following week. Meanwhile, not wishing to let it get us down too much, Rob and I began to form a better strategy and see if we could be a little less greedy. We formed a plan and set about the lengthy task of drilling. Being already laden with gear, Rob had only packed one battery which promptly ran out just as the last hole was drilled.
Jon had managed to get the siphon trickling and had then set about breaking the wall holding the perched pool in place and had made some progress. It felt a bit ridiculous that so far the most progress had been made by chipping away at it with a crowbar!
With our very short and easy digging trip complete, we made a hasty retreat, all the while Jon was singing Venga Boys “Boom, boom, boom, boom!” with alarming lyrical accuracy, and recalling Eldon stomps of times gone by. We capitalised on an early finish and headed to the Mechanics again to top up our electrolytes and discuss tactics.
