Riders on the Storm - Grande Finale

After reaching 1380 from the entrance in Polldeelin rising I felt that I missed the connection point. It seemed to me that trying to forge the connection from the Polltoophill Sink should be easier as in 2009 I left the end of the line in an open passage, 1070m from the entrance. Six eventfull dive over July and August finally resulted in the connection between Polltoophill in Castletown and its resurgence Polldeelin in Kiltartan. After 2.5 year and 45 dives from both sides the Riders on the Storm Traverse was completed - 2.4km in length with an average depth between 40-45m and max. -62m. Here are the log entries.

Riders on the Storm - After the Flood

16.06.2010

Repairing the lines damaged in the 2009 flood. Not as much damaged as hoplessely burried underneath thick layers of fine gravel, sometimes more than 0.5m deep. Runtime 1.5h

17.06.2010

Further  line repairs. Around 800m mark I started looking for the continuation of the way on, which at the time I thought would be before the end of my line from 2008 at 850m. With breathing becoming more and more difficult (seemed like the unit was getting flooded) I decided to abort the dive before the search was completed, I bailed out and started the return.

CRADLE HOLES CONNECTED MAKING SECOND THE LONGEST CAVE IN IRELAND

Over the weekend  16-17th of May a team Pavel Cesnak and Artur Kozlowski discovered and established a direct underwater route between Upper and Lower Cradle Hole in Marble Arch System

The 165m long link was christened The Dancing Girls' Connection and joined together two only recently established cave systems: The Marble Arch – Prod's Pot/Cascades connected by Kozlowski in November 2009 and The Monastir Sink – Upper Cradle connected by Chris Jewell and Kozlowski earlier this year.

The joined Monastir Sink -Upper Cradle – Marble Arch – Prod's Pot – Cascade System constitutes second the longest cave in Ireland with over 11km of passages

PADI Cavern Course in Ireland

Mexican Passage, Marble Arch, 1 May 2010

TEAM: Artur Kozłowski, Indrė Kutkaite, Éabha Grainne Lankford
(aka The Beauty and The Beasts), Pavel Cesnak

The planned 9am meeting at DCU was slightly delayed as I needed my beauty sleep but by 10.30 am a truly international Irish - Lithuanian - Slovakian - Polish team of cavers was fully assembled and headed off towards the North. After an epic 5h journey which deserves to be told as a separate story with a glass or perhaps a bottle of something stronger we reached the Hoo and after an initial shock that some experienced after realising that there really was no shower there, we set off to the Marble Arch.

Somewhere after the Wet Wiggle we met Steve Muh and Helen the Lovely Girl coming back from the end of Lagnabrocky Way and after a brief chat we continued towards Mexican. (by the way, an awkward moment at the desk in MAC: when asked who I left the callout with I answered that with Steve McNamara, without having known that he entered MAC 2h earlier...lol)

MEXICAN PASSAGE EXTENSION 17.04.2010


Petie Barry, Artur Kozlowski




Sitting in the Hoo back in the last weekend of March Artur and I were discussing what to do the next when we both expressed an interest in looking at Legnabrocky passage, especially the final choke. The next day a party consisting of Una Donoghue, Tony Corcoran, Neil Tobin, Artur Kozlowski and myself visited the passage, guided by Neil who’d been there a few times before. The choke at the end of the final inlet was pretty unpromising, but what turned out to be much more interesting was Mexican Passage. A climb out of the main passage after the Giants Hall led to a muddy Super Fun Happy Slide and a large fossil passage inhabited by a tiny trickle in the floor. A large slippery black flowstone mound some 6 meters high had to be climbed and beyond it the passage ended in a chamber carved out of glacial fill. In the northern corner however was a sharp constricted crawl, ending after 30 painful meters in a tiny chamber with a continuation visible through a horizontal slot. Neil and Tony ventured in after us armed with a hammer and chisel and found the bottom half of the slot to be made of calcite. They returned, Neil singing Enrique Iglesias’s Hero as he went. Singing Passage was born.

POLLNAGOSSAN - 11 SUMPS AND COUNTING...


It was one of those sites described in the Irish Sump Index from 1988, along with Pollatoomary and Fergus River Cave that I dreamt profusely about for last three years with dark, wet dreams of deep and long penetration.

I wasn't the only one. Back in 2008 Chris Jewell together with Simon Cornhill and Hilary Greaves and again in 2009 with Dave Garman tried to reach already mythical sump 10. In 2008 after 80-90m m in sump 2 the old Martyn's line “run into the rock”.  Chris returned in 2009 with Dave Garman and made a bypass around that obvious line trap. Regaining Martyn's line behind the obstacle Chris continued along a steeply ascending gravel slope finding the line partially buried. There was a few centimetres slot below the ceiling a similar situation encountered by Martyn Farr in 1979. Chris started digging his way up while one of his regs developed a freeeflow and he decided to turn the dive. But the sump was almost passed, it seemed that one more trip and the treasures of Pollnagossan hidden behind the 10th sump would be reached ...

MONASTIR SINK - UPPER CRADLE CONNECTED


I'm very pleased to announce that another important connection in Great Marble Arch System has been made, ending an exploration saga that started in 1958 when M. Boon free dived short 0.5m long sumped section at the upstream end of Upper Cradle Hole to a bigger sump chamber (look here  Discovery of Northern Way for some historical background and our previous exploration)

8.04.2010
Divers: Chris Jewell, Artur Kozlowski

After an epic previous day trip to Shannon Cave we needed a solid rest so we didn’t arrive to the Monastir Cliff untill the early evening. The weather was dry but the Aghinrawn River was still above its average level. We reached the second sump in no time and then Chris went off.