RETURN TO OLD DESMOND

Dave Murtagh, Petie Barry, Artur Kozlowski

Carol's Sump

Water levels were extremely high, maybe only 1-1.5m from the top of the slope in Great East Chamber. I had to run an extra line to reach the start of the old one. Water crystal clea as usual, I quickly reach my reel on -41m and started squeezing sideways through 4m high rift which was only 0.5 wide. After couple of metres I found a suitable ( or I thought so...) shelf to place a block of lead and make a belay

THE CONNECTION

Marble Arch - Prod's Pot/Cascades Connection Part III

Over a month ago some diver from the North who reads the technical diving forum, let's call him Mr Sneaky Peevalve, has written an official complaint to the county council (the owner of the cave) saying some quite uncomplimentary things about a post I put on the forum on 18th of November (which he also reprinted without consulting me nor forum administrators) and essentially stating that the cave management was at fault for letting someone as 'unqualified' as me to cave dive in their cave system.

THE SWANN'S WAY

Marble Arch - Prod's Pot/Cascades Connection Part II

I entered the system around round 12.30 pm. I expected to have some hard time with carrying all my gear (harness with weights, 3l and 2l cylinders, 80cm crowbar, 50m tape, fins and a dry box) through the chokes and squeezes of that section but actually it was grand, even better, I enjoyed it! I guess I was already running on the wings of anticipated discoveries… I passed the Madeleine’s sump in 3min which included some ridiculous entanglement when the tape snagged the main line. Oh well…

THE GREEN LAKE

Marble Arch -Prod's Pot/Cascades connection Part I

Like all good things everything started in a pub. It was a Friday night in Frank Eddies in a border village of Blacklion filled the evening with usual potholing banter.
I went to take a leak and when I came back I heard someone talking about some mysterious green lake in Marble Arch System (4.5km ), possibly a sump, which could connect to another big , 4km long cave system, Prod’s Pot - Cascades. My eyes were getting bigger and bigger as he continued : the pool was attempted only once, by Tim Fogg, but the way on was lost in zero visibility. At that stage I already knew where I wanted to dive next. The next morning the jolly party of six proceeded to the Green Lake in Marble Arch Cave.

AGHINRAWN BLOODY SUNDAY

Artur Kozlowski and Al Kennedy
26.07.2009

Aghinrawn is a curious middle size cave east of Monastir Cliff (Florencecourt, co. Fermanagh). A small stream sumps for a short distance after 200m and then sumps again in 2m pot which has been investigated with scuba gear only recently; last April Chris Jewel and David Garman dived it to -11m with small 4l cylinders and wetsuits. The underwater passage seemed to continue but without any buoyancy device they didn’t dare to go any deeper. I concluded that having a go in a dry suit might be a better idea.

Last Sunday it was our second trip to Aghinrawn. On the first one, a week before, after free climbing down two pitches , we were stopped by an apparent collapse of the cave. I tried to dig the way through but sudden movement of some large boulders forced an immediate retreat.We concluded that the cave had collapsed since the last visit and we exited. I consulted Chris Jewell and it turned out that we took wrong way: instead of descending the pitches we were supposed to climb up above the first one and follow a steep bedding plane (low, horizontal passage) to another series of pitches.
This time we were carrying more equipment (2x7l, 1x3l, 2 sets of harnesses plus lead, a bag with fins and 80m reel) and the bedding plane route proved to be equally arduous. After that it was only worse. A tight, body size pothole in the floor led to the first pitch broken in the middle by the ledge. We lowered down all the gear to the ledge and left it for a while as we decided to scout the way on first. Every now and then I’ve heard Al murmuring f…kin’ shitholeand f..kin’ shithole it was, indeed, but I had a good day and it didn’t bother me too much. I felt this time nothing could stop me from reaching sump 2… At the bottom of the pitch the way on led through extremely tight horizontal squeeze which immediately opened up into another tight 8m high vertical drop. Tough one…Al squeezed in half way through but started hesitating as the pitch below felt very tight. I put some verbal pressure on him   and he got through. Then he returned proving it was passable either way. However, he was wearing a wetsuit and as it was proveen on many occasions he was better built to pass constrictions than I was. It seemed that in a bulky drysuit I stood no chance to pass it. But as I said before, it was my day and inch by inch I wriggled myself first through the squeeze and then down the pitch. I proceeded for some distance confirming easy continuation to Sump 1. We were still in the game.
We returned to the first pitch , Al climbing up to the ledge to lower our gear. With my thoughts already in the sump 2 I was recklessly standing at the bottom of the pitch, water dripping from above was causing background noise. I looked up and that’s when I received a powerful blow to my forehead (as it later turned out Al accidentally moved some stone on the ledge which went straight for my head). I dropped on my knees and reached for my face which felt completely numb. Still not fully understanding what had happened I remember having thought that maybe I would somehow recover so we could continue to the sump. And only then, after 2-3 seconds after the hit, with some weird, movie-like delay the blood gushed from my head. Loads of it. All I could think about was that we had to call the trip. I was out. I took off the helmet and the neoprene hood that was the only object I could use to stop the blood pouring all over the place. Al was already behind me and asked to show him my head. From couple of fucksI understood we were not good. I told him to unzip my drysuit and undersuit and cut the t-shirt I had underneath to make some more effective pressing. He eventually reaped the front of it (somehow the cutting tool I had was not particularly sharp…cave divers… ) and secured it over the wound with my neckless and snoopy loops (they are really good for EVERYTHING). We had to get out from the cave as soon as possible. All gear has been ditched not to slow us down. Half blind I free climbed the pitch and squeezed through the hole in the roof. Then Al took the lead and guided me out of the cave. Another half an hour later we were in Aghnahoo cottage waiting for Roisin to take me to Erne hospital in Enniskillen. When Al looked at my wound in the daylight I thought he was about to faint. A quick look in the mirror made me understand why. It looked like from low budget horror movie with the only difference we knew it was real.
Anyway, after the wound had been cleaned in the hospital, it turned out that there was some bits of rock embedded in my skull, and the skull itself was also probably fractured. They couldn’t proceed in Enniskillen so the next day I was taken to Altnagelvin maxillofacial clinic in Derry where they removed 1cmx1cm piece of rock from my head along with some shattered pieces of skull bone and finally patched me up. It all took less than an hour and was quite an experience: I was only under local anaesthetics and the surgeon clearly enjoyed showing me every bloody piece he pulled from my head.
Ok. And those were all good news. The bad ones are that the piece of rock made his way into my sinus and I’m out of diving for a while, until the whole thing properly heals up.
Aaaghhrrr…. blooody Aghinrawn!!!!!!!!!!!!

Al and Gaelan Eliffe removed all the gear from the cave on Monday.

Artur

TOUCHING THE VOID
Artur Kozlowski and Al Kennedy
17 May 2009

Hopes for this trip were dampened by the recent wet weather, but we wanted to get back in the upper reaches of Upper Cradle Hole and work on the survey and push sump 3a further.  Some modifications had been made to kit: Artur had slimmed his sidemount profile down and was diving in a semi-dry; i wore a light fleece undersuit to reduce overheating while walking and climbing in drysuit, wrapped my oversuit around my waist under my drysuit to change into while pushing dry passage, and stuffed my wellies into my drysuit pockets.  Acting as a human drybag i also took a headtorch for Artur. 
We kitted up in the 'Hoo and walked with Paul - who'd kindly given me a lift - to Upper Cradle sump 1.  The river was rather fuller than usual, but we decided to see what conditions in Upper Cradle 2 cascades were like.  The first dive was incident free (though i saw my first eel!), the sump being so large that the increased flow had little effect.  At the other end we each dropped one bottle for the climb up the cascades, deciding that it would be ok to pass sump 2 on just one bottle each.  With the increased flow there was no question of attempting the constricted passages of sump 3 so we didn't need to take two bottles each beyond sump 2.  With care it was possible to climb the cascades, though much more difficult than before.  After we ascended a couple i began to wonder if reversing them might not be much harder...hmm.  After some yelled debate (because the water was so noisy) we pressed on.

MASTODON DEFEAT & FU INLE
May Bank Holiday

Saturday...Making the most of the day, Artur, Niall, Jan, Julie and i set off early to Mastodon with ladder and tools.  First we tried the rift to the Northern Way and i was sent down to make a better effort than before.  I traversed across the first false floor until it constricted then dropped down horizontally and inched forwarded.  It didn't look easy: the floor disappeared, the rift narrowed and twisted.  Removal of a boss of rock might help things, so the drill was lowered with a chisel fitted, but it proved impossible to put any force on the blade one-handed. Our weapon wasn't so potent as first thought...  Niall had a go too, but was also defeated.  By this time Artur, Jan and Julie had gotten bored and entered Mastodon to look for promising leads.  One rift in boulders seemed to offer a possible connection, drafting strongly and heading in the right direction, but needed digging.  Niall, Jan and Julie set off for Noone's Hole and Artur and i dragged our tools into the rift and started digging in shifts.  We took a break at 1 pm and walked back to 'Hoo for some food, but Artur needed an afternoon nap so it wasn't until later in the afternoon that we resumed work.  Digging fever had passed though.  The rock was incredibly hard, and the drill made virtually no impression on it (we had used two batteries in 15 minutes during the morning, before deciding that hammer and chisel was more efficient).  We had cleared out the rift fill as much as we could and i tried to see how far in i could squeeze, but it got too tight.  Some rock would have to go.  I started to chisel away again, but soon the rift started to fill with smoke - i turned to see Artur reclining comfortably and smoking a 'scientific' cigarette to observe the direction of the draft.