22/9/20

Having lost Mike and Jon to the recent Wookey breakthrough and continuing work in there on that, plus Stu came over and capped some rocks yesterday as he couldn’t make tonight, we were reduced to 3. The water levels at the end are 6-8 inches in most places, but lots of clay in the floor which would prevent drainage. Plenty of remains of boulders from Stu’s efforts last night so Estelle set to filling buckets with rocks as it is easier to handle and they were all taken only as far as the hole in the floor, which we’ve been discussing filling for a while – we also used up most of the small rocks we’d been using in the space by where the grill was. Once we’d run out of rocks, James took over and was digging the area where the grill was down to rock level. This was bagged and Dave placed them so the skip should flow over the top. The boards were taken out, the grills are both stashed at the side of the passage for now in case they are needed again. More work to continue getting down to floor level and could do with breaking up the boulders we stashed as they are no longer neatly walled and would be better removed from the cave! Headed out to Waldegrave.

15/9/20

About 10inches or so of water in the end area and James went in first to dig and after the efforts last week removing the grill, the continuation was filling buckets from around that area and into the first of the deeper pool as we have pretty much decided we need to find the floor still. There’s a lot of clays lower down and the end does drain, albeit slowly so clearing the floor down to rock may help… James filled his skips and then Estelle took over and filled from the area where the grill was and just beyond, before Mike took over and carried on clearing out the same area. We’re down to floor in a number of places now and it’s clearly got a bit of a gap between where the wall hits the floor, which may help with drainage if we can keep this… Hopefully another dry week ahead might see the water levels lower.

8/9/20

From Mike. Stuart capped most of the boulders in the end chamber, despite forgetting any spare drill batteries, whilst Dave, Fran & I lifted the 2nd grill & removed most of the mud from underneath it (18 buckets worth) in stages. Stu then put most of the bits of rock up on the right hand shelf before running out of oxygen & exiting. Then Dave & I headed back down for 5 minutes whilst the others got changed - Dave dug out the remaining wall between the 2 puddles & I lifted the rest of the rock onto the shelf, except 1 large block (that is lose) & any that I couldn't see (pool was crystal clear when we arrived, & a couple of inches lower than last week). Still some mud (grill is up on the side) & the rocks to remove next time.

1/9/20

James’s birthday treat, he got to go and dig first! Quite a wet muddy puddle at the end still, but able to dig the end wall ok and just get wet up to the knees while kneeling in the water! He filled 18 skips and then Estelle took over for around 18 skips – she dug around the pool/stones more and lowered the water level a bit. Mike Moxon went in and did around a dozen skips as pub was calling – the spoil was being bagged on the surface this time as enough to make it worthwhile. Hopefully the water levels will drop off further by next time. 2hrs