18/10/21 just Mike!

 Just Mike, the weather had been rubbish all day and not enough interest in heading over!

from Mike - 

I was already at chew valley lake when Estelle got hold of me, so I headed over for a look anyway. It was only light mizzle when I arrived, although pretty murky on the hill (not nice driving). A bee greeted me in the entrance & a newt was hanging out by the buckets, but they had less than 5mm of water in any of them & the pool was 2cm or so lower than last week (so not washing over into dig).

I discovered a lost bucket still in the water, so filled it up (obviously we only did 17 last time! - the roof is still dropping ahead), then carried it & the spade & bar back to steps. Air quality seemed to be less fresh than last week - not too surprising, as when water evaporates it releases any CO2 it contains (& it would have been hard work with only 4 again). The bucket load filled one of last week's bags & I left after only half an hour or so on site.

12/10/21 report from Mike

 Dave, Mike, Jon & Stu 

Stu got there (with sharpened trenching tool & another 2 fixed handles on buckets) just as we were going in.  

Jon checked water levels, which were much the same as last week (possibly slightly more in the dig, where it had spilled over wall, & a baby frog swimming vertically, which I rescued on my glove & handed over to Jon to take out). Dave dug 18 buckets which we carted out & used to fill the slop bags from a couple of weeks ago (somewhat smelly) before adding them to the far end of wall. 

Buckets were then scraped before making an exit to the pub, where Jon bought the first round & I did second. We did consider putting the steel grills back into end pool to reduce depth back below welly height, but couldn't see the bottom by then, so thought it better to wait until next week. Another consideration is bailing the main flood so we can empty the water out of the dig, but that depends how much rain is due next week...

 

5/10/21

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Stu Lindsay, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Fran Campbell and also Stuart MacManus and Mark Denning

2hrs

The weather had been awful in recent days with a lot of rain so we expected the water levels to have risen. Thankfully only slightly over the end dam in the end. Mark had come to check on the electrics ahead of putting a pump in, so he did his checks and assessed it as looking safe and it tripped fine. Mac had come to do some air checks after the last 3 or so weeks of it being quite ‘thick’ to breath and everyone feeling breathless. His results are as below. While all this was going on, Mike and Dave started filling the water containers up from the end and we assisted taking them out. We did several rounds of this and lowered the water level a bit and also the end beyond the dam, so hopefully with long range forecast looking warmer and drier again, the levels will drop off again before we get to a point of needing pumping. After a couple of hours, we headed off to the Waldegrave for sustenance.

 

the results from the CO2 and O2 sensors.

 

End 2.96% CO2 17.83% O2. Pressure 993hPa

Steps 2.4% CO2 18.4% O2

Bottom Entrance shaft  - 0.08% CO2 20.73% O2

 

Interesting was the CO2 was 3.2% in that small alcove above the end pool where there was a heavy drip.

28/9/21

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay, Fran Campbell

1hr 45mins

Weather had been rubbish for last couple of days rain/wind wise and the water levels had risen slightly with a flow running into the pool at the end. The air wasn’t great still when Estelle went in to take a couple of photos of the end and check water levels ahead of starting to dig. Dave dug first, then Mike and 2 rounds of 18 skips were filled. No headaches but heavy breathing while working anywhere from the bottom haul down. Hopefully will sort itself with the weather pressure changes as this is a new phenomenon

 

21/9/21

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay, Fran Campbell, Jonathan Riley

1.5hours

Arrived at dig and Estelle and Dave went to the end with bags to fill and load into buckets of watery stuff to drain as this had been proven to help a bit with water levels. The air was quite poor at the dig end. Filled about 6-8 skips with bags of watery spoil and sent up then went to the end to get on with digging. Air wasn’t great, lots of hard breathing, but not headachy, so suspicion this may be lower oxygen than a CO2 big problem. Last weeks team said it wasn’t great then either and this isn’t something we’ve had to deal with before, but it has had a long period of dry high pressures with harvesting season all around which is typical of bad air problems in caves. Estelle dug around 18 skips and then James dug 10 before the poor air drove us out and to the pub. We agreed to look to get someone to analyse the air or borrow the MCR testers as this was out if the ordinary.

14/9/21 report from Mike

 Stu Lindsay, Mike Moxon, Dave Walker, Jonathan Riley

I handed the bolts over to Stu, then all 4 mouseketeers made it to the bitter end where despite the rain today, the water level had dropped since last time. So we took in 14 bags & all of us filled them with slop from the pool (to variable weights) & chained them back out in trugs, along with the other 3 buckets, which were filled with drier mud - this did destroy the central skip, so that came out as well (along with the tools, to steps). Emptying the buckets was much easier with bags in, so that didn't take long, but we found it to be almost 8.30, so headed down the waldy, where Alan was playing darts. He said most weeks they will be now, so can get there later & he will let Estelle know if different. Bags are all sat by the ladder awaiting further fill, an adult & baby toad were around the hauling boulder, and the skip still needs ropes switching to a new one.

31/8/21

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Dave Walker, Fran Campbell

2hrs

Water levels had dropped and we got 2 rounds of digging in before heading to the pub.

24/8/21

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay

2hrs

Opted for a later start as the pub is getting happier with late as they’ve started more darts. Water levels up, lots of discussion re pumps after, but we need to look at the electrics and make sure we’re getting the right pump for the job. Usual round of a couple of diggers before heading to the pub.