17/5/22

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Dave Walker, Jon Riley, Adrian Miles, Stu Lindsay

2hrs

water levels still dropping off nicely, even though there had been a bit of rain during the last week and many of the skips were over half full on the storage shelf. Dave went in first to dig and did 28 skips including clearing some leftover rock from previous weeks which is being used to make the steps up to the ladder safer as the bags have got really slippery. Estelle went in second and did 32 skips. The bottom skip was replaced with one of the spares as the crack in the bottom was making it catch badly.  Dave mostly dug shelf and walls, while Estelle dug down at the front of the shelf. Directly in front at the dig, there is no obvious way forward yet, but the shelf is still high enough to hide anything. The right hand wall is still all mud and could reveal a way forwards, but also digging down, Estelle went down about 18" below the shelf and the bar could be pushed further into that still. Shelf needs to go, it is a number of good sized boulders, 2 of which are free but need breaking up. They look like a hammer will do the trick. It's all easy digging at the moment apart from a few boulders - there is space to store them near the dig, but be good to get them out if we can.