The
Bristol
Exploration Club, The Belfry,

Wells
Road, Priddy, Wells,

Somerset.
Editor: Dave Turner

This is rather a small BB as it is being sent out with Dave
Irwin’s index of the BB from 1947 to the end of 1987.  As stated in the last BB the committee
decided that it should be issued to all current members.  It has cost the Club a reasonable amount to
do this and so if any member doesn’t want to keep it please give it to Tony
Jarratt rather than chucking it in the bin.

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I’ve heard that Dany has burnt his arm on his cooking stove
soon after he arrived in

Mexico
and received third degree burns.  In
stead of caving he apparently has a four hour bus journey each day to the
hospital to have it dressed.  Our
commiserations and good wishes to Dany – I hope he will soon be his usual self.

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THIS REALLY WILL BE THE LAST BELFRY BULLETIN SENT TO MEMBERS
WHO HAVE NOT YET PAID THEIR 1988 SUBSCRIPTION – £12 ORDINARY OR £18 JOINT

SEND TO MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY, JOHN WATSON, WELLS

SOMERSET

Caving Secretary’s Notes

A lot of work has been going on in St Cuthbert’s with
Trebor’s massive clean-up campaign which is really going well, but he still
needs lots more help.  Also, on the 2nd
of Jan, just too late for the digging barrel, a party consisting of Martin
Grass, Blitz, Basset, Dick Gurner, Kevin Gymer and me (Snablet) had a small
find of a 100 ft of passage in the Rocky Boulder area, which connected Surprise
Passage to Pilar Chamber and Rocky Boulder Pitch.  Also a small connection between Oubliette
Pitch and Coral Chamber.

Hunter’s Hole is still steadily getting bigger nearly every
weekend with the help of J Rat’s noisy persuasion.

Eastwater’s West End Series is now experiencing a
renaissance of enthusiasm.  A joint
BEC/Wessex team consisting mainly of Jim Smart, Matt Tuck, Graham Johnson
(WCC), Nick Pollard (WCC), Tom Chapman and me are working at making a Grade 5
survey, bolting up Cenotaph Aven and digging everything in sight.  Small amounts of passage have been found so
far, also a small but high chamber, which has been named “The Temple of
Doom” due to the fact that the floor seems to be moving and when you have
a closer look you find it’s covered in thousands of worms.  We’ve been lucky so far with the tunnel (it
still looks dodgy) but we’ve had one ladder break on us.

Forthcoming Trips

For further details contact The Caving Secretary

Snablet

Cheddar
River
Cave

Since the discovery of the river cave in Gough’s I have
maintained a detached interest in the proceedings mainly because I could not
see myself diving in through Dire Straits. I think my feelings about the site were shaded by watching Martyn Farr
emerge unimpressed from this sump nearly ten years ago.

With the opening of the dry route into Lloyd Hall my
interest was rekindled although I still was not in a tearing hurry to get
in.  However recently I seemed to have
run out of excuses not to dive and felt if I did not do some cave diving soon I
was going to become very rusty indeed. The discovery that exploration had reached the point where diving
sherpas were required gave a point to my awakened enthusiasm and so it was that
two weeks ago with dripping nose and cough I rolled up at Cheddar to help carry
in gear for a push the following weekend. As I tramped through the show cave I thought “This is just like
Wookey”; this delusion stopped at

St.
Paul’s where the caving begins.  On this trip again bulb failure meant I was
groping about on a side light in unknown territory.  A crawl through a stal grotto leads to a drop
into another chamber and a hole in the floor. This is passed to a low exceedingly muddy bedding passage which becomes
extremely tedious with kit especially when it starts to go uphill.  At the top is a short rift to an excavated
choke.  This was the breakthrough
point.  A climb up through now thankfully
stabilised boulders takes one into Makin Progress a boulder chamber from which
the original explorers had to dig their way out.  Here we dumped the bottles and took a look at
the top of Lloyd Hall.  A climb down a
rift at the top of the chamber ends on a sloping ledge which on the right
terminates abruptly in a seventy foot pitch into Lloyd Hall.  On the left a further narrow rift opens onto
a traverse which looked horrendous with my dim light.

I spent the week having nightmares about the traverse rather
than the dive but eventually Saturday dawned. Brian Johnson came along as a late recruit and we arrived early at
Cheddar only to find that the heavy brigade probably should not be arriving for
another hour or so.  When they did arrive
poor Richard Stevenson turned out to have an appalling cold so the adventurous
part of the diving programme had to be curtailed.  Clattering sherpas including Chris Proctor
{thank you Chris} staggered into the cave until a huge kit dump had
materialised at

St. Paul‘s.  Brian and I led off into Lloyd Hall after
Quackers, the dive controller, had rigged the short pitch on the far side of
the traverse.  The traverse proved to be
extremely tame in a good light and I was soon descending the forty foot pitch
into Lloyd Hall.  The pitch descends a rift
in the corner of the chamber and drops almost straight into the water.  A traverse round the wall leads to a shallow
area and some ledges where scaffolding poles provide some support – not as good
as the Prid diving platform!  The kit
then had to be lowered item by item down the big 70 foot pitch using a large
pulley.  The pitch enters the centre of
the chamber so gear had to be swung across before it hit the water.

Lloyd Hall is a large chamber the floor of which consists of
a deep lake.  It is L shaped with the
short arm of the L being much wider than the long arm.  The diving base is at one end of the short
arm and the short pitch in is at the other. The upstream exit is reached by a swim across to the far side of the
chamber.  The rock is pure limestone – a
welcome change to the curious conglomerate of Wookey.  The water level in this chamber can fluctuate
immensely – a consequence of the restricted outflow from the resurgence of this
presumably enormous cave system.

Much shouting and bellowing accompanied the transport down
the pitch of all the paraphernalia required in cave diving exploration.  Soon a mound of bottles bags ammo boxes and
rocket tubes surrounded our tiny perch and it was time to kit up.  We swilled mud off pillar valves and started
connecting valves.  Disaster’!  One of my high pressure hoses started to hiss
ominously even after some turns with a spanner and, in unison or sympathy, so
did one of Brian’s.  Fortunately some
spare valves were available although one of them was an octopus rig (two second
stages on one first stage I for which I drew the short straw).

We continued kitting up, disparaging remarks being made on
the disparity between my 100 cu. ft. of air and Brian’s measly 80 cu. ft.  This was a consequence of Brian discovering,
at 6 a.m., that day, a note on his bottles saying “Thanks for the air – I owe
you a refill” – and having to scrounge what he could at the last moment.

At last we were ready; bags of kit to be ferried through
were handed aver, valves were checked, lights switched on.  We sloshed our way across the lake to the
diving line.  Impatiently I dived; the
cold was a shock, as was haying my gag ripped out of my mouth at 4 metres.  This was due to the octopus rig living up to
its name by wrapping itself lovingly around the line.  Untangling everything I set off again kitbag
in one hand line in the other.  Before me
stretched a blue line and a light green impenetrable haze; no rock walls, and
initially, no floor.  There was a
surprisingly strong current much more noticeable than in Wookey, then a floor
appeared – a bedding consisting of huge black scallops.  The line veered off in another direction and
I was ascending then swooping down into a black walled rift before levelling
out again.  Holes loomed up in the floor
over which I drifted like a cloud before the tightly belayed line led upwards
again.  After several hundred feet of zig
zag switch back progress the bottom became sandy and a gradual ascent
began.  Suddenly a water surface appeared
and I popped out, Brian a minute or so behind me, into a low chamber.  In front was a shallow, but slippery mud
slope and the usual bits and pieces of kit one usually sees on the far side of
regularly used sumps.

Shucking off our gear we looked around.  In front of us was a wall of mud coated
boulders whilst on our right a powerful stream flowed silently out at the base
of the boulder pile.  The mud formations
created an impression immediately – they ranged from mud stals to strange
regularly spaced knobs coating the rock. In some places the rock was covered in
separated mud ribs.  Brian set off up through
the boulders and I followed.  We
discovered we were at the base of a 15 metre high boulder pile which had
fetched up at the narrowest point of one of the biggest chambers I have seen
under the Mendip – or elsewhere for that matter.  This was Bishop’s Palace.  In front of us was an eighty foot wide
boulder chaos, the roof in the distance lifting into blackness.  We picked up our bits of kit and gingerly
scrambled up over the pile, taking different paths as we went.  I ended up at the top of a steep climb down a
tilted wall which I realised when I reached its base was an enormous
“Berger sized” boulder.

Brian and I united at the top of a fixed rope climb over
more big boulders.  It was the start of a
5 metre wide 30 metre high rift passage which took us past an extraordinary
display of mud stalagmites.  The fresh
look to the cave, the black coating on the walls and the size of the passage
combined to give a sense of grandeur and isolation.  Signs of civilisation loomed ahead in the
form of a bottle dump.  Beyond a boulder
pile lay a deep flooded rift, one of the Duck Ponds, beyond which the cave
continued as another deep sump.  I dug
out my camera and Brian went off to pursue the sound of a healthy stream.  A rock window led into a ledge above a
parallel rift with lethal looking mud coated walls.  4 metres below ran the underground river
flowing tantalisingly out of reach. Apparently in lower water conditions no flow is apparent.  I began taking pictures although it was
difficult to know where to start.  Brian
poked about, at times patiently posing as I discovered a particularly
photogenic vantage point.  Several rock
windows overlooked the Duck Ponds and these provided great photographic
opportunities.  Despite the absence of
any sta1 the variety of erosion features provided plenty of close up
material.  Chert ledges protruded up to
half a metre from the cave walls, and in places bridged small rifts.  Protruding like black frozen worms fossil
crinoids smothered the walls in other locations.  Many of the mud formations seemed
disturbingly fragile but it seems clear that this part of the cave floods
reasonably regularly so one hopes that they are self renewing to a certain
extent.

Approaching voices indicated that the other members of the
team, Howard Price, Malcom Foyle and Rich Websell, were starting to sherpa kit
through.  Watching their lights
descending the rift was impressive.  We
exchanged enthusiastic remarks and then Brian and I set off back to the
sump.  On the way back we could see more
of the sights.  Perched 10 metres above
the floor on a precarious ledge was a boulder jutting out like some casually
placed diving board.  At the top of the
big boulder, Rich showed us how the roof soared to incredible heights which may
explain the incredible drip formations. The top of the big boulder is littered with pits bared into the rock,
from which run deep grooved channels like horizontal fluting.  In other places the drips have initially hit
mud which or angled boulders, creates the most amazing splash features.

We gently scrambled down the boulders to the sump and
prepared to leave, still babbling enthusiastically.  Our final turn of the day was to pose for Rob
Palmer as he continued his video filming for what I gather will eventually be a
film documentary on the site.  We then
slid beneath the waters of the sump and made our uneventful return to Lloyd
Hall.  Here we reversed the process we’d
performed on the way in by hauling our kit back up the pitch.  I was grateful for the size of the pulley
when hauling the 60 cu. ft. bottles back up the shaft.  Pete Rose: like the

US cavalry,
then appeared at the last moment to help us get our kit out.  He had several moments of embarrassment
before finding Makin Progress.  These
included having to ask a cave guide the way and then trying to make
conversation with the caving dummies in the show cave!  He insisted on leading Brian and I out past
the dummies, a route which turned out to be about the filthiest in the system.

All in all this was an excellent return to cave diving and
Cheddar now ranks alongside Wookey as a British classic.  It is interesting to speculate how much
progress would have been made by now if the

Cheddar
River
had been discovered many years ago. There is no doubt that Extremely advanced cave diving techniques are
going to be required in the near future. Cheddar is still wide open.

P.S. Your correspondent has also discovered that the Cheddar
cave management are also extremely sensitive about publicity so do not make the
mistake that I made of mentioning to the press that you are visiting the cave
if you are sherpering or diving.  Strange
as it may see, you can apparently have too much publicity!  Brian and I are very grateful to Quackers
(Mike Duck!) for baling us out with spare valves and for his sterling work as
dive controller without which any dive in Cheddar would be something of a mini
epic.

Peter Glanvill  March 1988

Letters

Litton,

Somerset.

Dear Dave,

Just a note to say that I enjoyed reading the ‘Imaginary
Tale’ in the last B.B.  Your anonymous
writer copied the style in which I wrote the original pieces very well, I
thought.

Might I also congratulate the artist who did the present
B.B. cover?  I think that the bat is an interesting
blend of old and new and the whole cover is probably the best ever.  A pity about the low definition of the
photographic material but this is doubtless due to the printing process.

Cheers, Alfie

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Comolapa,
Veracruz,
March 12th.

Buenos dias, Poco Rascals!

I’m just spending a couple of days around base camp on
antibiotics as I’ve had a weeks worth of Martini arse (any time, any place,
anywhere).  Its hell here, with the
temperature in the 90’s, not a cloud in the sky, bananas, oranges, papayas and
pine apples brought into camp by nubile Nahuat Indian girls, and four different
local brews for 12p a bottle!

The mountains around here are mostly planted with coffee and
bananas, but judging by the reaction in one or two remote spots there may be
some more lucrative but illicit crops! Anything that hasn’t been cultivated is covered in thick jungle.  The sierra in the area rises up to over 3,000
metres but it looks like there is a realistic depth potential of about 1,500
metres.

The caving around here is superb!  Five weeks into the expedition we’ve found
about fourteen kilometres of cave and well over 150 entrances.  We’ve only scratched the surface so far
though – people are now beginning to understand why we are here and are going
out of their way to show us the really big entrances.

Of the caves and shafts discovered so far there are a few
that are particularly noteworthy.  Sotano
Poco Mendip was an Alum Pot sized entrance in the heart of the jungle.  A superb 200 foot free hang landed on a ledge
with a second, 300 foot free-hang in a big shaft.  This hole was pushed by Steve Milner and I,
and closed down after a third, 40 foot pitch.

Meanwhile Rupert Skorupka, Tim Gould and Steve Thomas were
pushing Sotano Hermanos Pelligrosa (Dangerous Brothers!)  This closed down after a 400 foot pitch, then
a 600 foot pitch and a few short drops.

Some big resurgences have been pushed for a few kilometres
and some large, well decorated fossil cave has been found.  Steve M., Slug, Big Nose, Noddy, Pat the
Canadian Bug man and I pushed Sotano Xochiotepec for 2 – 3 kilometres of really
good, sporting cave including an impressively large, well decorated fossil
passage called Bertie’s Promenade!

We’ve done a lot of reconnaissance and have a great number
of really good leads to go at.  Yesterday
Mongo descended to the end of a 600 foot rope and dropped a stone which
descended for a further five seconds!! The shaft, now named EI Sotano, The Shed Spreader, looks like it should
be about a thousand feet deep.

One cave around here has been particularly aptly named
­Cueva de

Wessex.  This is small, insignificant, wet, smelly,
full of shit, noisy and doesn’t go anywhere!

This ‘British Expedition’ now has two cavers from Vancouver,
one American, two Dutch, (

Lawrence
‘It’s all happening guys’ Smetz and Wim Hoody-Hoody-Hoo), two Belgians (the
Belches!) a couple of Mexicans and a couple of extraordinary characters from a
place called ‘Unterslodge.  Nobody can
understand them but we think their names are InthatrightDarn and I-fu ..
ingspect!

The latest thing in Base Camp is expedition regulation
haircuts, but as usual Mongo has gone over the top and had his head shaved –
he’s the spitting image of Buster Blood-Vessel!!  Bob and Darn have just got back from a remote
jungle village where ‘ze Englishman who cannot ski’ is the talk of the town and
we’ve just received a postcard from Blitz in

China.

Ignore anything anyone else tells you … THIS is the best
place in the World!!

Cheers  Gonzo

P.S. Big Jane sends her love to Zot.

P.P.S. One of us has got to go on Wogan when we get back!