I am not going back this weekend. I have a commitment to attend. A group are going tomorrow to dive the sump in the first side-branch and continue to empty the second side branch.
I wish I were going with them. I may have pictures of the mice for next time, though.
15 July 2005
13 July 2005
Mice, mice everywhere!
Mice, mice everywhere!
So we went to Dersios at the weekend with three of the new guys. Dersios is a sinkhole in Arcadia, about 700m up and quite a way from the sea. It was explored a while back to -80 odd meters by a French team together with ESE - the Hellenic Speleological Society. Since 2003, teams from SELAS Caving Club, Greece has been exploring the cave, doubling the depth and more than tripling the surveyed length. It has been surveyed to -161m so far, but has a lot of unsurveyed (and unexplored) passages. This year we are going to try and push the exploration a little further through a combination of diving and emptying of sumps.
We arrived after much faffing at well after one pm, set up our tents and got ready to go. We were in the cave just before four - so there was another faff involved which I am not sure I remember although some of it involved being barked at by dogs while trying to talk to an old man in a shack who claimed to know of a pothole somewhere in the hills. This would be especially pleasing if it exists. I have had suspicions about the existence of something in the hills above the cave for a while, based on plotting the track of the cave under a 3D representation of the hills above. This is something for a future visit, though.
Splitting into two teams, the first went for the first sump, now empty, thanks to the efforts made last month, while the second went for the sump in the second side-branch.
Last month's efforts (!) - Photos by Maggie
Once there, we prepared the sump for emptying, gathering in last months green hoses - repairing the join between the stretch of 20m and 50m hose with a piece of inner tube, some flanges (?) and a swiss army knife. Then while Panos went into the water up to his thighs, Martin, Michael and I helped bring the hose down to the sump and pass it to Panos who sunk it in such a way as to empty it of air as it went in. Once completely submerged we capped the end of the hose with a piece of inner tube, preferring it to the heroic rubber glove used in June. The use of a non solid cap for the hose had the unexpected advantage that it allowed the caver walking the hose lower to know exactly when the hose exit was at the height of the sump surface - the glove or inner tube would be sucked into the hose when the hose end was above the sump surface and would expand out of the hose when below the sump surface.
The glove! - Photo by Maggie
The inner tube expanded to resemble a dark aubergine, the shiny black curved surface taking our attention from the pressure which was to build up, break out and cover us in bits of rubber and plenty of sump water moments later.
Success - the flow had started! It was about six or seven pm.
It was somewhere around this time that we first noticed the increased number of mice in the cave. For me at least it started as one of those periphery of vision experiences where objects jump around on the edge of my field of view somewhere between where the torch no longer lights and where the sharp image created by my spectacles merges with the blurriness. This was slightly different. The blurriness and jumping around was about 40mm long and moving independently of where I moved my head. To find a mouse down where we saw this one did not surprise me. The poor thing had obviously got lost and had somehow found its way into the cave and down the main path some 90m into the cave and 30m below ground. It scampered off and we carried on with the day's tasks. Martin and Michael left Panos and myself to finish off the plumbing and headed off towards the first sump. Panos and I brought the black hose from the original 2003 emptying of the first sump up to join it to the flow from the second branch's sump. The idea was that if we could increase the height difference, the outflowing water would have greater pressure and therefore increased speed on its way out. As it was we had a difference in height of about 5-10m, but the addition of the black hose (50m length) gave an extra -13m worth of pressure to the flow.
Although we had come prepared, we did not use the plastic hose joiners, but taking some of the already burst innertube we rigged up a join with the flanges between the two pipes. Once the water started to flow we could feel the negative pressure on the join - a sign that the suction was increased. Unfortunately we hadn't waited long enough for Martin and Michael to move away and Michael got a hose load of sump water poured on him while he was on-rope. It's a learning process all around…
Moving on, and through all the parts that had caused me trouble in the past - through the bits where you have to brace yourself against the walls with hands and knees and back and arse to avoid the water below, and on to the first sump, now empty and not too tough to negotiate a way through, and on to the new passages, which saw light for the first time in 2003. The rigging team of Komninos, Giannis, Kostas and Margarita were a way ahead of us now and we were finding everything ready in front of us down to the junction at -151m where from the height above the junction we could see the satisfying glow of the acetylene below us. I stayed there and took in some calories I the form of cashews and almonds, while Maggie took the Murphys to the bottom and back and then we all started the climb to the exit, spotting mice all the way home.
We were all out at about 0400 hrs and made pasta before going to sleep. Martin had brought a travel fridge with beers, ice and tsipouro, so we managed nicely to unwind before watching the first little hints of daybreak come to remind us that the sun wouldn't allow us to get much sleep that night. True enough, the sun had woken us all by nine, so we de-rigged the entrance and got ready for the drive down and the beach.
Now, these mice...
They come in two different types. Small and Large. The small ones are all a very light grey colour and about 40mm long from snout to bum. The larger ones are dark grey with a white belly and about 100mm long from snout to bum. The larger ones were seen to rear up onto the hind legs (not unlike a kangaroo) and jump from this position from rock to rock. Small ones just scurried.
Questions:
1. Are these one or two different species? - if one, is it kiddie mouse time, hence the different sizes and colours?
2. If these are two species, how does that work out? The cave is a very difficult niche for one species of mouse to live in, let alone two. If they were competing for the same food source, they would not be two. If they are not competing how much is there that a mouse can eat inside the cave anyway?
3. How the hell do they get around down there in the pitch black darkness?
4. The ones spotted below the first sump - how did they get there? Was it:
a) after Nikos opened the route in 2003?
b) after Nikos opened the route in June?
c) through small passages they can fit into that we cannot fit into?
d) they got swept into the cave in the great cataclysm of 1910 and have been living down there happily since?
e) other
Wouldn't it be great to take blood from a whole bunch of them and see which mice are related to which and track changes in their mtDNA and compare it to mice living outside and stuff?
That is all for some other time though.
So we went to Dersios at the weekend with three of the new guys. Dersios is a sinkhole in Arcadia, about 700m up and quite a way from the sea. It was explored a while back to -80 odd meters by a French team together with ESE - the Hellenic Speleological Society. Since 2003, teams from SELAS Caving Club, Greece has been exploring the cave, doubling the depth and more than tripling the surveyed length. It has been surveyed to -161m so far, but has a lot of unsurveyed (and unexplored) passages. This year we are going to try and push the exploration a little further through a combination of diving and emptying of sumps.
We arrived after much faffing at well after one pm, set up our tents and got ready to go. We were in the cave just before four - so there was another faff involved which I am not sure I remember although some of it involved being barked at by dogs while trying to talk to an old man in a shack who claimed to know of a pothole somewhere in the hills. This would be especially pleasing if it exists. I have had suspicions about the existence of something in the hills above the cave for a while, based on plotting the track of the cave under a 3D representation of the hills above. This is something for a future visit, though.
Splitting into two teams, the first went for the first sump, now empty, thanks to the efforts made last month, while the second went for the sump in the second side-branch.
Last month's efforts (!) - Photos by Maggie
Once there, we prepared the sump for emptying, gathering in last months green hoses - repairing the join between the stretch of 20m and 50m hose with a piece of inner tube, some flanges (?) and a swiss army knife. Then while Panos went into the water up to his thighs, Martin, Michael and I helped bring the hose down to the sump and pass it to Panos who sunk it in such a way as to empty it of air as it went in. Once completely submerged we capped the end of the hose with a piece of inner tube, preferring it to the heroic rubber glove used in June. The use of a non solid cap for the hose had the unexpected advantage that it allowed the caver walking the hose lower to know exactly when the hose exit was at the height of the sump surface - the glove or inner tube would be sucked into the hose when the hose end was above the sump surface and would expand out of the hose when below the sump surface.
The glove! - Photo by Maggie
The inner tube expanded to resemble a dark aubergine, the shiny black curved surface taking our attention from the pressure which was to build up, break out and cover us in bits of rubber and plenty of sump water moments later.
Success - the flow had started! It was about six or seven pm.
It was somewhere around this time that we first noticed the increased number of mice in the cave. For me at least it started as one of those periphery of vision experiences where objects jump around on the edge of my field of view somewhere between where the torch no longer lights and where the sharp image created by my spectacles merges with the blurriness. This was slightly different. The blurriness and jumping around was about 40mm long and moving independently of where I moved my head. To find a mouse down where we saw this one did not surprise me. The poor thing had obviously got lost and had somehow found its way into the cave and down the main path some 90m into the cave and 30m below ground. It scampered off and we carried on with the day's tasks. Martin and Michael left Panos and myself to finish off the plumbing and headed off towards the first sump. Panos and I brought the black hose from the original 2003 emptying of the first sump up to join it to the flow from the second branch's sump. The idea was that if we could increase the height difference, the outflowing water would have greater pressure and therefore increased speed on its way out. As it was we had a difference in height of about 5-10m, but the addition of the black hose (50m length) gave an extra -13m worth of pressure to the flow.
Although we had come prepared, we did not use the plastic hose joiners, but taking some of the already burst innertube we rigged up a join with the flanges between the two pipes. Once the water started to flow we could feel the negative pressure on the join - a sign that the suction was increased. Unfortunately we hadn't waited long enough for Martin and Michael to move away and Michael got a hose load of sump water poured on him while he was on-rope. It's a learning process all around…
Moving on, and through all the parts that had caused me trouble in the past - through the bits where you have to brace yourself against the walls with hands and knees and back and arse to avoid the water below, and on to the first sump, now empty and not too tough to negotiate a way through, and on to the new passages, which saw light for the first time in 2003. The rigging team of Komninos, Giannis, Kostas and Margarita were a way ahead of us now and we were finding everything ready in front of us down to the junction at -151m where from the height above the junction we could see the satisfying glow of the acetylene below us. I stayed there and took in some calories I the form of cashews and almonds, while Maggie took the Murphys to the bottom and back and then we all started the climb to the exit, spotting mice all the way home.
We were all out at about 0400 hrs and made pasta before going to sleep. Martin had brought a travel fridge with beers, ice and tsipouro, so we managed nicely to unwind before watching the first little hints of daybreak come to remind us that the sun wouldn't allow us to get much sleep that night. True enough, the sun had woken us all by nine, so we de-rigged the entrance and got ready for the drive down and the beach.
Now, these mice...
They come in two different types. Small and Large. The small ones are all a very light grey colour and about 40mm long from snout to bum. The larger ones are dark grey with a white belly and about 100mm long from snout to bum. The larger ones were seen to rear up onto the hind legs (not unlike a kangaroo) and jump from this position from rock to rock. Small ones just scurried.
Questions:
1. Are these one or two different species? - if one, is it kiddie mouse time, hence the different sizes and colours?
2. If these are two species, how does that work out? The cave is a very difficult niche for one species of mouse to live in, let alone two. If they were competing for the same food source, they would not be two. If they are not competing how much is there that a mouse can eat inside the cave anyway?
3. How the hell do they get around down there in the pitch black darkness?
4. The ones spotted below the first sump - how did they get there? Was it:
a) after Nikos opened the route in 2003?
b) after Nikos opened the route in June?
c) through small passages they can fit into that we cannot fit into?
d) they got swept into the cave in the great cataclysm of 1910 and have been living down there happily since?
e) other
Wouldn't it be great to take blood from a whole bunch of them and see which mice are related to which and track changes in their mtDNA and compare it to mice living outside and stuff?
That is all for some other time though.
08 July 2005
Coming soon
I will bring over the posts from the normal Blog and then only post here with anything speleocentric.
It may take a while to get it all organised, though.
It may take a while to get it all organised, though.
03 June 2005
27 May 2005
Your powers are weak, old man
There has been a lot of interest in climbing at the club recently - we have this climbing wall there and had a go at traversing the three meter length of it using only the blue, or only the green holds. Needless to say, I wasn't all that good and went off and downloaded a whole bunch of stuff from Eric Hörst's site. I'd come across his book in Elias' car when we were going to Propantes and it had got me thinking. Then I bump into his site after looking for how info on training for climbing.
So one of the hints he talks about for getting started is weighted (gravity+) pull ups. He then writes, like, don't do this unless you can do five sets of fifteen pull-ups with three minute rests in between… Hmm. And then he says if you cannot do five consecutive pull-ups at all, there's something else you got to start with to build up strength.
And so, gentle reader, this is where today's title comes from. I went home, sat myself under the chin-up bar determined to do the pre-requisite five consecutive pull ups so as to be able to proceed with the training plan for building to five sets of fifteen. Up went the hands, gripping the bar and up went the legs, suspending me below the bar.
OK - so I didn't really try that hard, but it was clear that I was not going to be doing five consecutive pull-ups.
This time back in 1992, when I was just getting my release papers from the Greek Army I could probably have done the five sets of fifteen without a problem. Wouldn't it be grand to be like that again? OK, so I like have some thirteen years extra wear and tear on me and of course the whole chronic illness bollocks to deal with, but wouldn't it be just great to be 60 instead of 74 Kg, and to be able to do pull ups and to wear that favourite pair of shorts again? OK, who's with me on this? Let's set targets: by the end of the year (six month target), back to 60 Kg (lowest ever since the highest was 56 Kg, but that just ain't natural) and I want to be lithe and supple again.
In April last year I would have said, "yeah, dream on, fat-boy" but now things are different.
PS - title slightly influenced by the fact that I am going tonight to see Episode III.
So one of the hints he talks about for getting started is weighted (gravity+) pull ups. He then writes, like, don't do this unless you can do five sets of fifteen pull-ups with three minute rests in between… Hmm. And then he says if you cannot do five consecutive pull-ups at all, there's something else you got to start with to build up strength.
And so, gentle reader, this is where today's title comes from. I went home, sat myself under the chin-up bar determined to do the pre-requisite five consecutive pull ups so as to be able to proceed with the training plan for building to five sets of fifteen. Up went the hands, gripping the bar and up went the legs, suspending me below the bar.
OK - so I didn't really try that hard, but it was clear that I was not going to be doing five consecutive pull-ups.
This time back in 1992, when I was just getting my release papers from the Greek Army I could probably have done the five sets of fifteen without a problem. Wouldn't it be grand to be like that again? OK, so I like have some thirteen years extra wear and tear on me and of course the whole chronic illness bollocks to deal with, but wouldn't it be just great to be 60 instead of 74 Kg, and to be able to do pull ups and to wear that favourite pair of shorts again? OK, who's with me on this? Let's set targets: by the end of the year (six month target), back to 60 Kg (lowest ever since the highest was 56 Kg, but that just ain't natural) and I want to be lithe and supple again.
In April last year I would have said, "yeah, dream on, fat-boy" but now things are different.
PS - title slightly influenced by the fact that I am going tonight to see Episode III.
25 April 2005
Seven seconds
Well, here I am, at the entrance to Propantes. A proper write up will follow once the rest of the photos are processed properly and uploaded.
It takes about seven seconds for the stone to fall the 285m of the main shaft and a full second for the sound to come back out and let us know about it.
I am really quite sore.
20 April 2005
Propantes
This weekend.
A mystical aura surrounds what was once the deepest single pitch in Greece - 285m straight down. It was since knocked out of it's spot by Provatina, but the allure is still there and this weeked, god willing, I hope to make a descent into at the very least, the first hundred meters or so.
A stone about the size of tennis ball hits the floor at about 30m/s.
Tonight we meet to plan the expedition.
A mystical aura surrounds what was once the deepest single pitch in Greece - 285m straight down. It was since knocked out of it's spot by Provatina, but the allure is still there and this weeked, god willing, I hope to make a descent into at the very least, the first hundred meters or so.
A stone about the size of tennis ball hits the floor at about 30m/s.
Tonight we meet to plan the expedition.
12 April 2005
Your fifteen minutes start NOW!
Those who can read the language might like to have a look at the article about extreme sports as a stress release in TA NEA in which I have a significant amount of the column inches. There is also my photo which needs to be clicked on to be seen properly.
06 April 2005
Sykia and Archedamos
So, we went to Sykia in the Panorama Voulas area. It's a little doline very near the road, only about 20 m deep and not too much wider. Some git had thrown a dead dog into it - but it was fresh enough not to have smelled the place out. I have a little panorama made up (again with autostitch - I e-mailed the guy and should write about that too some time). This is the side which faces down-hill.
I also have, for the first time since the profile picture, an image of myself here (!).
- some will recognise the 1st VIII hat, there under the helmet. I have got into the habit of wearing it for a number of reasons - not least because my hair is getting long enough to be a real nuisance when it sticks to the strappy bits inside the helmet. And of course, the woolly hat is both warm and iso-thermic, in that it takes the sweat away from my head - when I'm sweating, that is.
After Sykia, which I guess was fun enough for the new kids, we cruised on down the dirt track to Archedimos' cave which goes by more names than I can remember all at once - there's Nympholeptos, the Grotto of Pan and the Nymphs, and some others as well.
This inscription is telling us that the cave is that of Archedimos, the one who has been taken by the nymphs. Nice. It's close to the entrance, and there are more inscriptions here and there.
Over at Hobby-O - (The Diary of John Cam Hobhouse, edited by Peter Cochran) we read in footnote 144 that Archidamus was said to have created it, and its votarists manifested all the signs of nympholepsy (“enthusiasm for an unattainable goal”).
Hobhouse visited the cave three days before Byron's 32 birthday - I first visited a few weeks after mine... He tells us that he wrote his name and Byron’s just above the nose. I did not see them, and did not really look, either, not expecting something like this.
So, here is Archedamos, walking one way and looking the other:
No sign of the names, but excavators may have seen fit to remove them since the writing of them.
Here, Rania is giving us a talk based on the stuff published in the bulletin of ESE. When I take Korinna, we're going to take the hobhouse texts and look around better. The Blue Guide (seventh? edition which Charlie gave me for my birthday in 1994) mentions the cave, gives the crappiest directions to it (and I'm not going to divulge on such a public forum how to go to the place), but has a nice an full description of the inside, which tallies with Hobhouse, and no doubt any excavation reports. The Blue Guides are good like that.
So here's the headless enthroned female deity mentioned in the three sources I have referred to:
She may be Isis, Demeter, Isis/Demeter/Ceres, or something else.
And here's the little altar thing, too:
Not a bad trip. Must get a helmet for Korinna and go back there.
I also have, for the first time since the profile picture, an image of myself here (!).
- some will recognise the 1st VIII hat, there under the helmet. I have got into the habit of wearing it for a number of reasons - not least because my hair is getting long enough to be a real nuisance when it sticks to the strappy bits inside the helmet. And of course, the woolly hat is both warm and iso-thermic, in that it takes the sweat away from my head - when I'm sweating, that is.
After Sykia, which I guess was fun enough for the new kids, we cruised on down the dirt track to Archedimos' cave which goes by more names than I can remember all at once - there's Nympholeptos, the Grotto of Pan and the Nymphs, and some others as well.
This inscription is telling us that the cave is that of Archedimos, the one who has been taken by the nymphs. Nice. It's close to the entrance, and there are more inscriptions here and there.
Over at Hobby-O - (The Diary of John Cam Hobhouse, edited by Peter Cochran) we read in footnote 144 that Archidamus was said to have created it, and its votarists manifested all the signs of nympholepsy (“enthusiasm for an unattainable goal”).
Hobhouse visited the cave three days before Byron's 32 birthday - I first visited a few weeks after mine... He tells us that he wrote his name and Byron’s just above the nose. I did not see them, and did not really look, either, not expecting something like this.
So, here is Archedamos, walking one way and looking the other:
No sign of the names, but excavators may have seen fit to remove them since the writing of them.
Here, Rania is giving us a talk based on the stuff published in the bulletin of ESE. When I take Korinna, we're going to take the hobhouse texts and look around better. The Blue Guide (seventh? edition which Charlie gave me for my birthday in 1994) mentions the cave, gives the crappiest directions to it (and I'm not going to divulge on such a public forum how to go to the place), but has a nice an full description of the inside, which tallies with Hobhouse, and no doubt any excavation reports. The Blue Guides are good like that.
So here's the headless enthroned female deity mentioned in the three sources I have referred to:
She may be Isis, Demeter, Isis/Demeter/Ceres, or something else.
And here's the little altar thing, too:
Not a bad trip. Must get a helmet for Korinna and go back there.
24 January 2005
Birthday trip to -90m
So 32, eh? Well, it's not all that bad.
Spent the day with family and not too much hoo-ha, then spent yesterday out at Vouliagmeni. It has what we term a Gruiyere consistency - holes everywhere. Not exactly my cup of tea. Very hot too - up at 26 C inside which makes you sweat just from standing there. I must have lost a few K in sweat yesterday.
Next weekend, we go exploring in Paloumba - finally!
Spent the day with family and not too much hoo-ha, then spent yesterday out at Vouliagmeni. It has what we term a Gruiyere consistency - holes everywhere. Not exactly my cup of tea. Very hot too - up at 26 C inside which makes you sweat just from standing there. I must have lost a few K in sweat yesterday.
Next weekend, we go exploring in Paloumba - finally!
15 January 2005
Neek's birthday and other things
So it’s neek's bidet and we're still at home and we'’re meant to be buying shit - like useful shit like ice for the party and that'’s all a little stressful - but at least I have managed to cross the "scan Helidorea photos" task off my list. So now we can show everyone the entrance to the cave:
It's all of about four feet wide, oh yes.
And there's Eri, too!
It's all of about four feet wide, oh yes.
And there's Eri, too!
20 December 2004
Like, elected office and all that jazz
This weekend was the wash the gear which was de-rigged from the cave rescue drill about a month ago. Given that Kostas G. has his shoulder shafted and couldn't come exploring the Paloumba area with me (despite the ministry being kind enough to finally issue permission), I decided to come and wash other people's gear and the ropes of Selas.
Nikos (foreground left, in blue) has given the club a bathtub, which Andreas put on stilts, and then a siphon system was rigged up to prevent mud going directly into the wastewater system, and away we went.
The whole washing thing usually happens where there is plenty of running water, like in rivers, streams, springs, etc. but this is the next best thing.
So here's all the stuff we washed on Saturday, brand spanking new rope belonging to the federation's rescue team included. We'll be washing the rest today or wednesday. Got the first meeting of the board of directors, where we get to share out all the jobs and decide exactly what it is we will be doing.
A final bit before signing off - three of our boys are getting ready to go to Voronya, to the deepest cave in the world, which is currently measuring in at -2080m More information can be had (in Greek) here, and I expect there will be regular updates. They're going to confirm the survey work done by the team that broke the barrier of -2,000m, working between -1,440 and the bottom. It's quite exciting given that there are not that many cavers who have one so deep.
There's plenty of stuff (most of it in Russian) about Voronya, which can be found by plugging in Voronya and / or Krubera into google.
Nikos (foreground left, in blue) has given the club a bathtub, which Andreas put on stilts, and then a siphon system was rigged up to prevent mud going directly into the wastewater system, and away we went.
The whole washing thing usually happens where there is plenty of running water, like in rivers, streams, springs, etc. but this is the next best thing.
So here's all the stuff we washed on Saturday, brand spanking new rope belonging to the federation's rescue team included. We'll be washing the rest today or wednesday. Got the first meeting of the board of directors, where we get to share out all the jobs and decide exactly what it is we will be doing.
A final bit before signing off - three of our boys are getting ready to go to Voronya, to the deepest cave in the world, which is currently measuring in at -2080m More information can be had (in Greek) here, and I expect there will be regular updates. They're going to confirm the survey work done by the team that broke the barrier of -2,000m, working between -1,440 and the bottom. It's quite exciting given that there are not that many cavers who have one so deep.
There's plenty of stuff (most of it in Russian) about Voronya, which can be found by plugging in Voronya and / or Krubera into google.
29 November 2004
Thank Petzl for the Pantin
Chelidorea, then. Cave entrance is up at about 1,000m and facing the gulf of Corinth, with the most amazing views of it and across the water to the other side. The way down to the cave is very steep from the road and if you haven’t been before, it’s easy to get lost. The entrance is about 1m in diameter with a nice amount of damp air coming out - the first time I have felt air breathing through the entrance to a cave.
A small descent of about 2-3m brings you to the first pitch - a completely vertical drop of about 50m, which is followed immediately by another smaller drop of about 20 odd. Next, though a small hole, and more drops down to about -140 or -160, where there are some horizontal sections (on the rope, with large drops below), followed by the 80m pitch.
I stopped before the horizontal section and let the others continue. The boys sat it out at the top of the final pitch, while Eri went on down to check for rubbish and bring up the rope. We then started the way up and came out not too knackered about eight to hours after going in, with five sacks full of rope, some of it wet and heavier than it would be otherwise.
The pot itself is not too interesting, being basically almost totally straight down and requiring that we were on the ropes for most of it.
There were some good invertebrates in there - one I had not seen before and dammit, I just realized I could have figured out what it was had I taken more time to study the things. I’ve managed to learn a lot of the questions off an invertebrate dichotomous key, but this was totally not on my mind when I found myself opposite the critter in question. The other thing of note was what I assume is meant by cave coral - these little blobby guys made of stalactite material.
All in all a fun and successful day’s outing.
A small descent of about 2-3m brings you to the first pitch - a completely vertical drop of about 50m, which is followed immediately by another smaller drop of about 20 odd. Next, though a small hole, and more drops down to about -140 or -160, where there are some horizontal sections (on the rope, with large drops below), followed by the 80m pitch.
I stopped before the horizontal section and let the others continue. The boys sat it out at the top of the final pitch, while Eri went on down to check for rubbish and bring up the rope. We then started the way up and came out not too knackered about eight to hours after going in, with five sacks full of rope, some of it wet and heavier than it would be otherwise.
The pot itself is not too interesting, being basically almost totally straight down and requiring that we were on the ropes for most of it.
There were some good invertebrates in there - one I had not seen before and dammit, I just realized I could have figured out what it was had I taken more time to study the things. I’ve managed to learn a lot of the questions off an invertebrate dichotomous key, but this was totally not on my mind when I found myself opposite the critter in question. The other thing of note was what I assume is meant by cave coral - these little blobby guys made of stalactite material.
All in all a fun and successful day’s outing.
25 November 2004
Chelidorea / Helidorea
Well, it's going to be a tough weekend. Helidorea is up at 1,000m mark, with a very nice view across the gulf of Corinth to Delphi, etc. It has two 50m pitches in quick succession with some little pitches here and there too, followed by a horizontal section (on rope) and an 80m pitch.
At least there is no water, and not much mud.
At least there is no water, and not much mud.
23 November 2004
De-Rigging Chelidorea (Helidorea)
So they called and asked whether or not I am free on Friday to do de-rig the pot they had used for the cave rescue excercise.
Chuffed to be asked to go help out, I checked what the weeked plans are and will tell the gang tonight that I am in, but not to expect too much of me for obvious reasons.
So we can all look forward to more stories next week of pulled and sore muscles and what have you. I don't know - as long as there's some sort of fatty meat soup at the end of it, I'm game for almost anything.
Here's a random image of OA's prop jet which does the IST-ATH flight in the evening - don't take too much carry on!
Chuffed to be asked to go help out, I checked what the weeked plans are and will tell the gang tonight that I am in, but not to expect too much of me for obvious reasons.
So we can all look forward to more stories next week of pulled and sore muscles and what have you. I don't know - as long as there's some sort of fatty meat soup at the end of it, I'm game for almost anything.
Here's a random image of OA's prop jet which does the IST-ATH flight in the evening - don't take too much carry on!
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