Caving
A sump is a water-filled underground tube eroded through solid rock by the action of water over the centuries, and Viv was in one. It was sump 2 in cave in the Mendip Hills called Swildon's Hole. If you are a caver, as opposed to a cave diver, you haven't got oxygen tanks and a respirator, so going through a sump means taking a deep breath and pulling yourself through the sump holding onto a rope which some intrepid adventurer pulled through and fixed in place years before.
Sump 2 is 25ft (7.62m) and although there's an air pocket*3 in the middle, according to our expedition leader the air there isn't safe to breathe.
My eyes were shut (there was nothing to see anyway in the muddy water), and I was pulling myself through the freezing cold water, hand over hand, clinging desperately to the slippery rope which was my lifeline. It seemed like hours, but must have been seconds when I reached the air pocket. Not far to go now. I dived under the water again and continued pulling myself towards the cavern where safety waited. Then my plastic caving overalls caught on an outcrop of rock. My breath was running out*4 and I couldn't move forward. It was too far to go back. If I couldn't get free, I was going to drown in a rock tube filled with freezing muddy water below the beautiful green countryside in the west of England. I started thrashing around in the icy water knowing that no one could save me, and if I couldn't get free I would soon start breathing in water......
Something was pushing its way into my consciousness. There was silence when there should have been a background hum. I lifted my head and looked around the lecture room at Plymouth Polytechnic and saw that not only the lecturer, who had been interrupted in the middle of lecture on the British political system, but also the students around me, were looking at me with quizzical expressions on their face. The lecture had been boring and I'd fallen asleep and started dreaming about something that had happened the previous weekend. The dream had been so life-like that I had been panting and twisting*5 my body, with my head resting on my arms fast asleep in the middle of the lecture. On waking, I tried to transmit a "sorry" to the lecturer using a sheepish facial expression, and the lecture continued.
At the Freshers Fair my first week at university all the university clubs had stands*6 and were trying to attract the newcomers. I was 18 years old and browsed the different groups without much interest in either political, religious or sporting clubs. Then I saw a table with a safety helmet with a lamp attached to front, and a cable leading to a battery pack, known as a cell. The cell was rectangular, about ten inches high, six wide and one and half inches deep. The people behind the table seemed interesting and the card on the table said 'Plymouth Caving Group'. I signed my name on the membership list and arranged to meet the group the following weekend.
I arrived at the room where the club was based wearing jeans, t-shirt and trainers, with a change of clothes which I'd been advised to bring when the trip was arranged. There were about 8 of us, including 4 seasoned cavers and five beginners. We were shown how to put on and adjust the equipment, then got into the club minibus and drove to Pridhamsleigh Cavern.
It was a strange and exciting experience ducking down to enter through a low cleft in the rock face, leaving the glorious sunshine for a dark, clammy subterranean world. This first cave I scrambled into was muddy, and after a short time everyone was covered in a brown mess. We descended through passages and at one stage, the leader pointed to a small hole in the rock wall and said "If you like, you can go through there, but you'll have to take your helmet and cell off first and push it in front of you." The hole was just big enough to squeeze through, and the shadows thrown by the lamp being pushed in front of extended arms were eerie. The only way to move was like a worm, contracting and relaxing legs and trunk*7 to move forward. The tiny passage was only about 7 metres long and emerged further along the cave. The novices were told after this experience that once a caver entered a similar passage with his arms behind him, and when it got too narrow, his companions had to break both his arms in order to extract him!! We continued down scrambling over boulders and through caverns until we reached an underground lake with a wooden platform floating on it. Those who wanted to, could swim in the water to wash off the grime. I elected to wait until the more adventurous had finished their dip!
Emerging into the sunlight again, all of us once more covered from head to foot in brown mud, both happy and tired, I was hooked on*8 caving and couldn't wait for the next trip.
The next cave I remember was called Baker's Pit, in a field near a church and the village of Buckfastleigh in the moors to the north east of Plymouth. The entrance to this cave is a concrete pipe, similar to the ones used in city water or sewage pipes, only this one is situated vertically down, with just one end projecting a metre of so into the middle of the field, the end covered in a padlocked metal cover. Bolted to the inside wall of the pipe are metal rungs used to climb down the sixteen metre pipe into a large underground cavern. Unlike the previous cave, this one is of a dry rock, so explorers don't get covered in mud. We were taken a long way, descending further and further underground, and after about 20 minutes of scrambling around, we entered a small passageway which lead to broad daylight. The passage led to a small ledge in the rock half way up the high wall of a rock quarry. It was amazing to sit outside after such a long time in the dark and know that without ropes, the only way to reach the ledge we were on was the way we had come. After a few minutes rest, and a smoke, we filed back into the cave for the return journey.
Another trip I remember was to a disused Cornish silver mine with a name I found impossible to pronounce. The memorable thing about this trip was that after exploring the old mine workings, we left the mine in a passage with water flowing quickly down it. We went feet first and it was the same feeling you get in the water slides in a water park.
After every trip, we would head to a local pub with excellent beer and enjoy listening to the exciting caving stories told by the experienced cavers while downing*9 delicious beer or cider. It was through the caving club that I met my friends Paul and Chris, eventually leaving the digs*1 I was living in to share a house with them and another student called Roger. After a few months of going on trips with the caving club, Paul, Chris and I would borrow the club equipment and return to some of the caves we'd been to before, especially the two caves mentioned above, to explore them again by ourselves, getting to know them well.
One weekend, my flat mates were all away so I decided that I would try something new. I arranged to pick up a cell from the caving club and got the bus out to Baker's Pit by myself. I'd decided to see what it would be like to spend the night inside a cave. After descending the pipe, I followed the route to the outside ledge for a while, then decided that perhaps I was being a bit foolhardy (none of my friends knew where I was), so I returned to the main cavern at the bottom of the pipe, spread out my plastic groundsheet and got my sleeping bag out of my rucksack. Bats were flying overhead as I turned out my torch that night. When I woke up the next day (there was no way of telling if it was morning or not until I'd checked my watch, because, of course it was as pitch-dark in the cavern as it had been when I'd gone to sleep) I wondered at the total darkness that you find caves when all lights are off. When go we to sleep above ground, there's always some light in the atmosphere, no matter how thick your curtains are, but underground the darkness is complete. I climbed up the pipe the next day to find a grey, overcast day and it was starting to rain. Time for the local pub and a nice pub lunch!
Just before Christmas, we were told that there would be a caving trip to the Mendip Hills. Now this was of particular interest to me because my Mum lived only 20 miles or so from this place, so I could combine business with pleasure and go on the caving trip then, instead of returning to Plymouth afterwards, I'd just get the bus to my Mum's house for Christmas. The experienced cavers told us that the Mendip caves were much better than those we knew in Devon and Cornwall, so I was looking forward to the trip. I'd also been informed that some of the caves we would go to would be 'wet', so a wetsuit or waterproof clothing was advisable. I searched round the second hand clothing shops and army surplus stores in Plymouth until I found what I was looking for - pair of green plastic overalls. The nighht before the trip I did some sewing and made four strong elastic bands which I would use to close the ends of the overall arms and legs, making, hopefully, my own waterproof gear*10. However, my clever idea soon demonstrated a serious drawback.
As soon as my adapted overalls were put to the test and I was totally immersed in water, I found that water poured in through the neck, and when I emerged from the water, my overalls were completely full of water, which couldn't escape from the arms and legs. I looked like Andy Pandy!
The Mendip trip was great and we explored two or three caves, but the most memorable was the cave mentioned at the start of this chapter. It was a cold winter's day when we entered the cave, and the trip included climbing down a steel caving ladder hanging down a waterfall (we had to climb down with water falling on top of us!). These caves were much more beautiful than the caves I'd seen before, and at one point we all turned off our lights and the leader shone his on the roof, revealing millions of tiny sparkling reflections from crystals in the rock. There were also stalactites and stalagmites. After descending into the cave for what seemed like ages, sometimes having to use ropes to get down the more sheer*11 drops*12, we reached a cavern with water covering the floor. I thought that this must be the end of the trip because there seemed to be no way out of this rocky chamber*13 except from the way in. The five of us gathered around our group leader with water up to our knees and he pointed at the rock wall a few feet away and said "That's the way we're going now". He waded further in and groped underwater, then lifted a taut rope. "This is sump 1 of Swildon's Hole", he said. "It's only a few metres, but you have to pull yourself through to the chamber on the other side of this wall using the rope. Who wants to go through?". I can't remember now if any of our group decided to stay where they were, but I know that I was the first one through! (after the leader had gone through and come back again to show us the way). After taking a deep breath, submerging and pulling myself through the water filled passage, I found myself in a cavern the other side. When everyone had gathered in the next chamber we continued along more passages until we came to a similar chamber to the one where sump 1 had been, only this one was a bit bigger. The leader announced "This is sump 2. It's 25 foot long, so you'll have to take a deeper breath than before. Who's going through first?". "I will!", I chirped up*2. Our group leader punched me on the shoulder and said "You would as well, wouldn't you!", with a smile on his face. Although possible, sump 2 of Swildon's Hole is best done with breathing apparatus!
To round off my caving experiences, after transferring from Plymouth Poly, North Staffordshire Polytechnic, in Stafford, I was having the usual lunchtime beer with friends, telling them some of my caving experiences. One of these friends, Nigel, who just happened to be the barman at the Poly bar at the time said "Why don't you organise a caving trip to Devon from here? I'm sure we'll be able to get some other people interested.", so this is what I did. First I put up a notice on the board for names of people interested in making the trip, and after getting five or six takers, I phoned my friends back at the Plymouth Caving Group to ask them if we could borrow their equipment for one weekend. When I got the reply back that six fully charged cells, hats and climbing equipment would be waiting for us at the club HQ. All that remained was to book the student union minibus for the arranged weekend and off we went. I led trips down Pridhamsleigh Cavern and Baker's Pit, and there was even time to do a 20 metre abseil off an abandoned viaduct in the Dartmoor National Park. Everything went like clockwork on the trip and our group arrived back in Stafford on the Sunday evening with a sparkle*14 in their eyes. For me, caving is one of the best adventure sports that exists and I'd recommend anyone who has to opportunity to do it to join a club where this wonderful (in the true sense of the word) sport can be enjoyed safely.
*1 Noun - definition 5.
*2 Verb - definition 2.
*3 Noun - def. 5a.
*4 Phrasal verb
*5 Verb (intransitive) - def. 3
*6 Noun - def. 5
*7 Noun - def. 2a
*8 Adjective - def. 2b
*9 Verb (transitive) - def. 2
*10 Noun - def. 3a
*11 Adjective - def. 2
*12 Noun - def. 9
*13 Noun - def. 9a
*14 Verb - def. 4a
PS. Don't do as I did and go caving by yourself without letting anyone know where you're going. A slip resulting in a broken leg or twisted ankle could result in you being discovered as a skeleton!