“Just like a parrot”

Osama and Christine set off into sump 2.

Oz and I quietly trudged up and down the passage between sump 2 and sump 3.

It was mostly walking, with an awkward boulder choke soon after sump 2.

There was a convenient hole to pass through but it was better not to touch anything above you and not look up. The sizeable hanging death was best out of sight and out of mind. We hadn’t managed to find a suitable way around it.

Christine carries her rebreather from sump 2 to sump 3.

Mauro didn’t get the memo and I bumped into him just after he’d passed through the boulder choke stating; “f****ck man if that stuff decided to come down now…..” .

He shuddered and carried on moving our bailout bottles.

Rich and Mauro saw us off into sump 3 which is a short and pleasant dive, before surfacing in the extremely irritating bit of passage before sump 4.

Only 8 metres long, this passage is extremely sharp and the entrance and exit at sump 4 has a needle-like layer of rock, perfect for tearing drysuits, stabbing knees despite knee pads and ripping hoses. This slab of rock on the entry to sump 4 (best done by giant stride in, levitation out…) was responsible for ripping Anton’s hose off his bailout in 2021.

Oz and I got away relatively lightly. His oxygen regulator unraveled itself in the pool, so we had an odd 5 minutes with me trying to fix it while Oz circumnavigated the pool doing doggy paddle. “Stay still for god’s sake!” was the best advice I could offer.

Reg fixed, I unclipped my mask from the safe place I had put it on the washing line, immediately dropping it into the sump that eats gear. Oz went down to rescue it, recovering the line reel I had dropped in the very same spot last year, at the same time….

Sump 4 goes on a bit, for several hundred metres and touches 30m depth at one point. It has an annoying vertical ascent with hardly any belays about 2/3 of the way through, then takes off again at 11m depth. I came across my tie off from 2021 and the line was still in good order for the final ascent.

The passage between sumps 4 and 5 was just as nice as I remembered it but of course, shorter.

Sump 5 was waiting, right where I left it.

Oz and I became a bit more chatty now that we had made it to the start of exploration. It was something of a relief to tie the line reel off and set off underwater into virgin territory.

I was hungry. The cold water and significant exertion of caving with a rebreather (forgetting we’d just done a 50m deep, 600m long tech dive…) meant hunger and thirst were real issues.

I ignored it and set off laying line into sump 5. The visibility started out murky from where we had trodden up the gravel while kitting up. It soon went instantly clear and in typical Licanke fashion, did not offer up any suitable belays in any suitable places.

I ran the line reel down to about 15m depth and marveled at the big, blue expanse ahead of me. The cave looked to be going ahead and off to my right, but it soon closed down. Scratching my head, I heard Oz calling for me (he was a little way behind, sorting the Mnemo surveying device). Divers can talk quite well on rebreathers, so I tied off my reel and swam back to see what the problem was.

Christine laying line into the brand new sump 5.

Oz was surprised to see me but swore he hadn’t called out for me. Clear as day I’d heard someone shout my name. Freaky.

I shrugged and went back to my line reel, casting around for ongoing passage. Half of me hoped for a continuation but the other half prayed that this would be the end of the cave and we could stop this 7-year nonsense and go home, carrying on with our lives, having fun elsewhere.

I had tipped literally thousands of pounds into this project, as had my team, and we did start to wonder just how much more we could take.

Oz caught up with me and pointed upwards.

Oh no.

Going up on rebreathers while laying line is stressful and it didn’t help that I was low on oxygen. I had a spare bottle back at sump 2 but I had to get back there first. All these ups and downs burn through oxygen on rebreathers and I wasn’t up for another ascent, which might be futile in any case. I started up the smooth wall and with only 50 bar of oxygen left, thought ‘stuff this’ and came back down, giving the line reel to Oz.

I picked up his Mnemo on the way back and started moving my bottles and rebreather back to sump 4, getting some of the work done for when Oz returned. At least I’d managed to film the dive on my Paralenz dive camera.

Another half an hour or so later he surfaced. The cave had continued very shallow, at about 2m with the occasional air bell. This is a nightmare on a rebreather so I had no regrets about not continuing.

Meanwhile, back between sump 2 and sump 3, Rich, a self-proclaimed introvert was spending hours at the mercy of an extremely excitable and talkative Italian.

He had worked out though that if you turned the helmet lights off, Mauro went silent.

Rich quickly exploited this tactic of ‘saving batteries’ by turning the lights off to get some peace and quiet. Explaining to us later he said he was a bit like a parrot – they go quiet when you throw a blanket over their cage!

To keep themselves occupied, I’d requested that they get some nice images and video from the decorated side passage in between sumps 2 and 3.

Of course, with no check list and the Italian method of ‘winging it’ the go pro didn’t make it through sump 2.

So, the guys had nothing to do the entire time we were gone.

Check lists. They are the future.

Christine has help kitting up from Mitch in sump 2.

During one of these pitch black siestas, Rich and Mauro both jumped up and turned their lights on as they both heard Oz and I returning. They made their way to sump 3 to greet us, only to be faced with nothing. There was nobody there...

They looked at each other, confused and slightly rattled...and spent another couple of awkward hours waiting for us.

Back at sump 5, Oz and I were making our way back home. I was now very hungry and feeling energy sapped. Food was available at sump 2, but we hadn’t brought any further in. Oz donated one of his baby food gel energy pouch things. It was utterly revolting but it gave me a short boost to get me back through to sump 2.

Rich went and got me some food when he realised his life was possibly in danger due to my hunger and I soon got ‘back in the room’ having eaten a tuna pasta tin of cat food.

Nutrition. We put that on the list for next time….

Due to excellent planning and timing, shortly after surfacing from Sump 2, the four of us could hear voices. The support team of Mark, Lou, Luke and Mitch had arrived and we were extremely grateful to see them.

We had been underground about 15 hours and discovered a couple of hundred metres of new underwater passage, which was still going. In addition, we completed the dry survey between sumps 4 and 5 and the remainder of sump 4. We left forward pushing bailout bottles at sump 5 as well.

We even got some video. That was a seriously productive day out.

Chris and Rich beyond sump 1. Image: Mark Burkey

This expedition has received generous assistance from several organisations and businesses listed below. We are grateful to our Croatian friends for their help and support over the last 7 years.

Beautiful Brighton

The Crazy Claymore

Follow