Doing an overhead environment course had been something that had been on my to do list for a couple of years, but I'd never quite gotten organised to do it until I met certain members of this forum who extolled its virtues. Winter was drawing in and wondering how that would affect the running of the courses I contacted Martyn Farr to see what he had available. He had space on a course running in early November, and assured me that his main training site, a mine, is a constant 8 degrees all year round, so time of the year doesn't make much difference. What could be more exotic than two days diving in a mine in Wales in November? I paid my deposit and began checking over my kit and reading Diving in Darkness.
The week of the course rolled round. The course was to run over Tuesday and Wednesday. The Penguin and I left Dublin first thing on Monday morning, after a bit of a false start involving a drained car battery and having to jumpstart from my housemate's car. Nevertheless we made it onto the Ulysses and steamed towards Holyhead on a flat calm sea. After a relaxed and uneventful drive through Wales to Crickhowell we did a shop and headed on to find the obscure caving hut which we'd booked into. This process was complicated somewhat by being intentionally misdirected by the caving hut's curmudgeonly neighbour, but we eventually made it, settled ourselves in and I sorted out my kit for the next day.
Tuesday morning bright and early saw us down at Martyn's place where he runs the theory portion of the course, in his sitting room. The other student on the course was a personable and experienced diver named Chris, a trimix wreck diver who was doing the course with wreck diving in mind. Another guy was to join us for the actual overhead environment dives the following day. During the morning Martyn covered various aspects of overhead environment diving ranging from the basic theory of cave formation to lighting, kit configuration, and line management.
Knowing my connections with certain cave divers in Ireland Martyn was a bit suspicious of me from the start, I got very explicit instructions not to turn up to the course diving sidemount or anything fancy! When we got to the subject of lines in the theory section Martyn suddenly turned to me and asked 'So, what's the best type of line for cave diving in UK conditions'? Slightly surprised, I (hesitantly) replied that it would be nylon. Martyn looked relieved and declared that there might be hope for me yet.
After the theory we all filed out to Martyn's dive cave where he explained various aspects of his kit setup, which is in his own words cheap and cheerful, mostly 90s vintage and festooned with snoopy loops and old knackered elastic (mind you he says he has some nicer kit hidden elsewhere, I have my doubts). Helmets, snoopy loops, safety reels and reg necklaces were doled out, our own kit was dragged in and inspected for danglies and other issues. My twin 7s were pronounced passable enough, as was Chris's single, and we headed off in convoy to the pool to do some line and air sharing drills.
The pool was housed in a small hotel about 45 minutes away (everything is 45 minutes away from Martyn's place) and the door to the pool was rather bizarrely shared with the dodgy local nightclub round the side. To add to the authentic cave atmosphere of the pool the roof was dripping in a fair number of places, and we folded back the pool cover just far enough to let us enter. We kitted up and Martyn placed a few lead blocks on the floor of the pool for us to belay onto. Both Chris and I had a go at making belays and using Martyn's reel, which held 4mm line and is much bigger and simpler than a standard wreck reel - it has no line guide or lock. Martyn observed us to make sure our buoyancy and general diving skills were up to scratch.
Once we'd laid some line it was time for the blackout drill. Being the knowitall, Martyn made me go first. I was given a black cloth to stuff in my mask, which was very effective - I was completely blind. I was led down to the reel, which was in the centre of the pool, and instructed to follow the line back from the reel back out of the pool. We hadn't really been given much instruction on how to do this - Martyn is very much of the school of instructing that believes in letting you have a go and then when you muck it up pointing out how you might have done better.
So, completely blind, I felt gently around me on the floor of the pool for the reel. I managed to find it OK, and then to trace the start of the line coming off it. I followed it by touch to the first lead block, after which everything got very strange - the line was loose and all I could do was try and feed it through gently and not get caught up in it. After I got to the next belay the line became tensioned again and it was fairly straightforward to follow it through the remaining belays and out of the pool. Success! It turned out that the loose line at the first belay had been caused by the lead block slipping down the slope of the pool. Happy enough with this I handed the cloth over to Chris, who began his blackout drill. He didn't get on quite so well - instead of following the line he ended up just pulling it off the reel, and things rapidly went wrong. It was sobering to see how badly things can go if you lose concentration. Happily, Chris got a second go and had more success after some feedback from Martyn.
We finished in the pool with some air sharing drills while following the line, then packed up and headed back to Ty Gardd for a short debrief and a brief on what we'd be doing in the mine the following day. We then headed our separate ways for a bit to get some dinner, before reconvening in the pub for a pint. We were joined by Steve, the third diver for the second day of the course.
On Wednesday we met again at Martyn's before once again travelling off in convoy, this time to the silica mines. The first task of the day was getting the gear to the dive site - this requires a 600m walk up and down a fair hill. Having brought a sherpa I was able to do it in one trip, but the others had to make two. Finally we were all there, and we kitted up in our normal dive gear plus helmets with mounted lights, necklaces, abundant snoopy loops. We were to do several short dives into the mine and back out, to allow us all a chance to lead and run line. After a buddy check and a quick final brief, I led off first, running the main reel down to Martyn's permanent line, connecting to it, and continuing on, while maintaining contact with the line and the other two divers behind me. We soon fell into a good rhythm (me ignoring my already very wet right shoulder) and after about 12 minutes we made it to our predetermined turning point, at a point Martyn had described to me. I signalled to Chris behind me to turn, and this is where things got interesting. Chris turned, but didn't signal successfully to Steve in the rear. I had to resort to knocking on his helmet to gain his attention, and gave him the turn signal. He still didn't turn though! He tried to continue following the line.
At this stage we three were all scrunched up together, and in danger of mucking up the vis, or losing the line. Things were not going well. Luckily, Steve eventually decided to turn, Chris got in position behind him, and I brought up the rear. We followed the line back, until the halfway point where we all turned our lights out to do another blackout drill. The only way to keep buddy contact on a line in a group of three is the 'bump and go' system - Steve would go a few finstrokes, then stop, Chris would bump into his legs, squeeze his calf to signal all was well, then he'd wait for me to bump him and do likewise. What do you do if things go wrong in that sort of zero viz situation and you don't get an OK signal? Well, there's not much you can do.
Soon enough we made it back to the light of the cavern zone (Penguin's sten light up above the water). We surfaced (me with the reel I wasn't supposed to bring back - d'oh), for a quick debrief, a short brief on the next dive, and to recalculate our thirds. The next dives basically consisted of us heading off into a different part of the mine, laying our own line all the way, acting as a buddy team, signalling, managing gas, etc. I was getting progressively colder as my drysuit zip had proved to have a serious problem - I was completely wet and shivering by the time it came to my turn to lay line. A very authentic introduction to UK overhead environment diving indeed.
After an hour and a half in the water we were finished. We exited, dekitted, changed, and began the task of transporting our gear back to the cars. Penguin had cleverly brought a camping stove so there was tea for us and Martyn (who also only made one trip back over the hill) while we waited for Chris and Steve. Once we were all down we headed back to Martyn's once more for a full debrief on the dives, a final hour or so of theory, and the distribution of exam papers (to be done in our own time and returned by post). Chris and Steve began their journeys home, and Penguin and I headed back to the local pub for dinner.
Penguin and I had opted to spend another three days in Wales (since we were already there), with the intention of doing a couple of local sites suitable for cavern diving. Sadly it was wet and the weather wasn't playing ball for any site bar the mines (too much flow in the caves), not to mention my wrecked suit. I made a repair (well, a lump of Aquasure on the broken bit of the zip that required me to don my suit in a rather awkward fashion) which needed a day to cure, so we spent Thursday doing a spot of dry caving in one of the Llangattock escarpment caves. Despite a lack of stalactite in the part we were in it still proved exciting, being my longest cave trip to date and the biggest passage I'd been in, not to mention by far the largest cave system, and most excitingly actually pretty dry unlike almost all caves in Ireland. The cave also housed some fascinating crystalline formations growing out of the dried mud, and bats over a kilometre into the cave - we saw one flying through the boulder choke. After an uneventful entry we became slightly lost in the boulder choke on our exit, but after a few minutes we figured the route out.
The next day it was back to the mines for the two of us and I practiced a bit with Penguin's reels. I may have passed the cavern course but there's still a long way to go until these line laying skills are second nature. We didn't stay in too long as Penguin was developing a rather unpleasant cold. For that reason we confined ourselves to a bit of hillwalking and touristy stuff in Brecon on Saturday before heading back to Martyn's local pub to catch up with himself and his partner (also a cave diver) for some dinner and hot whiskies. By the end of the evening we found ourselves in the other, less respectable local performing the traditional caver's Barstool Challenge - to pass through the rungs of a barstool. Team Ireland both managed to pass the obstacle, but Team Farr were badly beaten with Martyn unable to get his shoulders through and his teammate only able to pass when the barstool was rotated 90 degrees to provide a slightly larger space. Victorious we headed home, me vowing to spend the winter exploring whatever suitable dive sites the weather permits and to practice my line laying before returning next year to do Intro to Cave.
Here's a few pictures from the mines:
