14th February 2016: with Nick Hawkes, Pete Hellier, Tony Audsley and Chris Batstone.
Continuing the Home Close hydrology project. An earlier 10:30 start as I wanted to get back to see the rugby – Italy v England – and Nick was also on a limited pass as he just returned from working in Serbia and was off again to foreign lands in a couple of days. I grabbed the rope from Chris and headed underground to rig the 80 foot pitch. At the bottom of the pitch we split into two teams, I went to the end of Sandy Passage to collect/replace the two detectors there while Nick and Pete headed off for northern stream and into Wigmore to Sump 9. I didn’t need to de-kit so quickly managed to complete my task and made my way out of the cave. On the way out I met up with Chris who was going to remove the 110v cable from the 80′ pitch. At the entrance I met up with Tony who was about to go and look at another potential project, we both made our way out to test the samples I had retrieved. Initially the results were negative but I got a message later to say that all 4no. samples had proved positive, this might indicate that Tor Hole is a potential feeder into the Home Close system.
Addendum: It would seem there is some uncertainty regarding the results so more testing will be required. Watch this space (updated 18/02/16).
