In all his ventures Brian had a strong sense of history and the romance aviation. As a journalist he approached his circumnavigation as a story that he wanted to tell well, something that Keith could never understand or empathise with. It was an amazing achievement, of dogged bloody-minded tenacity and the taking of some huge risks by a man who was fighting his fear and, at times, just about everyone around him. It was a great adventure.
– Chapter 17 –
Dead Man’s Handshake
The linking of Kingsdale Master Cave and Keld Head, 1975–1979
The only sound is the hiss of air, the ‘phutt’ of the demand valve closing and the gurgling bubbles of escaped breath, which seem to explode if the roof of the passage is close above. An air cylinder strikes a protruding rock and there is a hollow, reverberating-yet-muffled clang. The diver is in a tiny pool of light, filtered and distorted by the waters around him. His only point of reference is the bed of the passage. He is like the lunar module, skimming the surface of the moon, pebbles and rocks replacing craters, yet there is life in this strange world. A shoal of freshwater shrimps, transparent and colourless, stampede through the beam of light, but the diver is in an environment more alien, more threatening than the cold dark waters of the North Sea, as remote as the emptiness of space, for the waters he penetrates are contained by solid rock. He has swum through long corridors, wriggled through constrictions in a fog of mud, forever fearful of a cylinder jamming against a protruding rock, a hose being caught or torn, mindful his next breath might suck water not air. He does not know where the passage leads, does not know what might be beyond the limits of his beam of light. His only way back, along a maze of waterlogged passages, is the guide line he has laid behind him. Should his equipment fail or should he lose that line, a dark, lonely death will inevitably follow. He must keep cool in a situation which is a scenario for most people’s nightmares.
Cave diving is at the extreme end of caving and it allows the cave explorer to venture where otherwise he would have had to admit defeat. The sport of caving has never had as wide a following as more visible and easy to publicise activities. It can boast no obvious Everests, for it can never be known for certain if one cave is indubitably the deepest or the longest in the world. There might always be another just waiting to be found. And yet this is also the fascination of caving, for on a planet that has had its surface thoroughly explored, whose every mountain peak is known and almost all the highest ones climbed by at least one route, and whose every ocean has been crossed, caving still gives vast scope for exploration, not just in distant parts, but beneath the gentle, rolling hills of the Yorkshire Dales, the Mendips and South Wales. Wherever there is limestone there are also caves, sinuous passages, gaping chasms, gigantic chambers, rivers, torrents and lakes, all formed by the slow, pervasive action of water on the calcium carbonate of limestone. Cavers use what artificial aids they can devise to help their exploration; they dig and even blast their way through blocked passages, but the amount of technology that can be used is strictly limited by the nature of the caves themselves. Everything has to be carried, shoved and pulled through narrow passages, down flue-like holes. This in itself defeats most modern technology. Man is still the most effective machine in the close confines of a cave.
In the early 1950s cavers were intrigued by a system in the Yorkshire Dales between the villages of Dent and Ingleton. Skeletal outcrops of limestone, whitened by weathering, give a hint of what lies beneath; streams vanish into the hillside and then reappear lower down the slopes. One of these streams emerges in a pool at Keld Head in Kingsdale. A large team had drained the pool, hoping to penetrate the passage that led into it, but they were stopped after a few metres by flowing water filling the entire passage. Cave diving was still in its infancy. The Yorkshire cavers were prepared for short sections of waterlogged passage, which they free-dived, relying on coming up for air after only a few metres. It was a very frightening game, for if there was no air pocket, the diver then had to turn round, or if there was insufficient room, back out and return to the surface before he ran out of breath.
Keld Head was left alone for nearly thirty years, its questions remained unanswered. The pattern of water inlets and caves explored around the high hill mass of Gragareth, extending over the three county boundaries of Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire, showed that all these systems must somehow be linked underground with many kilometres of passages, many of them waterlogged, but, equally, with many of them drained and empty, just waiting for the explorer to find them. A map of the caves already discovered was a little like an early map of Africa, with the spidery routes of European explorers slowly creeping forward into the dark unknown. Keld Head was of special interest to the cave diver for here there were clearly two caving systems, about two kilometres apart, linked by flooded passages.
Geoff Yeadon was one of the cave divers who was to play a major part in linking them together. In appearance he has an uncanny resemblance to Mick Jagger, with the same large sensual mouth and slightly protruding jaw, framed by shoulder-length hair. Born in 1950, just before the first effort was made to penetrate the mysteries of Keld Head, he was brought up in Skipton and went to the local grammar school, where he was fortunate enough to be introduced to caving at the age of eleven by one of the teachers, David Heap, an enthusiast who had started a caving club. In the early 1960s the neoprene wetsuit had not yet been developed and the caver made do with a pair of overalls and layers of woollen clothing underneath, that soon became soaked in a wet cave. But Geoff Yeadon never looked back. He took being saturated for hours on end completely for granted. He explored most of the difficult known caves in the Yorkshire area, helped discover a major caving system in Arctic Norway and in 1970 joined an expedition to the Gouffre Berger, which had only just lost its title as the deepest known cave in the world. Descending such a cave was like a Himalayan expedition in reverse, for it required thousands of metres of fixed rope and electron ladders, all of which had to be manhandled down narrow passages and deep shafts. It also meant camping on the way down, since it was too long a system to complete in one push. The main party had reached the second camp, in a huge chamber, and were all asleep, when another member of the team, Oliver Statham (known as ‘Bear’ because of his size and strength) came plummeting down the rope on his way to attempt the first complete descent and re-ascent in a day. In fact, Statham had come down prematurely, for they had not yet rigged the lower part of the cave. However, Geoff Yeadon decided to accompany him for the final push down, both on grounds of safety and to help carry the ropes. They managed to establish the record and, at the same time, started a partnership that was eventually to lead them from caving to one of the boldest cave dives that has ever been made.
Oliver Statham came from a very different background to Geoff Yeadon. Son of an ambassador, he had gone to Sedbergh School in North Yorkshire (now Cumbria) in the midst of superb caving country. He also had started caving while at school. Both of them had gone on to art college and had specialised in pottery. Geoff was now at the Bath Art College and Oliver was working in his own pottery in Skipton.
It was around this time that Keld Head came back into the picture. Oliver Statham had met a cave diver called Mike Wooding who had just undertaken one of the longest and boldest dives made so far in Britain. He had tried to penetrate Keld Head, diving over 300 metres into a labyrinth of water-filled passages. Somehow he had missed the main watercourse and had ended up in a cul-de-sac. Oliver Statham became intrigued by the challenge of cave diving and passed on his interest to Geoff Yeadon. Oliver’s introduction was characteristic of his personality at that time. His first dive, without a full mask, flippers, or any form of training, was through a twenty-four-metre sump. It was a matter of putting an air bottle on his back, clenching the mouthpiece for the air line and valve between his teeth, and following the line through.
Geoff Yeadon was attracted by the idea but approached it slightly more cautiously and methodically, joining the Cave Diving Gro
up to borrow equipment and going on regular training sessions, starting in the swimming baths of Bristol University. At the end of his period in college, Geoff came back north to do his teacher’s training in Leeds. He and Oliver Statham were now able to cave dive together. They could afford to buy their own aqualung equipment and compressed air bottles and chose Boreham Cave in Upper Wharfedale for their first major exploration. Their initial attempt was abortive and very nearly fatal. The first sump, which was forty-six metres long, had already been dived and they knew that it was quite straightforward. Oliver, therefore, did not bother to fit his spare demand valve, but carried it packed away in an ammunition box. He dived first, followed by Geoff. They were very nearly through when Geoff saw Oliver’s light coming back towards him. As he came up to Geoff, he made a few frantic gestures towards his valve to indicate that it wasn’t working. One emergency procedure is to share a mouthpiece, taking alternate gulps of air from the same apparatus. This, however, needs very cool nerves and a high level of practice and understanding. Oliver, his lungs already bursting, couldn’t afford to wait and swept past Geoff in a desperate bid for air, but on the way the tube leading to his mouthpiece caught round Geoff’s cylinder, so that Oliver was now towing Geoff. Geoff quickly unhooked his tube from the valve to free himself and Oliver shot off like a torpedo. Geoff followed, hoping that if his friend did lose consciousness before getting back to the surface, he might just be able to tow him to safety and revive him. But Oliver made it and when Geoff followed to the surface, he was already lying on the side of the pool gulping in the air with great, agonised gasps. He had swum over thirty metres under water without the benefit of his air supply.
Nothing daunted, they returned to Boreham Cave a few weeks later. Another cave diver had started through the next sump in the early 1960s. There were reports of a narrow squeeze, so tight that you had to take off your cylinder and push it through in front of you. This time Geoff set out, leaving Oliver sitting at the side of the underwater stream where it vanished into the rock. The role of support diver is more psychological than anything else, for there is little he can do if anything goes wrong. It is not like being second man on a climb. If his partner does not come back within the prescribed time, he has to plunge into the water and follow the line to find out what has happened. It is just possible that the first diver could have run out of air or experienced a technical fault and has managed to find an air pocket in which to wait for help. But if there has been a serious delay, it is more likely that he has drowned.
The tension is always less for the leader. Geoff was now engrossed in finding a way through the first squeeze, as the walls converged around him. Getting himself and his bottles at the right angle, he was able to slide through the hole. This was the first time he had been underwater in an unexplored cave.
‘I remember being incredibly excited by the size of this huge tunnel, the water all blue, stretching away from me, with no other lines going into it except the one I had in my hand on the line reel. I just finned off into the distance and the tunnel wound round. Occasionally there were lower bits to one side that I vaguely noticed, but I was so excited that everything was a bit of a daze. I didn’t really take it all in.
‘Eventually I popped up into an air space. It was tiny and I had to wriggle along sideways. I really wanted to go back then, but I had no excuse. There was plenty of line on the reel and I still had enough air. I was well within the thirds safety margin used by cave divers. That is, a third of your air to go in, a third to come out and a third for emergency. There was no reason to go back except in my head. My head kept telling me I wanted to go back, but I carried on.’
He dived back into the water through another hole, came to another air space, slithered down a waterfall into yet another sump, this time twenty-four metres long, with another air space beyond that, and so it went on until at last, 165 metres from the start, he had run out of line and had an excuse to turn back. On the way in, the water had been beautifully clear, but he had disturbed the fine sediment on the bed, so that going back it was like being in a dense fog. His light bounced back on the myriad particles held suspended in the water and he could see little more than a few centimetres in front of his mask. It was a question of following the life line, since he had no sense of direction or scale, but he now found that the root above him was closing in, pressing him down on to the bed of the cave.
‘I remember thinking it definitely wasn’t this low. I had my head on one side, grinding over pebbles. I couldn’t see a damn thing and, with my head on one side, occasionally I’d get a gulp of water which made me very aware that I was underwater and a long way from home. I had to keep stopping to calm down because my breathing rate kept going up and I knew that if I didn’t calm down and slow my breathing rate down, I wasn’t going to get out.’
Geoff had made one mistake on the way in which could have cost him his life. He had omitted to anchor the line down on the outside of the corners he had turned and, as a result, it had been pulled tight round the bends in the narrowest part of the bedding plane. He had to keep hold of the line somehow, for, once lost, he would never have found his way back. But by dint of resting, wriggling and easing the line from the tightest edges of the passage, he finally managed to get back to where his partner was waiting by the side of the pool. This was the last time that Oliver Statham went cave diving for a period of six months. Even so, he needed the stimulus of risk in his life and sought it in the sky instead; he took up hang-gliding.
Geoff Yeadon’s first exploratory dive was considerably bolder than almost any that had been made in Britain at this time and he had learnt a great deal from the experience. He returned to Boreham Cave a few months later, anchored the line to keep it in the wider parts of the passage, and swam into the further recesses of the hole.
‘It was like a cresta run, only underwater. It was a beautiful feeling, just flying through this tube without touching the roof or floor, banking over at the corners, with the line reel ticking out. There were beautiful curves, just like a snake with smooth silt banks on either side. I kept glancing behind me and could see this cloud of silt coming up after me. It was a good, safe passage with no nasty nicks in the corners – it was more like an arched tunnel. Then a peculiar phenomenon occurred in front. It was a layer, like a cloud of brown water approaching at roof level and I was in clear water underneath. Then this gradually came down until I was entirely in brown water, and then, unfortunately, the line ran out.’
The only explanation seemed that there must have been an inlet, carrying running water, flowing over the still water through which he had been swimming.
Geoff Yeadon continued his exploration of Boreham Cave, stretching his own limits and developing the techniques that were later going to stand him in good stead in Keld Head. His club bought him a larger air bottle to give him greater range, and to combat the debilitating cold he wore three wetsuits, as he embarked on progressively longer dives, finally making one of 762 metres down the outlet that he had sensed was there when he had encountered the ceiling of discoloured water. It was cave exploration at its best and it was this facet that intrigued Geoff as much as the element of making records. He was mapping the cave as he dived, noting compass bearings and distances on a small slate.
It was around this time that Oliver Statham began caving once more. He and Geoff got on well as friends, eventually working together in their pottery, and soon most of their cave diving energies were directed into solving the problems of Keld Head. This was to become a long drawn out siege over a period of years rather than months. In their approach to it they now worked as one, developing techniques and equipment to cater for the sheer scale of a challenge which was at the extreme limit of cave diving expertise.
There was always the problem of funds, for they certainly couldn’t afford to purchase the specialised equipment, but here the record nature of the dive became useful. Oliver Statham managed to persuade a diving manufacturer to supply them with specially modified dry suits
on reduced terms. Dry suits work on a different principle from wetsuits, for they seal the body in a cocoon of air which can be adjusted to allow for different levels of buoyancy by means of an inlet valve from the breathing system, and an escape valve to release excess air. They are not only warmer than wetsuits but, perhaps more important, they insulate the diver from the water around him, making him feel that he has the security, however illusory, of being in a submarine. Using these suits, Statham and Yeadon made a series of forays into Keld Head, taking it in turns to run out the full contents of a reel before turning back to allow the other to follow it and then run out another length.
The downstream entrance of Keld Head was a labyrinth of waterlogged passages festooned with the guide lines of previous attempts. One of the first jobs was to clear these out of the way to avoid dangerous confusion. They got some help from fellow cave divers in doing this and it was during the clearing operation that the body of Alan Erith, a novice cave diver who had lost his life about four years earlier, was found. Geoff Yeadon and Oliver Statham helped in the recovery operation before returning to their own exploration. They had already run out 300 metres of line and were obviously in the main passage, which they hoped led to the Kingsdale Master Cave system, about one and a half kilometres away. They were also gaining in confidence.
‘We really became more like fish. We’d stop and rest on the bottom, sitting down on a rock, nattering to each other on our slates. We even had drinks of water because we found that after an hour of surveying and swimming you started getting a dry throat from the dryness of the air. You just took your mouthpiece out and had a drink.’
Quest for Adventure Page 46
