Post date: Feb 17, 2020 1:52:02 PM

Aileen Brown, Stephen Macnamara, 20 minutes.

Due to an administrative error, Aileen flew over for the Shannon weekend 168 hours late.

This weekend, storm Dennis had come to town, so again Mistake Passage was out. Instead we both walked up to Pollkeeran with a capping kit, to make a start on that pile of rubble we had created on the last trip.

I had misgivings on the way up as the path was still a river, and the rain was already falling. As feared, the entrance was covered over by a curtain of water and the whole place was fairly tanking. We had a quick discussion and agreed to attempt a scout in. Leaving the drill and capping bags on the surface, and only taking the Kisu, I edged in feet-first into the water. It was refreshing, but passable - you only had to hold your breath as you reversed your head through.

Aileen followed, and we bombed on down to the digface. It was shouting all the way with the noise of water - and there was a whitewater cascade gushing into the pile of blocks we had intended to cap. Nothing significant had moved. We exited after a look around. The water had risen a little during the 20 mins inside.

A couple of valuable learning points from our trip:

1 - The water is flowing directly into our dig, and there is no sign of backing up. All good evidence that we are digging in the correct location.

2 - You have ample warning to escape from the flooding cave - with a whitewater torrent into the digface, you can still exit.

Stephen.