Drmike's Photos : Caving and Cave diving

Caving and Cave diving Galleries

Wang Mu Streamway., Malaysia Feb 08 : The Wang Mu streamway is in the state park in Perlis close to the Thai border in northern Malaysia, and like many of the caves in this area was previously mined for Tin.

This expedition was organised by and is part of the ongoing work of, the Malaysian Karst Society (MKS) http://www.mykarst.org/ This visit was carried out by Hymeir Kamarudin (Exped leader), Ganason Nadason, Ang and myself. Permission to enter the cave was obtained from the Forestry Department.

Millions of years ago streams that flowed through the area picked up sediments rich in cassiterite (Tin Ore) and deposited it in cavities in the caves. Theses Tin ore pockets can be as little as a few inches to several feet deep. Mining such deposits mostly leaves the cave intact and natural as only the sediment is removed. Only in places where the cave passageways are too small was blasting used to enlarge or to connect up to other passages to make movement of people and/or Tin ore easier. Due to a drop in Tin prices the last of the mining activities ceased and the caves abandoned sometime in the 80s although we saw signs of recent digging that could suggest that someone, most likely someone from the neighborhood, is going in there and still working the cave hoping to find a rich pocket, . See: http://www.wildasia.net/main.cfm?page=article&articleID=190

There are many more caves in the area and MKS objective is to systematically explore and survey the caves for a better understanding of the mining history and to uncover what we suspect is the longest cave system in Peninsular Malaysia and among the longest in region. Both Gua Lo Po Sang and Gua Baba have many side passages that await exploration.

The object of this current visit was to explore several side passages and carry out some surveying. In total approx 477m of new passage was surveyed and much more explored. It looks as if with the connection now established to Gua Lo Po Sang almost 4KM of passageway exists here

In total almost 16hours was spent in the cave exploring and surveying. Parts of the cave are water filled so floatation devices were carried and used to cross water filled areas. Many old mining tools and equipment was seen in the cave much of it calcited up. Some parts of the original wooden walkways still stand but great care was needed to cross them as in places they were rotten through and collapsed under foot

Wang Mu Streamway., Malaysia Feb 08

Sa Yuan Thong, Thong Lang, Luem and Sra Krasi, Thailand - Jan 08 : So I'm crossing the airport carpark to fly to Thailand when I get run over by a car. I end up under a Merc with my foot squashed up under the cars wheel. Much swearing pursued. After relieving the idiot driver of all the money he had in his wallet, forcing him to carry my bags and getting him to buy me cake, I decided Id hobble bashed and bruised on the plane anyway and if I needed to go to hospital I would maybe try to find one in Phuket. - Not an auspicious start. Thankfully once swelling and pain subsided I could see only injury was a broken toe (nothing can be done to help that) so didnt bother with hospital and it didn't greatly hinder my trip.

Day one saw me limping around Tham Sa Yuan Thong with Ben Reymenants. This cave has a smallish flooded section we wanted to take a look at. Diving OC sidemount we had a mince around once Ben decided he would actually attach his wing to his harness before jumping in :-). Tham Sa Yuan Thong has the clearest water Ive seen so far in Thai caves (as can be seen from the pics) To get to the flooded part of the cave required a bit of a climb then a crawl. Next day we visited Sra Krasi. This flooded cave has two entrances we haven't explored before. The first came to a 35m deep narrow passageway heading off, the second was a fun filled mud hole with a very small tunnel at around 6m depth. Both passageways are going. After surfacing we were joined by Alex Fletcher (fellow CDG member from UK) who dispite his immense age :-) joined us to visit a nearby dry cave for a play. I ended up climbing up some of the bamboo poles used to collect birds nest...It was damn high....and it was one of those times when going down isnt as easy as going up

Next day me and Alex went to explore Tham Thong Lang. This is a large cave that we measured to be around 2.5Km long. from the enterance to the resurgence The first part has a waterfall and is flooded the rest a mixture of swimming or walking. Explored approx 1.5km on this day. Saw a small snake with a yellow stripe down its side slithering over the cave wall.

Next day me and Alex was joined by Ben and Dave and we went off to explore Tham Luem. This cave is unknown and unexplored. We found out about it by the land owner who was born there and spent his whole life there. He himself had explored the cave to an exit about 1km in, but he was keen for us to push it further and document. At his request real name of cave/area is not used (Luem = Python, Tham - Cave, so for purposed here were calling it Python cave) After a few hours we reached what looked like an unpassable obstacle. The formations met the water and the cave looked blocked to further exploration without the use of scuba. Alex cursed that we should have brought the small tanks. After spending some time swimming around and ducking under the formations (we didn't have any rope or masks with us) we were close to giving up as we couldn't find an easy duck under, when I climbed high over the formations and at the roof of the cave found a small gap I could climb down to an half meter dia water filled hole. Ducking down in this water to eye level and I could see a tight gap that could be traversed by swimming along it and enjoying a few duck unders along the way. Coming out the gap brought me out into open passage again - so using this bypass we were able to continue. After 3 hours of caving we reached a large room at the top of which we could see daylight. The room filled with the pungent reek of bat shit and the air filled with the incessant screeching of the many bats we could see flying around the entrance some 60m above us. Me and Dave decided to try to climb to the entrance to see if we could get a gps signal. The climb was made difficult by the slippery bat shit that covered all surfaces. About half way up Dave suddenly screamed SNAKE! I froze realizing he was pointing at/near me. There are Cobras Vipers and Pythons locally. To my great relief it wasn't one of the former (a bite would have been fatal given our remote location) it was in fact a more than 6 foot long Python. I was less than a couple of feet away from it and Dave only saw it as he was about to follow me and step on the rock it was laying on. The rest of the climb out and back involved lots of calling out, whistling, hitting ground with sticks and general noise making in an attempt to ward off any possibly hiding snakes.

Unfortunately no gps signal was obtained so descended back to catch up with Alex and Ben who were pushing ahead. From here on the cave was totally unexplored so we were excited to see what we could find. The passage quickly changed completely to granite boulder filled collapse, possibly a surface collapse.. The settee size boulders filled the whole passage and we ended up squeezing through ridiculously small openings trying to thread our way through the passage. I noted the water flow here was much smaller than in the main cave suggesting there was another passage somewhere we had missed. Some of the boulder looked unstable. A settee size boulder moved lifting Dave (who was sat on one of it about to slide down a small gap) when I stepped on the other end and that was the final warning that the passage was unsafe as well as increasingly unnavigable due to the small squeezes. We turned and headed back out. On the way back I noticed what earlier we had thought to be a bypass to the main passage around a large formation that we thought just filled the middle of the passage. I noted the water flow from one side of this passage was higher than the flow we saw in the lead so I went down to take a look whilst the others continued to head back.. A short crawl and a couple of duck unders brought me back out into clear passage and I hurried back to get the others. We were now pushing the new lead. As with previously there was none of the usual signs that people had been here before. The formations (some of them very fragile) were intact, no foot prints in the mud banks. The passage was very nicely decorated but after a few hunderd meters began to close down again. Looking around I found another possible bypass to the breakdown climbing high above and around the side. Back into the passage the water flow was clearly much higher than the other lead. The ceiling came down slowly but surely to meet the gravelly river bed and soon me and Dave were crawling along one foot high passage with the river flowing over us. Our exploration of the cave ended when the formations reached the gravel river bed - the passage was too tight to continue. I suspect after a big flood the gravel banks may be cleared enough to squeeze under and get a bit further.

Sa Yuan Thong, Thong Lang, Luem and Sra Krasi, Thailand - Jan 08

Australia, Dec 07 : Travelled a total of 1700km in car and 4wd in blistering (up to 40 deg C) heat
Began with some hiking in the Grampian mountains where we didnt run out of petrol.
Then on to Mt Gambier. After jumping through hoops finally got permits to dive caves from the CDAA, forestry dept gave us the keys and we didnt run out of petrol. First dive in Iddlebiddy, second dive in Pines, then off to Engelbrechts West. Then a dive in Piccaninnie Ponds, Dived side mount Open circuit using Armadillo side mount system purchased from Golem gear

Visited Princess Margaret Rose Cave and Tantanoola Cave

Then did dry cave Collins Cave with Adam Branford and Kevin Mott and AG.
Then did DD4, (a REALLY muddy one) with Adam Branford, AG and Monica Burt.

Really enjoyed the SA flies - really nice.

Took a trip down the Great Ocean Rd... which was great and close to the ocean :) Saw a bunch of stuff, but namely the Loch Ard Gorge and offcourse the 12 Apostles.

Only saw one suspected Aborigeny (and she wasnt drunk or eating grubs:-( ....and no koala bears :-(

ate much beef :-) ...and didnt run out of petrol

Australia, Dec 07

UK Caving II, Mendips and Wales, Dec 07 : Round trip at Dan Yr Ogof 1,2 with Clive Westlake. Freezing cold in thin wetsuit and near zero air temps. Beautiful big black stone passageways with amazing fragile straw formations - cave well protected and preseved.

Trip to Swildons 12 with Duncan Price and John Volanthan. A hard treck carrying tanks between sumps. Had a blast. As I was in lead at sumps actually had some viz occasionally

Got to 12 and back in under 5 hours. Had a quick scout around12 but couldnt find anything promising....and we were bloody cold by then.

UK Caving II, Mendips and Wales, Dec 07

Rokon Do & Sora Ana cave - Japan, Dec 07 : Joined the Tokyo Speleo club (www.tokyospeleo.jp) for a visit to Rokon Do (waterfall view) and Sora Ana (sky) cave, Iwate prefecture, in frozen north of Japan. Mission was to survey and photograph cave (incl new passage) on behalf of cave owner who is re opening cave as show cave with the coming of a new highway nearby thats hoped will increase visitors from current dwindling < 7,000 per year to previous 70,000 per year record.

Due to start of cave being a show cave we started caving at 8pm at night so as not to bother tourists. Caving through the night, teams emerging at 4am following day.

Team made up of Japanese cavers Minato Koei, Goto Satoshi, Nakagomi Yukiko, Kurisu Ryuichi, Noike Kohei, Miyazaki Tomohiko, Makisima Keiko, Kikuchi Toshio, myself and German caver Dr Joerg Dreybrodt.

Sora Ana cave is quite an interesting cave with a number of very tight sections. Most of cave wall is stained black from steam train soot that used to leak into and fill the cave years ago from nearby train tunnel. We heard modern passenger train passing at one point through nearby tunnel. The larger nearby Rokon Do cave is a stream-way cave with beautiful tall narrow meanders and a 30m+ waterfall (that marks the end of show cave and start of our exploration. A new higher level passageway was discovered and teams surveyed a few hundred meters of it during this expedition.

Many thanks to the team especially to Goto san for helping with the arrangements.

Rokon Do & Sora Ana cave - Japan, Dec 07

Song Hong II expedition (-140m) - Thailand NOV 07 : Second expedition to Song Hong. Installed habitat at 18m, succeeded in pushing main passage upstream to around 800m and to depth 140m. 6 hours of deco.

Matt Partridge, Ben Reymenants and Mike Gadd supported by Dr ljuba and support divers Charles, Bart and jggkkkack!! (cant spell her name but thats how it sounds) :-)

Pushed cave wearing Boris a bail out rebreather 3x AL80 stage tanks a 2L suit gas, 3L back up O2 tank and two scooters plus whole bunch of OC bail gas staged in cave and at habitat :-) Matt used a Meg and Ben on Open circuit. Pics courtesy of Bart, Charles and Dr Luba.

See Matts trip report here:- http://tech-ccr.com/technicaldiving/song-hong-2007.shtml

Song Hong II expedition (-140m) - Thailand NOV 07

Song Hong I (-105m) and Baa Cave discovery, Thailand Sept 07 : Return expedition to Thailand by some of the Sra Keow 3 expedition team to explore a new dry cave we found in the jungle during last expedition, plus search for rumoured and illusive sink hole known as Song Hong that was rumoured to be in Nakorn.

Using SRT suceeded in getting into what we have named as Baa Cave (Baa being slang Thai for crazy person, which every Thai we meet on these trips thinks we are for wanting to crawl into holes in the ground.)

After a LOOOOOOOONG search around rural Southern Thailand we finally suceeded in locating and diving Song Hong sink - and what a sink it turned out to be. Top of breakdown mound is 95m, bottom of cave passages look at being around 125m and are HUGE (20m+ in diameter!) This cave GOES! Needless to say we are making plans to return in a month or so to further explore.

This trip wouldnt have been possible without the generous support of the following:

OneStop Dive Center - Krabi
Protech dive college - Phuket
Milo -Ko Lanta

Song Hong I (-105m) and Baa Cave discovery, Thailand Sept 07

Wookey and Swildons hole - UK caving 07 : Visited UK to dive Wookey hole (OC sidemount) and Cave in Swildons hole with Duncan Price.

Saturday 21 July: Duncan and I dived Wookey Hole entering at the resurgence and diving up through the show cave following the course of the river as far as Chamber 20 (via the Deep Route) returning (via the Shallow Route). Dive time 1 hour or so. Duncan used his chest mount rebreather with Dave Sutton's O2 add and Dave Mager's HUD .I was treated to a stroll up to the Hunter's Lodge Inn with Bob navigating which only confirmed my suspicion as to the correlation between cavers and a box of frogs.

Sunday 22 July: Wookey Hole again - we dived from the end of the show cave (Chamber 9) to Chamber 22 and got out of the water for a wander around. The water in the next (static sump) was up several metres above normal. The vis. on both days was pretty poor

Wednesday 25 July: Swildon's Hole - Antoinette and Duncan took me to Sump 2 and back. En route we had to descend a 20' ladder climb and free dive Sump 1 - only short. We went shopping afterwards, not only did I blow my wad on SRT gear but also helped Duncan get a new refrigerator and take the old one to the dump. We polished off the day with an ascent of Glastonbury Tor with Antoinette and Harriet plus assorted new age lunatic types many of whom were in training to join the CDG but werent yet mad enough :-)

Went back down Swildon's Hole on Thursday solo as far as the 20' climb

Wookey and Swildons hole - UK caving 07

Florida III cave diving - Aug 07 : Annual trip to North Florida caves. Dived with Lamar English and Agnes Milowka. Dived Orange to Peacocks grand traverse, Jackson Blue, Hole in the wall, Telfords, Ginnie springs, Madison blue, cow spring [pics courtesy of Agnes Milowka]

Florida III cave diving - Aug 07

Sra Keow III expedition (-240m) Thailand. Nov 06 : Third expedition to continue our exploration of the deep cave Sra Keow. Team joined this time by Ben Reymenants

Ben suceeded in exploring the cave to depth of 240m.

Photos courtesy of Paul Lees and Ben

Sra Keow III expedition (-240m) Thailand. Nov 06

Sra Keow II expedition (-200m), Thailand, May 06 : Expedition to Sra Keow Cave in Thailand to continue our exploration of the cave.

Bottom divers Dr Mike Gadd and Cedric Verder explored to a depth of 191m and 200m (666ft) respectively laying new line from our last visit to 150m depth.

DrMike used an Ouroboros rebreather while Cedric used a Meg. Both units standard.

Decompression using VPM BE, dil 5/75 no dil switching, optimised setpoint switching.

Support divers were Bruce Konefe (US) and Thomas Bodis (DM). Thai translator Lek.

Habitats were placed at 12m and 4.5m to enable a place to drink and eat during the long deco and for use in case a diver is having problems.

Drmikes dive was 8 hours long, Cedrics 6 hours. Both divers exited the water without DCS (Drmikes knee pain turned out to be cartlidge issues)

Sra Keow II expedition (-200m), Thailand, May 06

Florida II cave diving - Oct 06 : Cave diving in Florida; With Cedric and Eveline;

Eagles Nest, Orange to Peacock grand traverse, Madisson Blue, Telford, Little river, Ginnie ect ect.

Presented at the NACD on our thai deep cave exploration project (NACD was one of sponsors)

Attended GUE conferance

Attended Dema

Florida II cave diving - Oct 06

France (LOT) cave diving - Sept 06 : A week cave diving in France with Jerome, Phil, Tim, Paul and Gery.

Got some good dives in at Ressel but most other sites blown out due to heavy rainfall and flooding

France (LOT) cave diving - Sept 06

Sra Keow I expedition (-150m) Thailand, Dec 05 : First trip of project to explore undived section of a deep cave in Southern Thailand.

Dived to depth of 80m to stage tanks then laid new line to 127m (old line ended at approx 115m) and finally to a depth of -150m.

Cave keeps on going down. We will return shortly to continue to explore.

Sra Keow I expedition (-150m) Thailand, Dec 05

New cave discovery , Kao Sok, Thailand - Dec 05 : Trip to explore National park area in Southern Thailand for new caves. We had to take a longtail boat out across the water to our accomodation which was simple bamboo huts on floating bamboo platforms over the water. We used the boat to search the surounding area for caves. Being so remote we had to take everything - including a portable compressor and Oxygen tanks.

Diving with Bruce Konefe and Cedric Verdier on our first atempt we found a beautiful cave with nice formations in which we laid 2 reels of line. Max depth 28m.

New cave discovery , Kao Sok, Thailand - Dec 05

Florida I cave diving - Nov 05 : Two week cave diving trip to Florida using MK15.5 and diving in a drysuit. With Martin Robson and Steve Walker. We dived - Peacock Springs, Ginnie Springs, Little River, Cow Spring, Madison Blue, Morgan Sink, Eagle’s Nest, Alachua Sink and Orange Grove Sink.

A total of 18 cave dives, 21 hours of bottom time, longest distance was 4000' round trip in Ginnie springs (158 min dive) , deepest was 80m in Eagles nest.

Florida I cave diving - Nov 05

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