Poulnacapple, Ballylee River Rising
From TechnicalDiving.ie Wiki
Contents |
Location
Poulnacapple (Poll a'Chappaill - Cave of the horse) is believed to be resurgence of Boleyneendorrish or Ballylee river. This vertical sided pot is situated in obvious copse 80m south-east of Polldeelin (the main Coole River Rising) behind Kiltartan church.
Description
Site is double wire fenced and would need 3m rigid ladder for safe access. Provisionally I have installed system of ropes that temporarily do the job. River rises in northern corner of the pool and sinks again in obvious cave entrance at the southern end of the opening (see picture ).
Previous records
Most of the credit for exploration should go to Steve Marsh, Pat Cronin and Martyn Farr I believe. Downstream, after 90m it connects Polldeelin 30m from the main rising through narrow horizontal slot at depth of 13m. Right now this short traverse is rated as very risky after some backfill and bulldozer job at the surface. Anyway it’s not really worth as it’s filled with domestic rubbish including fridge…;) Upstream story is much more interesting. Initially lads explored place for 80m where they faced boulder choke. The started working on a dig and finally they passed it. From there passage was heading SE on dept 7-9m for a good while but then it started dropping, turned back underneath itself a the depth of 30m and continued NE. Last exploration in 2004 left EOL somewhere 350-360m from the entrance.
Recent dives
07.08.2008. Old lines were all broken and washed out to the entrance pool. First impression - the darkest site of them all - vis MAX 40cm when undisturbed ( and it was basically clear , no particles in water). Real Heart of darkness. Finally I came across 6mm line laid along left hand side wall ( I was moving along right hand side one) but soon it turned out to be buried under ....rocks ! This is not good sign, I thought, passage started going up , when it got to 7m it become tighter and turned east. I felt strong flow ahead but decided to turn and talk to Pat first as that line under rocks was quite worrying. He reckons that lack of silt, mud banks and presence of rocks on the line at the bottom of the slope indicates that during last 7-8 years floods must have rearranged the place and he memorized roof as solid. That was one of the last days before it started raining so the next time I had the chance to come back there was last weekend.
27.09.2008. There wasn’t much flow from north side to south side of the pool but this indication was always said to be misleading. 10m of my line was washed out and was hanging on the tree…I have started relining the cave and soon it turned out that most of 60m of line I put last time was f*cked. I reached my previous EOL, somewhere close to the squeeze ( tight section dug through the boulders), I added few meters of line but flow was way too strong to move on! I was pulling myself along the boulders but soon I had to give up. When I let myself off the boulders I was literally washed out from the cave.
29.09.2008 There were only light showers over last two days so I hoped the flow near the squeeze would be much reduced. I brought 90m of line with me for expected line repairing. At the squeeze flow was again very strong but I applied my last resort approach ‘Now or never’ and finally went through it. As expected and hoped flow after the squeeze has been substantially reduced. I kept laying my line on the right hand side of the passage then I crossed it in search for the old line and found it covered with all sort of flood shit I attached my line to it, marked the junction with cloth peg ( Martyn’s style Wink and continued. There were sections, up to 10m long, I had to pull the line out from underneath 20cm of sand - some flooding! At the end (that was my understanding while comparing depth and bearings with lad’s survey after the dive) at -27m last belay was broken and substantial section of line was floating toward the entrance. No further advance as I used up all my line for repairs and I reached my gas limits. On the way out I removed ~50m of my old line completely.
29/05/09
Jim Warny
Reconnaissance dive.
On arrival I found that the water level in the pot was low but there was still some flow noticeable on the surface. I opted for two side mount 7's for this dive as I had no intention in pushing far beyond the boulder choke. As I started to follow the line from the entrance I noticed a strong current coming out of the cave. After +/-10m I found the main line broken so I tied in with my reel. I laid 40m of line from there to reach a deep point of 12m where the flow was barely noticeable. Finally after a while of searching I found the mainline again along with a strong flow. I tied in there and headed into the current only to find the line to be broken again, at that point I turned the dive. Analyzing the survey I could saw I was within 10m of the start of the boulder choke.
Max depth: 12M BT: 40min
13/06/09
Jim warny
This time i took the twin 7's and an extra AL80. The water level was even lower than last time, with no flow noticeable at all on the surface. I got to where I stopped the other day fairly fast and tied in with a full reel. Searching around I ended up squeezing between boulders and the ceiling, that small I had to remove 2 cylinders to retreat. Retracing my steps I was getting frustrated and was getting ready to leave as it seemed very tight and unstable. While retreating I noticed some old line on a belay to my right on an upward slope, so I decided to follow the slope upwards. Upon reaching -6m I found more old line, so I knew I was in the right place this time. Before I knew it I found the old line to be intact again. So I tied in on it and started following it, soon I realized the passage was getting bigger and deeper. I turned when I hit my thirds at -14m about 50m beyond the boulder choke.
Max depth: 14M BT: 72min
It turned out that the boulder choke was not as bad as I thought, and I should be able to pas it with the back mounted rebreather.
14/06/09
Jim Warny
This time it was time to bring out the big guns so I took the Megalodon and 3 stage cylinders ( AL40-O2, AL80-NTX32 and AL80-NTX40). I also took two reels with 250m of line between them. Negotiating the boulder choke with the rb and 2 stages was not too bad (a bit of rubbing and rolling from left to right). The next 150m I had to patch the line a few times. At the last belay around -27m I tied in a fresh reel and of I went straight NE. The passage was 5m-7m wide by 2m height and consistently heading N NE. After tying in the second reel and emptying that aswel I reached a depth of -23m where I tied off and turned the dive. Total of new passage explored is 200m.
Max depth: 30M
BT: 102min
19/06/09
Jim Warny
Upon arrival I noted the water level was up from last week and the visibility went down to 0,5m. Progress thru the cave was considerably slower than last week. I had planed to bring an extra stage bottle but abandoned it fairly soon into the dive. Despite the slow progress I managed to add an other 230m still heading E reaching a new deep point of -43m. Deco was a bit cold due to a minor leak (p-valve problem).
Max depth: 43M Total BT: 164min
20/06/09
Jim Warny
Joined by Artur we setup for another few dives. I continued the exploration and was able to add 210m and reach a depth of -47m. This time I brought 3 stage bottles and dropped one of them on the way (400m in). These dives are starting to cover a long distance and considerable depth so next time I thing more gas will have to be staged to push further.
21.06.2009
Divers: Artur Kozlowski, Brendan O'Brien
Going through squeezes between 60-80m from the entrance, with Meg and two Alus 80 was very awkward. Being less streamlined than Jim I had to move couple of boulders to finally get through. I knew the cave up to 360m from the entrance from last year and I always considered it as sidemounted cave. Jim proved different. Later was somehow easier but again quite low (I'd say no more than 1m) around 800m in. I managed to explore another 200m of low but 3-4m wide passage and tied off the line at -62m. I had plenty of line on my reel to go but at this stage my left arm was well soaked as I must have cut my wrist seal while wriggling through squeezes.
Water was 12-13deg so return was in rush, as you can imagine. Due to gentle profile of the cave I could cut deeper deco stops ( from 20's I simply fly unit on SP 1.5) but it still left me with an hour deco on 02. I did it all on open circuit for better decompression but breathing cold OC gas didn't help the fact that I was already soaked and terribly cold. Bob was checking me periodically if I was ok. Eventually I surfaced slowly after 3h50min.
EOL 1.2km
Depth -62m
5/6.07.2009
It was raining all day long on Sunday. In the morning Jim jumped in for half an hour set up dive to stage EAN50 and EAN32 on 21m, which point is around 150m from the entrance. Dive started around 9pm. Visibility was fantastic, 2.5m at least. Poulnacapple turned out to be marvellous underwater cave when I was finally able to see something; during all my previous dives visibility was never better than 1m and usually around 0.5m. Water temperature increased to comfortable 15deg compared to 12-13 last week. Off through the choke, I picked up Jim's EAN32 and staged it half an hour further into the cave at -40m. I reached our previous limit 1.2km at -62m in just over 1h. Last time I left almost full reel there as I experienced some route finding problems and having being seriously soaked at that stage I had opted for retreat. This time, due to good visibility I could see where I went wrong last time even before I reached my reel so almost immediately I was back on track. From -62m cave was sloping up and down in 60s and after 200m of new line laid I was already on -66m. The cave kept descending and while trying to belay the line with a silt screw and a cable tie somewhere around -70m of depth I came to realisation that I'd approached very limits of my diluent (END and PPO2 wise). I went for few more meters and dropped almost empty reel (20m left) on -71m. 200m from the entrance it became obvious that major current developed caused by prolonged rainfall. I was a bit worried how it would be in the choke/squeeze. Despite the fact that I approached it carefully I had almost been sucked in by the current. By pulling myself back along the rocks, scared as a hell, I managed to retreat to the safe distance. I had to pass the squeeze all right but I needed to make myself more streamlined first. Otherwise I could be easily jammed in it for good, with Meg on my back, three 11l tanks and big reel on my hip dring. I left the reel on the line, removed one of the tanks and holding it in front of me off I went... I can sit and laugh now but it was scary then, having being pushed through small opening among the rocks by that great force of water. No control whatsoever...I got stuck briefly in the middle of the choke but after frantic wriggling it eventually let go... Last deco stop and 1h30min later, at 2am on Monday morning I surfaced in the entry pool. It was still raining and water level was 0.5m higer;Total dive time 5h15min.
