Learning from our mistakes.....

[Speleofish]

If you go on a trip with someone you don't know (and know nothing about), consider doing something easier than they suggest that's well within your capabilities. If it goes well, you can do something more ambitious the next time. I discovered this to my cost when I was a very naive 18 year old. I found myself hauling a gibbering, overweight incompetent up an 80 foot ladder pitch more-or-less singlehanded many years ago. Turned out he'd never been down a ladder pitch longer than 20 feet before (but had read several books on caving techniques and spoke very convincingly of his 'experience'). I would guess that SRT offers even more opportunities for incompetence....

 

[Mark Wright]

That would not have happened if your suit was over the top of your wellies. Better still, fix the suit in place with bands of car inner tube. That holds your suit in place and makes it easier to bend your knees and gives you the choice to wear or not to wear knee pads. Even better (much better) stiffen you welly tops, seal your suit to your wellies and keep your feet dry. An added bonus is that when it comes to undressing, after removing your knee pads, you stand on the heel of your welly and simply pull your foot out of both welly and suit in one smooth, quick action.

I couldn't agree more with Simon. I've always found it a bit odd that people wear their oversuit legs inside their wellies. There's no wonder they fill up with water.

A piece of tupperware plastic inside the top of the wellies is usually all that is needed to make it stiff enough to create a reasonably good seal with the aid of a bit of car inner tube or length of shock cord. It doesn't make them 'waterproof' but you can usually quickly step in and out of a deep pool without water getting in.

I wear my neoprene knee pads inside my oversuit. They never get snagged and my knees never get cold.

Mark

 

[ali_mac]

I wear my suit over my wellies, but I've never used any additional elastic or plastic.

Can you clarify what you mean by "tupperware plastic" please?

That would not have happened if your suit was over the top of your wellies. Better still, fix the suit in place with bands of car inner tube. That holds your suit in place and makes it easier to bend your knees and gives you the choice to wear or not to wear knee pads. Even better (much better) stiffen you welly tops, seal your suit to your wellies and keep your feet dry. An added bonus is that when it comes to undressing, after removing your knee pads, you stand on the heel of your welly and simply pull your foot out of both welly and suit in one smooth, quick action.

I couldn't agree more with Simon. I've always found it a bit odd that people wear their oversuit legs inside their wellies. There's no wonder they fill up with water.

A piece of tupperware plastic inside the top of the wellies is usually all that is needed to make it stiff enough to create a reasonably good seal with the aid of a bit of car inner tube or length of shock cord. It doesn't make them 'waterproof' but you can usually quickly step in and out of a deep pool without water getting in.

I wear my neoprene knee pads inside my oversuit. They never get snagged and my knees never get cold.

Mark

 

[Mark Wright]

Tupperware plastic is the plastic that 'Tupperware' food containers are made from.

I might be showing my age describing it as Tupperware.

Any sort of thin flexible plastic sheet will do and, as Simon says, you pull your trousers up a bit (half way up your wellies) and seal them with the car inner tube or shock cord so its easy to bend your legs.

I can usually get through the deep pool at the bottom of the Giants Crabwalk and into the Eating House without getting my feet wet. The method works best when you have a PVC oversuit.

Mark

 

[Simon Wilson]

My welly stiffeners are made of closed cell form mat (Karrimat) sewn together with polypropylene string. The holes were made with a hot wire. They are a snug fit round my leg so they can be flexible and as well as enabling me to wear tight rubber bands to create a watertight seal they also act as shin guards.

And yes Mark, it was so much better when we could get PVC suits. I really miss them.

 

[Jenny P]

A top tip for dealing with long hair is to plait it, then thread the plait through the webbing at the back of the helmet. It keeps the hair nicely out of the way and also stops the helmet slipping down when crawling.

How long a plait can you cope with by that method?

My top tip is that a plait that you can sit on is incompatible with caving (and a lot of other things too)

I found that plaiting your hair and then tucking the plait down inside the back of your furry (or wetsuit) worked ok.  Also stopped it dangling in the mud.

 

[pwhole]

...but where can we actually get car inner tubes these days? I could really do with half a one at least.

 

[paul]

...but where can we actually get car inner tubes these days? I could really do with half a one at least.

Try a "KwikFit" or similar tyre shop. I used to have an MGB with wire wheels which had to have tubes, even with ordinary tubeless tyres, as the air would leak out where the spoke nipples enter the wheels. I got some reasonable sized old inner tube years ago from a motorbike shop which used to be in Matlock to use for Carbide "pigs", so it may be worth trying motorbike shops as well in case they have one big enough.

 

[pwhole]

Thanks - I'd assumed they only sold tubeless these days, but then I'm not a driver, so what do I know? I'll give it a try though.

 

[aricooperdavis]

...but where can we actually get car inner tubes these days? I could really do with half a one at least.

When I went to my local garage to make myself some snoopy loops they said that lots of busses still have inner tubes, so that's where mine came from. Would highly recommend cutting it into 4 pieces and machine washing it before trying to work with it, or it'll smell absolutely disgusting and get grime everywhere!

 

[tamarmole]

Never, under any circumstances, get into a boat with Roy Fellows!  :tease:

 

[pwhole]

Aha! https://www.bigtyres.co.uk/buy-inner-tubes-online

Now all I have to do is work out what size tyre matches my welly-clad calf diameter.

 

[JasonC]

It took me ages to realise that it is a lot easier to get off a rope at the pitch head if I don?t go too high.

Yes to this.  But more generally, for a long time at rebelays and pitch-heads I made the mistake of being too hasty (not wanting to hold up the party/wanting a rest) thus leading to being less speedy - by getting tangled up, in ways too numerous to list.

So my advice to a newish caver would be to take it steady and double-check each move before making the next - have you managed to get your hand-jammer looped round the down rope, have you actually clipped your chest-jammer on the right segment of rope, and so on?

All things that sound too obvious to point out, but easy to do if you're tired and in a hurry...

 

[caver63751]

Howdy, y'all! I'll make a contribution in the form of video evidence of my own buffoonery. This is from Iliad Cave in Jackson County, Alabama, USA. I'd been caving for about a year, but I hadn't acquired a proper caving lamp or made an effort to better secure the one I had to my helmet. Notice the panic in my voice after my lamp was washed downstream?not a good feeling! Luckily for me, my friend was behind me, realized what had happened, and recovered it. Do yourself a favor and mount your primary lamp on your helmet using some semi-permanent means (eg. screws). And keep a backup around your neck?as was mentioned earlier, it's handy for when you need to remove your helmet.

Video 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-t0fqwJE1SOYazsNX7qzOU7tkLvUKj11/view
Video 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kJAGTAKgGxWiEXdv35Z3FIN4rVHFoVrf/view



Jesse

 

[Ian Ball]

  welcome Jesse.

If you do take a camera, you can use it to keep an eye on the time.

 

[Fulk]

Hi Jesse, that bit of cave sure looks like 'fun'! Is it always like that, or was it particularly wet that day?

 

[David Rose]

Hello Nobrotson - yes, I should have been more careful in my language: I meant the safety cord attached to the footloop jammer at one end and the harness at the other. I also use a Dyneema footloop.

I clip the krab through the loop formed by the knot at the end of the safety cord, not through the Maillon joining the jammer to the footloop and safety cord.

This also makes it easy to rack your footloop neatly on your harness between pitches.

 

[nobrotson]

Hello Nobrotson - yes, I should have been more careful in my language: I meant the safety cord attached to the footloop jammer at one end and the harness at the other. I also use a Dyneema footloop.

I clip the krab through the loop formed by the knot at the end of the safety cord, not through the Maillon joining the jammer to the footloop and safety cord.

This also makes it easy to rack your footloop neatly on your harness between pitches.

thought so, just worth clarifying since the point of this thread is to help people who may not deduce that straightaway.

 

[Ian Ball]

I don't use a security link  :-\

 

[caver63751]

Thanks, Ian.

Hi Jesse, that bit of cave sure looks like 'fun'! Is it always like that, or was it particularly wet that day?

Hi Fulk, I think the water was up slightly above normal. I do a bit of canyoning now, and when I re-watched video of Iliad Cave taken about five years ago, the flow looks like a trickle. I suppose my perspective has changed over time.