Blog June Sinkhole Part 1

Blog 19 - Jun '14 - Sinkhole - Part 1

- Recon

Back in September last year a few local cave divers were coming to Etosha to do reconnaissance in a sinkhole. Late the night before their arrival I got a message from the local warden, SK, to see if I wanted to tag along. As much as this new adventure appealed to me I was faced with a slight dilemma. Firstly, Mum was visiting and unfortunately there wasn’t enough room for both of us in the car and secondly, we were both feeling quite sick. Fortunately she is very kind, or at least very forgiving (I am not sure which was more appropriate in these circumstances), so before sunrise the next morning I headed off whilst Mum slept in. Although despite going along, I had no idea what to expect. I knew there was a sinkhole and it was in Etosha and some people were coming to look at it. For some reason I envisaged a fairly small sinkhole and one that had just formed. I thought I would be doing a lot of sitting around and reading, as SK had told me he was just there to act as a guard.

After a 3 hour drive we set out on foot to locate the sinkhole. “It’s just there” I was assured as a 16L tank was put on my shoulder. But after trekking around for about 1.5km, in circles, it became clear that it wasn’t just there. When one of the guys eventually found the sinkhole, I got my first surprise – the sinkhole was quite large and led into an underwater cave system. The reason that the divers had come all this way was to do recon for a full dive that they had planned for some time in the coming year. The next dive would include more divers, including scientists taking samples of water, plants and animals and would take a full week. This is the same group that have been involved in exploring Dragon’s Breath Cave, also in Namibia, which was featured in episode 1 of David Attenborough’s Africa series. I remember watching that episode thinking two things: ‘wow’ and ‘they are insane’. I can say with a large amount of certainty that I never would have gone along if I knew that was the kind of thing in store for me (but I’m glad I did). My second surprise for the day was less awesome – my job was to help haul all the dive equipment into the cave.

Just some of gear to take into (and out of) the hole A human conveyor belt

There were four divers so between their tanks, back up tanks, rebreathers and camera equipment there was a fair amount to get into the hole. After a lot of trudging to and from the vehicles we started hauling the gear down the rigging that the master rigger had set up. By this point I had realised that cave-diving actually makes open water diving look like a relatively equipment-light hobby. Fortunately, the guys gave me their camera to be ‘official photographer’ code for ‘the person too weak to be of much use’ which meant I only had to assist with the trickier and heavier loads and with getting stuff from the cars to the opening, not down into the crevice. This was lucky because a mountain goat I am not. I even struggle to balance on flat surfaces. How I managed years of ballet without serious injury baffles me to this day. So I spent most of the descent trying to decide whether to grab the prickly-bark trees to stop an impending tumble or just go with gravity to the next stable point. Looking at my hands and legs the next day, I’d say I did a good job of both. Arriving at the lowest platform above the water without causing serious injury to myself, or to the others, was a high point as we’d been warned that if we dislodged a rock and it tumbled down it could cause serious injury to anyone below.

The trickiest part of the descent is a gap called The Chimney and it is not for those afraid of small spaces, or heights. Whilst I don’t have those phobias I am still not a fan of squeezing through a tiny hole, just large enough for a person to fit in, and then dropping about 1.5m down to a rock that isn’t visible until mid-drop. There wasn’t anywhere to hold on to and no room to use my arms to lower myself down so – drop I did. Fortunately I landed right(ish) and managed to pull my head down before clambering onto the next platform.

Tight squeeze – if one person moved we all moved The final platform before a ladder climb into the water

By the time that we had all made it through The Chimney with all of the gear it was almost midday so there wasn’t a lot of time for the diver’s to get in the water. The guys only got in one, 1hr dive, including decompression and there wasn’t really time for me or SK to get in for a swim and explore. For this, I think I was more grateful than disappointed - partly because the rope and timber ladder going down to the water didn’t look like a safe option and partly because said ladder stopped a couple of metres above the water’s surface so I feared that I could end up stuck down there until the water rose in a few months! It turned out to be a very long day, leaving camp before 6am and not returning until after 8pm so it was probably wise to not spend hours struggling to get out of the water!

The next day was brought to you by the letters P A I and N and the number infinity. When I finally extricated myself from the bed I realised just how unhappy my muscles and bones were to be taken from their cushy car-based life to a day of hard labour. After a few days I was again able to comfortably descend stairs (thankfully there aren’t too many in camp) and my shoulders reformed into their pre-gas bottle carrying shapes (I swear there was a dent for the first couple of days) but still I wasn’t back to normal. It took 5 months, and I was back in Australia by this stage, for the prickles in my hands to finally re-emerge. It seems I may have unknowingly lied when I checked ‘no’ in the ‘plant products’ check box on the customs form. Nonetheless, it was a pretty awesome day and I was keen to head back again if the team came back for their full dive while I was still in Etosha.

A poor kudu’s final resting place Good to see the tanks in use!

The rickety ladder, view from the water