Richard had done a few solo trips previously working his way down to sump 9. I decided to join him on his first trip to S12. Luckily we only had to carry a single cylinder each as I had left some cylinders down by 9 from a previous trips so all we had to carry to S9 was an extra reg. Everything went Ok and a fairly easy going trip was had to S12.
For a change, instead of going to sump 12 again we decided to do the long round trip (via damp link). Phill had done the trip before but quite a few years ago. Everyone carried there own kit down to Tratmans Temple where from here Andy and I took Phill's kit while he went to rig the ladder on Shatter Pot. Andy and I continued downstream with Phill's kit and met him by Blue Pencil Passage. All three of us then went to Swildon's 6 where we climbed out the streamway and up into damp link. After a short distance we reached the first sump and set the siphons running, while the siphons were working we went to do the sump 6 by-pass. This proved to be quite a nasty route and also fairly tight. We returned to the damp link sumps which had lowered sufficiently to allow us to pass. From here there was a fair bit of low muddy crawling to meet the second sump. We set the siphons running on this, which completely committed us into completing the round trip as the sump behind us re-filled. We waited for this second sump to siphon, in a not very pleasant and fairly cramped rift, then headed to shatter series through some more tight, wet muddy crawls. Once in shatter series it took us a little while to find the main route and the to work out which way along the main route we were going. We soon found the ducks in shatter series, which were passable, and eventually got to Shatter Pot. I then left Phill and Andy with my gear and went on round to Tratmans Temple and back to sump 2 to collect our gear. I met back up with Phill and Andy at the 20' pitch and we all headed to the surface.
Rich's first trip to Sump 12. Rich had done a lot of work up dives, while doing the excellent job of replacing the climbing lines in Swildon's 7, before finally going through sump 9. Fortuanately there were our left over 6 litre cylinders at sump 9 that we could use as our bail out while going through sump 9 - saving us the carry.
Long round trip. Excellent sporting trip. Dived through sumps 1 to 5, set the syphons running in the damp link and went to explore the sump six by-pass, then headed up damp link into shatter series to complete the round trip.