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Sunday 20^th November

Hardrawkin Pot

John Southworth and Dave Stewart dived in the terminal sump. John dived first to a depth of 25ft but he had to return to the surface due to trouble with his ears. The vertical decent was still continuing when John turned back, but no horizontal passages were found.

Dave Stewart dived only to a depth of 10ft and had a closer look at a small recess thought to be a side passage.

Divers: John Southworth, Dave Stewart.

1966

Ireby Fell Cavern

John Ogden passed the first 80ft sump with two non divers. They made a short exploration of the water entering the cave from Low Douk Cave.

Diver: John Ogden

December 1966

Rowten Pot

Bill Frakes and John Ogden passed the upstream sump in Rowten Pot a distance of 200ft. They explored 500ft of new passage to a second sump. The general size of the new passage is 7ft to 10ft high and 10ft to 15ft wide.

No attempt was made to dive the second sump as the divers had no time to return to the first sump where they had left their diving equipment.

Divers: Bill Frakes, John Ogden.

Sunday 11^th December

Boreham Cave Littondale

A training dive was held at Boreham Cave when 6 divers passed the first sump. John Ogden dived the active upstream sump after digging it out. He dived a distance of 50ft to a choke of boulders. His opinion was that these could be dug out.

Divers: Mick Ormerod, John Ogden, Dave Stewart, Dave Adamson, John Russum, Stewart Heseltine.

January 29^th 1967

Malham Cove Rising

The object of the dive was to blast the large boulder situated 70ft from the entrance using explosives.

After clearing the entrance squeeze John Ogden and Bill Frakes laid a line of Cortex to the boulder and then returned to base. They dived again and laid a charge on the offending boulder, the surface wiring being attended to by Derek Brandon.

The charge was fired successfully and 20 minutes later when the water had cleared, Dave Stewart and John Southworth entered the submerged passage.

Upon reaching the boulder it was found that a section 1ft square had been removed by the explosive. This left an ample space of 2ft for the divers to pass through. At this point in the dive Stewart was having trouble with his valve so both divers returned to base.

Frakes and Ogden entered the rising once again to take a look at the success of their efforts but they did not pass the boulder.

The success of this dive is worthy of note as it was the first time the NCDG has used explosives underwater in a cave.

Diver: John Southworth, Bill Frakes, John Ogden, Dave Stewart, in charge of explosives Derek Brandon.