Emergence du Russel is a large impressive cave that starts in the bed of the River Céle

Emergence du Russel is a large impressive cave that starts in the bed of the River Céle as a clean washed passage of about 150 metres in length and with a cross-section at least the size of a double garage door. It then splits into two passages: one tunnel stays shallower at about 10 m depth whilst the other runs broadly in the same direction dropping repeatedly until it reaches around 18m. The two passages rejoin (making a nice round-trip for those new to cave diving) and, 300 m from the entrance, the cave takes the first of two dramatic plunges, eventually descending in a spectacular cavernous rift to about 45 m. To swim this far takes a round-trip of getting-on for an hour but for the members of the church of scootering in our party, emblazoned with the words "Forgive me father for I have finned", this is a trifling undertaking. From this point the entrance is getting towards half a kilometre away and the dive is increasingly technical, descending first to about 50 odd metres fairly soon, then, after some time to as much as 77 m before beginning to ascend and eventually entering into another rift that towers to a dry section of cave nearly two kilometres from the start. The whole trip through is a serious expedition of several hours and has been made by only a handful of people ever. In the last year sumps beyond this, running to more than 4 km in total, have been pushed by British divers Rick Stanton and Jason Mallinson.

Would you like to see more? Go to the page L72 Olympus Project.