The life of a cave diver
It was one of those beautiful August mornings, birds singing, not a cloud in the sky – not that we could tell. We’d set off before sunrise and were now a hundred or so metres beneath Chepstow Racecourse sorting through diving kit. Here, several hours descent into the hillside, Andy and I were hoping to find the elusive underwater continuation of Otter Hole, one of the strangest caves in the British Isles. It’s hard to know what to say when someone thanks you for returning the body of their dead friend With its entrances just above the tideline on the River Wye, many flood over in winter, limiting exploration to the summer months. Even then, a tidal U-bend an hour into the cave cuts off the passage for six hours at a time, necessitating our early start.
