Herault Cave Diving Expedition : Stunning Sorgues

Christine in the Sorgues, Aveyron. Photo: Richard Walker

The Event du Sorgues is one of my favourite resurgence flops in the area. The only problem is that it is too short!
It is about 220m long and ends in an impenetrable, vertical rift which is too tight to pass in any kit configuration.
This is desperately frustrating as it is the major resurgence for the mighty 'Mas Raynal', 4Km upstream.
It is, however, beautiful, with no access restrictions (despite having to practically drive through somebody's living room to get to a parking spot - don't take any vehicle bigger than a Berlingo!)
It is heavily managed with dams and weirs built in to presumably control the water which flows through the fish farm.
The water is cold, about 8 degrees and is almost always blue and clear.
I was intent on getting some photos here so we took the expensive camera kit, filled our cylinders, Rich gave me an impromptu lesson on his JJ CCR and just as my eyes began to glaze over, the bottles were ready and we went diving.

Chris in the Sorgues. Photo: Richard Walker

The Sorgues is geologically beautiful, with calcite ridges protruding from the floor and almost perfectly square passages with boulder strewn floors. Rippled sand catches the light as you swim mid passage, able to see your own shadow on the floor in the video lights.
The average depth is about 26m so you have just enough time to go to the 'end' and back within decompression limits. We were taking our time over photos and carrying a heavy tripod to mount the back-lights was a little tricky, so we didn't quite reach the end but we weren't far off when we turned for home.