The Team

Christine Grosart is a full time Paramedic and in addition, has set up a small business 'WetWellies Caving' as a cave leader, introducing people to the sport of caving. http://www.cavediving.org.uk/

She has been caving since her teens and comes from a family with a background in caving and diving.
She worked with racehorses from an early age and didn't pursue diving until she turned 24 and was seriously getting into caving and potholing by then and hanging out with cave divers. She soon joined the Derbyshire Section of the Cave Diving Group and was mentored by her friend, Clive Westlake, to qualify in 2007.
She is IANTD Full Cave, GUE Cave 1 and is Tech 1 qualified with Global Underwater Explorers.

Chris can sometimes be persuaded to dive in the sea and occasionally admits to enjoying it!

She is equally at home 'resurgence flopping' in Florida and France as she is crawling around in muddy holes in the UK.

Chris has found virgin cave of her own abroad and currently holds the UK female cave diving depth record in Britain, in Wookey Hole from a dive in 2009.
Chris enjoys swimming, climbing and kayaking although a back injury has prevented her doing the latter for some time. Chris switches happily and regularly between UK style sidemount cave diving and 'Hogarthian' style backmounted diving.

Dr Richard Walker started diving in 1991, and generally kept himself in the sea as much as possible, diving on the wrecks around the UK. In 2003 he decided for some reason to go and learn to cave dive. Perhaps it was to learn how to get out of some of the wrecks into which he had frequently wandered, and not always been entirely sure where he was. Either way, the caves were good and he decided to do more of it, traveling to Florida, France, and later to Bosnia and Herzegovinia where he was invited to join in an exploration project which is still ongoing.

He continued to dive in the sea though, and still got lost in wrecks, on the rare occasions UK weather allowed him access. For this reason, he started looking towards UK cave diving as an option. He got in contact with the CDG in 2008, on cold weekend early in 2009, went diving in Hurtle Pot, Joint Hole and was also taken into a "dry" cave by Scoff - the Chairman of the CDG, no less.

After a year or so of learning the finer points of squeezing through UK caves, working out how to climb vertical spaces using tiny pieces of string (or "rope" as it is often called) and understanding a great deal more about the differences between big underwater caves and UK sumps, he decided to ask the Derbyshire CDG let him join, which they did.
He does lots of crawling, climbing wet string and has seen some amazing caves, both "dry" and submerged in the Herault.
He still goes in the sea.
Rich says: "I am a diver. I make no bones about it. It’s what I do. I love doing it and encountering amazing places that few have the privilege to see. I have been a diver since I was born! I was always fascinated by what could be seen under the water. I learned to dive in 1991 and have been diving regularly ever since. In 2007, I became a full time diving instructor with Global Underwater Explorers, and now spend my time doing what I love doing, meeting great people and exploring wonderful places.

However, sometimes to dive in interesting places you have to learn other skills to get there. This is what brought me to caving, or 'speleology'. I have dived in a lot of caves, but found that I was unable to do that in my home in the UK as most diving took place at the end of sections of 'dry' cave. In order to simply get to the water, I needed to learn the skills of a dry caver.

I began this process in around 2009, and have been active ever since. UK caves are not the same as those found in Mexico and Florida for example, or even closer to home in the Lot and Dordogne areas of France. They are typically short and shallow. The water is often a long distance from the cave entrance, requiring gear to be carried through small areas up and down climbs, sometimes involving ropes and ladders, through streamways and through miles and miles of thick mud. I learned how to deal with these challenges and sometimes even enjoy it. It is almost impossible to compare it to the cave diving that I previously knew, although, once underwater, life gets a little more familiar to me!

Going to the Herault has been very exciting for me. It is a beautiful, unspoiled area of the world, with a great deal of potential for exploration. The conditions though, are not easy. Regular cave diving tends to be deep; sites such as the Gourneyrou and the Gourneyras go deep very quickly and are very long, with exploration requiring significant logistics and support.

Meeting with the local community in the region has highlighted a few sites that might be worth looking at. Nothing in exploration these days is easy - if it was somebody would have done it already! The site on our list is the Formi Perdreau, which when looking at the survey should be “easy” to push. Nothing is further from the truth, though. The carry in, the boulder chokes and the 20m pitch all make getting to the water manageable, yet hard work. All of the things I’ve learned in the past few years are brought into play.

Nothing is easy. The dive, while on the face of it not that demanding, is prone to silting out. The silt does not settle again for several days making concerted efforts tricky. The line is not well laid at a few critical points. The cave appears to be heading deeper. All of these things make the logistics and management of the exploration difficult. But like I said, if it was easy, somebody else would have already done it. I can’t wait to get back and start on the project again!"

Joe Hesketh has had a lifelong fascination with being underwater. From enjoying snorkelling and messing about underwater as a child, he later took up scuba diving, learning to dive in the demanding, yet rewarding, waters off the coast of the UK.

Although enjoying all forms of the sport, including diving reefs and wrecks, it is diving in flooded underwater caves that now give Joe the most reward and enjoyment in his diving. Beginning his cave diving education in 2005 in the beautiful systems of México’s Yucatan Peninsula, Joe has since completed both the level 1 and 2 cave training with Global Underwater Explorers (GUE), and gone on to dive many of the  famous cave systems in México, Florida and various regions in southern France. He has also recently started sump diving in the UK, combining dry caving (known to some as potholing) with cave diving, in conditions often somewhat less picturesque than the clear water systems found abroad.

Joe is a keen photographic equipment collector, and occasionally remembers to take the odd photo too! He is also a interested in underwater videography and hopes to film many of the caves we visit in the Herault.

Osama Gobara started diving at young age and has since dived in many fascinating places. Although he enjoys pretty much simply being underwater it is his passion for caves that occupies his spare time with caving and diving underground these days.
Being an active caver since 2002 he has visited all the UK caving regions and has been underground in various countries such as Austria, France, Mallorca and as far as the Philippines.
Os started cave diving six years ago but despite many trips abroad as well as cave diving in the UK he regards himself as “an advanced newbie with a lot to learn”, an attitude he hopes he never loses…
He does not much care whether a cave is huge with crystal clear water or somewhat more challenging as the typical UK caves.....as long as he can enjoy the physical challenge and huge playground that are caves and have a good time with his friends he is happy.
Not being patient enough for cave photography he is interested in video documentaries of various caves and spends much time with his dive buddy and keen videographer Joe Hesketh, on planning video projects or encouraging him to buy yet more camera gear.
He is a Fundamentals instructor for Global Underwater Explorers.


Clive Westlake is beginning his second year as an old age pensioner, but rarely shows much sign of growing up. Right, he managed such a convincing show of responsibility that he was happily employed in education for many years, mostly teaching history in secondary schools.
In his youth he was brought up in Derbyshire, where he began caving. At first this was quite purposeful with much surveying of, and writing about such caves as Eldon Hole, Knotlow Cavern and P8. Later he came back to dive in and cave beyond sumps in the Peak/Speedwell system. Nevertheless, living in the Midlands allows him to be an inter-regional speleo-mercenary, as likely to be photographing in Ogof Draenen whilst it was discovered as helping create the By-pass Dig in Malham Cove Rising.
In recent years he has enjoyed being welcomed on Mendip into that most distinctive of caving scenes. He has the reputation of being interested in photography, which isn't quite the case: He photographs what he's interested in, which includes caves.

His other admissable interests include mountains. He has progressed erratically from wandering around on British hills via climbing a fair amount of not-too-steep rock to venturing onto quite high, but still not-too-steep mountains in the Alps, Andes and the Himalaya. Somehow he returns from these often inspiring places with photographs that may hint at that inspiration - and starts caving again!
He's been several times to cave and cave dive in Languedoc, where there's much that he'd like to revisit and more that he has still to do.
Clive's speciality is NOT canoeing....pictured here on - soon to become in the Ardeche river, with Christine's Mum, Pauline.

Elaine Hill.

Despite failing to have a career in the ballet world, due to inconveniently timed injuries, Elaine did eventually succeed in working in the theatre – albeit one that involved surgical instruments and anaesthetic gases. She has also spent many years of her life Morris dancing and having a ‘paid hobby’ as a semi-professional musician, which has got her acquainted with an interesting assortment of people and places. She eventually felt the need for a dose of sanity and normal life which prompted her to become involved in caving and cave diving. She only realised her error of judgement too late. Being small she has found that caving can sometimes be a particularly hazardous pastime as larger folk are apt to shove her into spaces where they don’t fit and from which they are unable to extract her again. She seems to have an affinity for parts of the globe where most people consider the weather to be a little depressing with the Faroe Islands and northern Scandinavia being preferred places for walking and escaping from day-to-day life.
Elaine has been caving for more years than she cares to remember and diving – both caves and open water - for slightly less. She caves and dives regularly in the UK and has also undertaken caving/cave diving trips abroad to France, Mallorca, Thailand, Laos and New Zealand. This will be her third visit to the Hérault region of France.


Tim Webber is a Sheffield based caver and diver. The efforts to keep his diving and caving separate failed a few years ago, as he started going cave diving “just to get it out of my system”. That failed and he carried on.

Happy in the poor conditions of Derbyshire mines and caves, but also enjoys “going on holiday to be able to see stuff” in France and Malta. However, he can still normally find something small and unpleasant to insert himself into.

A recent trip to Morocco provided some dives that were both nice and clear and small and blind within the space of 4 m.

He’s getting more into mountain biking, but refuses to use the phrase “totally rad dude” or jump over anything bigger than a brick. Other hobbies include removing people who are stuck under gritstone boulders.

Jarvist Moore Frost has always loved water. Living near the sea he sailed, swam, paddled and snorkelled as soon as his legs and arms were coordinated enough. On holiday in the Isles of Scilly he first went caving - crossing the underground lake in Piper's Hole with a beach inflatable.
Moving to London, and thus away from the sea, he discovered Imperial College Caving Club, which offered a similar level of discomfort to ocean sailing but which was far more compatible with doing something else during the week. With them he has invested eight years in the exploration of the deep alpine caves of Tolminski Migovec, Slovenia - a project which culminated in 2012 with the connection of two large systems and the forging of the longest cave in Slovenia.

Diving was always a plan for life, and after having bottomed one too many cave to stand at the sump pool and contemplate the passage continuing where he could not, cave diving was moved firmly up the agenda.

Considering that all of his spare time is spent trying to get further and deeper away from daylight, it is perhaps surprising to discover that he works as a scientist designing solar cells.

He's always happiest when he's contributing to exploration, whether that's in the glory of the pushing front, photographing fins, lugging gear or crunching survey data.

András Kuti - nicknamed ’Bendy’, has always been interested in sport since he was born. He began with Judo, then went on to kayaking , climbing, parachuting, and of course, diving. He started snorkelling and all other water based activities at an early age. After all this, during his summer holidays he took a Padi Open water course and has not stopped diving since. He trained and took many courses to become an instructor. His focus was on wrecks, where he found narrow, technical and overhead environments. He always looked for engine rooms, corridors and dark places. In 2010 he toured Mexico and caught the bug in Angelita Cenote in no time. After this, he looked for opportunities to dive in caves and took a TDI cave course with some Hungarian cave divers, but it was notwhat he was looking for. Besides, wreck divingwas still calling him but he was limited by depth. He searched for technical diving opportunities andspent ages making decisions to take courses had no trust in. Luckily he foundGlobal Underwater Explorers (GUE) and tried the Fundamentals course and passed. On just his second day he knew this was it ! This was what he needed and wanted to do in the future. Sincethen he took Tech1 with Richard Walker, Cave 1 with David Rhea and is shortly takingTech2 and Cave 2. He is also working towards being a GUE instructor. He likes recording films of dives, taking pictures and enjoying all of the fun after dives!

Nathan Boinet

Nathan is the local activist and senior member of one of the caving clubs of the area, gsispeleo.

He has been immensley supportive of UK cavers and divers when they visit the area and his interests lie firmly in cave exploration. The dedicated cavers such as Nathan spend several evenings a week and every weekend at dig sites, determined to connect cave systems and discover new ones.

Nathan is a cave diver but with a small family and plenty of digging projects on the go, he is often keen to hand over the diving to the UK divers and their 'Techniques Anglaise' (sidemount), which they are more accustomed to.

Jean Tarrit
Jean has been caving in the Languedoc for a very long time and has extensive knowledge of the area. He has a fabulous - and very British - sense of humour and speaks English well, having spent several years in the UK as a chef.
Jean goes to great lengths to help UK divers and is always excited to have us in the Herault to help piece together the cave systems in the region to help uncover the elusive 'Master Cave'.