Kolosy 2010 - report

The 13th National Meeting of Travellers, Sailors and Mountaineers has come to an end. Kolosy 2010 took place between 11-13 March 2011 in the Sports and Entertainment Hall in Gdynia. Every day, 4 thousand people listened to travelers’ stories. This is the highest result in the history of this event.

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Kolosy is getting bigger every year. This year, the organisers prepared 3200 seats, but the auditorium was full all the time. At times, people had to wait in a one-hour queue to get in. During the 3 days there were 90 lectures, during which you could hear amazing stories.

We were most interested in the only lecture this year connected with diving, namely “Riders on the Storm underwater traverse on the Irish plain”. It took place as the second of the Saturday block, starting at 7.20 p.m. Waiting for the lecture on cave diving in Ireland, we listened to Ola Dzik’s story about climbing 5 seven-thousanders in the former Soviet Union and obtaining the title of “Snow Leopard”. The story of conquering the last peak, Pobieda’s Peak, can testify to the great feat achieved by the Polish girl. At the same time, 18 people planned to climb the mountain, but only 15 returned.

Arthur Kozłowski’s presentation begins immediately afterwards. The diver came to Ireland in 2006 and, as he says, had only 13 dives in the warm waters of the Arabian Gulf and a school trip to the Bear Cave.

The area around the town of Gort in the lowlands of Ireland doesn’t look like the sort of place that would be suitable for cave diving. It turns out that underneath the plain is one of the largest cave systems in Europe, most of it still unexplored. The area is crisscrossed by 3 rivers, which, upon reaching the limestone area, completely disappear underground. Artur Kozłowski has embarked on an ambitious project in the area to find a link between the Polltoophill caves in Castletown and Polldeelin caves in Kiltartan on the Gort Plain in County Galway, Ireland.

Initially, the dives were carried out in the vent. They were able to penetrate 400 metres, breaking the record set in this cave by Martyn Farr, a well-known diver and speleologist who taught Kozłowski cave diving. Kozlowski and his partner then spent three weeks looking for a way through. They managed to find a narrow crack in the ceiling, which allowed further exploration of the cave. Unfortunately, the following metres were very difficult, requiring them to squeeze through stones and silt. The depth of the cave was decreasing to 19m and then suddenly dropped to 45m. At this point the cave explored became Ireland’s deepest cave. Each subsequent dive was very hard. During one dive we only managed to move 20-30 metres forward. In addition, visibility in the cave was very poor, with a maximum of 1.5-2 metres, regardless of weather conditions. Eventually, it came to the point where Artur Kozłowski went under water during bad weather and high water levels. In such conditions, there was a stronger current in the cave, on the basis of which he could determine the direction in which to move. After reaching 810 metres, the diver moved into the ponor.

Cave divers avoid diving in ponors. Water flowing underground pushes the diver into the cave, making it difficult to return to the surface and complicating the situation in case of an emergency. Prior to the project, the site had only been dived once. This dive was made by a police diver, in search of a murder weapon. Assisted by 3 men at the time, he turned back at a depth of 20m when he felt the current gaining strength and starting to pull him deeper and deeper. Artur Kozłowski waited for a few weeks without rain before diving for safety. As it turned out, the cave here was descending very quickly to a depth of 40 metres. The corridor was in places even 20 metres wide and 3 to 6 metres high. Visibility, as before, was terrible.

During the winter, Galway County was hit by flooding. As it turned out in the spring, the masses of water tore away the guard rails that had been put in place. It took several weeks to put them back in place. In places where the ropes were not torn off, they had to be dug out from under layers of silt. In 2009 Kozłowski reached 1km into the cave. The depth was often 50-60 metres. Dives lasting 5 to 6 hours were made using a rebreather. In the same year, he returned to the cave, but failed to go further.

In 2009, Ireland was hit by the worst flooding in 50 years. After the water level dropped, the railing in the cave had to be repaired again, which took several weeks. Finally, on the 7th of July 2010, Artur Kozłowski managed to find the railing that had been taken out of the cave earlier, and in this way completed a 2.4km long traverse.

Artur Kozłowski was awarded the Kolos prize for the greatest achievement in cave exploration in 2010.

Below is the trailer for the film from the “Riders on the storm” project

Other Kolosses received:
– Super Kolos 2010 – Piotr Pustelnik, for reaching the Himalayan crown,
– Kolos in the mountaineering category – Simone Moro, Denis Urubko, Cory Richards, for the first winter ascent of Gasherbrum II,
– Kolos in the feat of the year category – Sylwester Czerwiński for the two and a half years long expedition “Kropla Świata” during which he travelled alone 50 thousand kilometres,
– Kolos in the travel category – Magdalena Skopek, for the journey beyond the Arctic Circle,
– Kolos in the sailing category – Capt. Jerzy Radomski, for a 32-year voyage on the yacht “Czarny Diament”, during which he covered 240 thousand sea miles.