Christine Grosart

Chris Grosart lives and breathes caves.
She is a full time Paramedic, based in the south west of England, UK. When she is not attending to emergencies, her whole life is dedicated to cave diving, exploration and any excuse to get underground, up onto a mountain or underwater – or all three!

Chris left school at 16 to pursue a career in horse racing spanning 10 years, the highlight of which was riding as an amateur jockey in steeplechases. She studied for her A-levels in English language, French and Philosophy and embarked on a degree in Geosciences with the Open University in her spare time, whilst working for several top racehorse trainers.
A lifelong family connection with caves led her to take up caving aged 14 with a club and a change of career to fund it! Both her parents were open water divers and her Uncle has been caving for 50 years. Her mother ran the Wessex Cave Club bunkhouse for 7 years – almost certainly so that she could keep an eye on her daughter (!) and she can often be seen underground carrying diving equipment for Chris.

Chris learnt the basics of scuba aged 14 with her mother’s BSAC club, but chose racehorses instead and didn’t dive again until joining the Cave Diving Group in 2005. She is a qualified cave diver with the CDG and IANTD and is an active CDG mentor in the UK. She began diving with GUE last year. In 2009 Chris visited the far reaches of Wookey Hole cave in Somerset, England, achieving a new female cave diving record in the UK. A year later she finished a degree in Paramedic Science.

Chris is one of a very small number of cave divers who are equally happy 'resurgence flopping' in the gin clear vistas of Florida and France with multiple stages, trimix and scooters - as much as UK mud sumps, involving arduous caving on the way to and beyond the dives.
She has been involved in her own cave exploration in France as well as supporting top divers, such as Rick Stanton and John Volanthen in pushing the limits of caves such as the Fontaine de Truffe and the Marche-Pied.

http://www.cavediving.org.uk/