wjefferis
Contributor
I made it out to Marianna early this morning (2-20-10) making it to Edd's at 7:30. I splashed my tanks into the fill bucket and was greated by a new employee that Edd hired to help him not run around like a chicken with his head cut off. The new guy (didn't get his name) was very helpful and even carried my tanks back to my truck. The original plan was to meet up with Denisegg, GlenFWB and Robert Neto Chipola Divers - Home for a few dives. Unfortunately, Denise and Glen couldn't make it so it just ended up being Robert and I. Once at JB I took my tanks over to the stagging area and saw some huge fish in the spring basin. Once I walked up the the diving platform I was amazed to see about a dozen very large fresh water fish hanging out right at the mouth of the cavern. I have no idea what kind of fish they were, but they were about the size of amberjack (no kidding). They were definately the largest freshwater fish I have ever seen.
Robert was my cavern instructor and since it was just going to be us two diving he offered to take me on a "intro to cave experience" dive. Since he is going to be my instructor for my up coming intro class, I jumped at the opportunity to get a little experience prior to class. The flow was definately up and I found myself huffing and puffing on the way down the chimney. Once in the first big room I was able to get out of the flow a bit more and was finally able to slow my breathing to a more relaxed pace. I ended up turning the dive on 1/6ths at the end of the second breakdown (something like 790'-800'p). Once turned around, I only had to use my fins to keep pointed in the right direction as the flow was taking care of the rest as I enjoyed a nice drift dive back. While drifting back Robert pointed out Chicken Head Rock which was cool to see as I have heard Glen and Denise talk about it. After making a slow ascent back up the chimney we drifted through the cavern zone to do our 3 minute safety stop and then exited. I haven't downloaded my computer yet, but I believe we ended up with a 45 minute dive with a max depth of 97 FFW.
Once back at the staging area I was surprised to see all of the divers who had decented upon JB while we were under. It was cool to see all the rebreather/scooter teams and others gearing up. During our surface interval Robert told me how to better use the cave to duck out of the flow and gave me some useful tips on how to improve my kick. So after about an hour and half surface interval we splashed for our second dive. During this dive I put Robert's advice into action and starting looking ahead and using the exposed rocks in front of me better to avoid the flow. This technique worked great and allowed me to keep my breathing much closer to normal. I decided not to push all the way to 1/6ths on the second dive and turned at 700'p. Once back to the start/end of the gold line, I pulled my reel and had an interesting time trying to reel while at the same time attempting to not get shot out of the mouth of the cavern like a rocket. I ended up getting the job done, but it wasn't pretty.
Today I ended up with one not so great thing and one really great thing happening during these two dives. The bad thing was that I now believe that Robert has ruined my ability to just enjoy cavern dives as I now long to do more intro level dives (evil plan maybe
). The great thing was that on my second dive of the day I finally logged in dive number 200 !!!!!!!! :wave:
I just wanted to make sure to say thank you to Robert for a great experience and a super fun day of diving.
Robert was my cavern instructor and since it was just going to be us two diving he offered to take me on a "intro to cave experience" dive. Since he is going to be my instructor for my up coming intro class, I jumped at the opportunity to get a little experience prior to class. The flow was definately up and I found myself huffing and puffing on the way down the chimney. Once in the first big room I was able to get out of the flow a bit more and was finally able to slow my breathing to a more relaxed pace. I ended up turning the dive on 1/6ths at the end of the second breakdown (something like 790'-800'p). Once turned around, I only had to use my fins to keep pointed in the right direction as the flow was taking care of the rest as I enjoyed a nice drift dive back. While drifting back Robert pointed out Chicken Head Rock which was cool to see as I have heard Glen and Denise talk about it. After making a slow ascent back up the chimney we drifted through the cavern zone to do our 3 minute safety stop and then exited. I haven't downloaded my computer yet, but I believe we ended up with a 45 minute dive with a max depth of 97 FFW.
Once back at the staging area I was surprised to see all of the divers who had decented upon JB while we were under. It was cool to see all the rebreather/scooter teams and others gearing up. During our surface interval Robert told me how to better use the cave to duck out of the flow and gave me some useful tips on how to improve my kick. So after about an hour and half surface interval we splashed for our second dive. During this dive I put Robert's advice into action and starting looking ahead and using the exposed rocks in front of me better to avoid the flow. This technique worked great and allowed me to keep my breathing much closer to normal. I decided not to push all the way to 1/6ths on the second dive and turned at 700'p. Once back to the start/end of the gold line, I pulled my reel and had an interesting time trying to reel while at the same time attempting to not get shot out of the mouth of the cavern like a rocket. I ended up getting the job done, but it wasn't pretty.
Today I ended up with one not so great thing and one really great thing happening during these two dives. The bad thing was that I now believe that Robert has ruined my ability to just enjoy cavern dives as I now long to do more intro level dives (evil plan maybe
). The great thing was that on my second dive of the day I finally logged in dive number 200 !!!!!!!! :wave:I just wanted to make sure to say thank you to Robert for a great experience and a super fun day of diving.
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