Madison Blue

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Tickler

Contributor
Messages
85
Reaction score
20
Location
Florida
# of dives
500 - 999
Just wanted to give you guys a heads up that Madison Blue is open for diving and the waters are clear but... the flow is much stronger than the main spring at manatee and you will not get anywhere fast without a modified jet engine as a DPV. My buddy hit thirds before we got to the sign in the horseshoe room- it was hard working getting that far.

If anyone else dives it, I would be interested to hear an update.
 
Just wanted to give you guys a heads up that Madison Blue is open for diving and the waters are clear but... the flow is much stronger than the main spring at manatee and you will not get anywhere fast without a modified jet engine as a DPV. My buddy hit thirds before we got to the sign in the horseshoe room- it was hard working getting that far.

If anyone else dives it, I would be interested to hear an update.

Madison is a magnitude flow 1 springs,so it should have strong flow,but right now on steroids. I dove the place a few times for research/data collection before it opened. You can go in at Martz which will give you a reduction in flow,but you still have the high flow once you hit the main conduit. Upstream from Martz is very sandy and large,so it will be good lesson in reading the cave. Godzilla will afford some flow reduction,but there has been a sand shift at the first 75',so backmounters will encounter a sidemount restriction.
 
Cross posted from CDF:

We were there yesterday. It was a gorgeous day and only one other team was there. The park filled in the sink hole at the entrance, so that should help with the traffic flow into the park. Be sure to check out the lightning strike on the pine tree right next to it.

It is still closed to swimmers, so we felt really guilty surrounded by adorable little kids wanting to get wet while we stood in the nice cool water gearing up.

The basin is very clear except the area right near the rabbit hole, which is blowing dark. And by blowing, I mean "THIS CAVE DOES NOT WANT YOU AND YOU WILL BE REJECTED!" blowing.
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The flow is definitely up, but the clarity, except as mentioned above, is improving nicely.

The basin is coated in sand without any of the pretty blowing greens we are normally treated to, and the fish are sand digging, looking for goodies, I suppose.

It is a great time to work on your cave reading skills (yes, there are paths around the worst of the flow) and your pull-and-pull-no-DON-T-LET-GO-OH-CRAP-SMACK skills (Note, do not follow too closely to your buddy unless you like the taste of fins
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)

Dive safe, y'all!
Shirley
 
Yes it is a very good thing but high flow really isn't much fun to swim in. :) I hear that Jackson Blue is flowing so hard that all but the highest powered scooters are getting stopped in their tracks.
 
I hear that Jackson Blue is flowing so hard that all but the highest powered scooters are getting stopped in their tracks.

Funny you mention that. I have dove JB for 20 years,and during the 90's to early 2000's it was always high flow,so we were really forced to learn the cave and read the environment for any distance. Recently I did a solo dive there to test out s new drysuit. I was on LP 95s in sidemount,with a bag suit,and I went 1700' back,and turned out of boredom,not gas. While I was decoing I watched two guys on Magnus get blown out 3 times,before finally making it in. Their mistake was they were going down the center of the cave,where the flow is strongest. Scooters are nice,but you still want to evade flow to advance your penetration,so going where there is low flow is always to your advantage,even when driving a muscle car of a scooter. What has happened is many people learned to cave dive during the drought era when there were extremely low flows,and now they are being challanged with high flow caves. This is a good lesson,and parking the scooters and learning how to swim and read the cave is a survival skill. For example,scooters are always considered the weakest link,I know I have been left stranded several thousand feet back a couple times. What if you are scootering in syphon like Morgan and the scooter takes a crap. Even if you have a buddy to tow you, knowing how to get out of flow,and reading the cave become a survival skill. Me,personally,welcome high flow,because #1 indicates spring/aquifer health,but #2 keeps my swimming skills honed in and sharp.
 
Good post! That's me...started my cave diving in low flow and had my butt handed to me in JB (everything was flooded that year). We had a good time but we didn't get very far. LOL

I only dived Madison once and I don't remember the flow being an issue.
 
We dove Madison last Monday. I had never dived the system before and had no frame of reference for the flow, but it was quite brisk. There wasn't much pull-n-glide - just pull, pull, pull. The conditions were nicer along the Godzilla line, and the exit was epic - we were literally spat out into the basin.
 
Yes it is a very good thing but high flow really isn't much fun to swim in. :) I hear that Jackson Blue is flowing so hard that all but the highest powered scooters are getting stopped in their tracks.
If it doesn't kill ya' it'll make you stronger ;-D !!!!!
 
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