SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Preloading the day before always makes for an early departure the next day. Friday afternoon I packed up my backmount double HP130s as well as sidemount AL80s and an AL80 full of 02. I also packed away all the other fixens required for a cave dive. Then I tossed a ladder in for good measure.
GR Sink 6-7-8
Saturday rolled in with fog, and I was up early and on I-10 before 6AM, heading East to Tallahassee to pick up BGillespie before heading to Crawfordville to meet with jmaddox in order to dive GR Sink. The drive over was uneventfull, took ~3.5 hours to Tally, and another 30 minutes(maybe less) to get to Crawfordville where the three of us ate a burger from Hardees. I don't eat at Hardees often, not sure why, the thickburgers are good. When we finished up, we sought out a guide and headed to GR Sink through a criss-cross of dirtroads heading through the woods. The sink was deserted, with an annoying dropoff to the water(where the ladder comes in handy). Ben also brought some rope to aid in water entry and exit. The water itself was obscured completely by duckweed.
After gearing up into drysuits, BGillespie and jmaddox hit the water to cool off as well as check on conditions in water. Visibility appeared to be incredibly bad, but we all agreed to run a line from the surface, and drop down to the top of the debri cone to check on conditions underwater.
Figured I'd dive the backmount HP130s today, more gas the better for a new site, right? BGillespie and I decided to drop down while jmaddox prepared his gear, so we could find out if it was worth us attempting the dive or not before maddox went through the trouble of gearing up. By 10' of depth, the water had cleared(and cooled) to around 30'+ visibility and we thumbed the dive to surface in order to let jmaddox join us. Descending again, we hit the top of the debri cone around 40' and started searching the bottom for signs of cave and/or line. At around 50' I tied off to a tree branch and spotted explorer line. BGillespie wasn't feeling it and thumbed the dive, without question, we all surfaced as a team. After a bit of chatting, jmaddox and I dropped back down the classic hourglass shaped sinkhole. We relocated the line we found earlier and I tied into it. The two of us followed it down to a max depth of 72' where it gets incredibly tangled in a downed tree. Conditions were deteriorating from debri dropping in from OW(dislodged from our entry point) and percolation. The tree the line was wrapped in was covered in silt as well as an orange organic matter. Whatever it was, it was poofy, along with the silt. I thought about how difficult it would be to follow our current line out in a no visibility situation all tangled within the tree, and thumbed the dive. There was another line running, seemingly, parrallel to our line about 10' away that looks to run cleaner. We will probably check this one out on our next visit here. The sink has alot of potential, just gonna have to take some more time to look around. Total bottom time was under 30 minutes.
After gearing down and loading the vehicles back up, we decided to go take a look at Church Sink. I had passed it on several occassions, but never bothered to go take a look at it. Jmaddox hadn't seen it yet either, so it was new turf for the both of us - too bad its on private property and diving it is frowned upon. The sink has quite a bit of trash in and around it, otherwise its quite picturesque considering the amount of karst formations surrounding it.
We headed south, for the cookout at the WCDC meeting. Had a bunch of great food and the meeting pulled a pretty decent crowd. Kelly Jessop spoke to us about the NSS CDS, cave conservation, some of the headaches on accessing new sites, along with several other workings. It was a great presentation and I think everyone came away with alot more knowledge.
More to come.
GR Sink 6-7-8
Saturday rolled in with fog, and I was up early and on I-10 before 6AM, heading East to Tallahassee to pick up BGillespie before heading to Crawfordville to meet with jmaddox in order to dive GR Sink. The drive over was uneventfull, took ~3.5 hours to Tally, and another 30 minutes(maybe less) to get to Crawfordville where the three of us ate a burger from Hardees. I don't eat at Hardees often, not sure why, the thickburgers are good. When we finished up, we sought out a guide and headed to GR Sink through a criss-cross of dirtroads heading through the woods. The sink was deserted, with an annoying dropoff to the water(where the ladder comes in handy). Ben also brought some rope to aid in water entry and exit. The water itself was obscured completely by duckweed.
After gearing up into drysuits, BGillespie and jmaddox hit the water to cool off as well as check on conditions in water. Visibility appeared to be incredibly bad, but we all agreed to run a line from the surface, and drop down to the top of the debri cone to check on conditions underwater.
Figured I'd dive the backmount HP130s today, more gas the better for a new site, right? BGillespie and I decided to drop down while jmaddox prepared his gear, so we could find out if it was worth us attempting the dive or not before maddox went through the trouble of gearing up. By 10' of depth, the water had cleared(and cooled) to around 30'+ visibility and we thumbed the dive to surface in order to let jmaddox join us. Descending again, we hit the top of the debri cone around 40' and started searching the bottom for signs of cave and/or line. At around 50' I tied off to a tree branch and spotted explorer line. BGillespie wasn't feeling it and thumbed the dive, without question, we all surfaced as a team. After a bit of chatting, jmaddox and I dropped back down the classic hourglass shaped sinkhole. We relocated the line we found earlier and I tied into it. The two of us followed it down to a max depth of 72' where it gets incredibly tangled in a downed tree. Conditions were deteriorating from debri dropping in from OW(dislodged from our entry point) and percolation. The tree the line was wrapped in was covered in silt as well as an orange organic matter. Whatever it was, it was poofy, along with the silt. I thought about how difficult it would be to follow our current line out in a no visibility situation all tangled within the tree, and thumbed the dive. There was another line running, seemingly, parrallel to our line about 10' away that looks to run cleaner. We will probably check this one out on our next visit here. The sink has alot of potential, just gonna have to take some more time to look around. Total bottom time was under 30 minutes.
After gearing down and loading the vehicles back up, we decided to go take a look at Church Sink. I had passed it on several occassions, but never bothered to go take a look at it. Jmaddox hadn't seen it yet either, so it was new turf for the both of us - too bad its on private property and diving it is frowned upon. The sink has quite a bit of trash in and around it, otherwise its quite picturesque considering the amount of karst formations surrounding it.
We headed south, for the cookout at the WCDC meeting. Had a bunch of great food and the meeting pulled a pretty decent crowd. Kelly Jessop spoke to us about the NSS CDS, cave conservation, some of the headaches on accessing new sites, along with several other workings. It was a great presentation and I think everyone came away with alot more knowledge.
More to come.
probably the easiest way! LOL
