SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
1-3-9 River Cave Report
Shagman picked me up early on a foggy Saturday morning. He was on time, 5:15AM, dunno what came over him. We loaded up the Matrix, which can swallow dive gear by the ton, and headed East for Mary Ester. At GLENFWB's pad, we loaded everything into the A-Team van and headed further East in search of flooded cave. It was overcast, but warm and we were all pretty excited to start the year out in a good way. Hit up Cave Adventurers with some new yearly passes to the park(hit the Sheriff's Dept on the way) for some fills and misc gear. Had some loose plans to dive with Edd, but his bass boat was on the fritz, so shot Dive_Aholic a call and firmed up my backup plan(my backup-backup plan would have me still diving, at JB). Rob was ready to go though, and he and Jen picked me up at the park and we headed West.
The boat launch was a bit flooded out and the water was tannic, but we figured it'd be worth the short ride to just go out and see what we could see. After the three of us loaded up our gear and made the short trip over to the basin, which is basically an alcove as the spring discharges for the most part directly into the waterway, we found nothing but tannic water with a slight slick from a boil welling up lightly despite the high water level. We tied off to a tree in the flooded floodplain and geared up in better than waste deep water(an area that was very much dry the last time I was onsite). Descending as a group, I promptly lost Rob and Jen as I followed the bottom down to the ledge and the cave entrance. Usually, I can see daylight clearly, but only a very very faint red glow could be identified due to overcast conditions and heavy tannic flooding. I tied off to the cave line and swam shallower into the basin and tied off to a tree limb, then surfaced to regroup with the Dive_Aholics. We headed back down, this time staying together and made it to the little cave entrance and into the cavern, then down a bedding plane at a downward angle to a large-ish room where the line T's twice(I call it the junction room). I showed Rob some fossils on the right first, then we headed towards the main passage, which is low, silty, with white limestone and a little bit of flow. On my first cave dive onsite, we went about 250'-300'p, and turned in order to learn the cave slowly. This time we penetrated to about 500', just after messily squeezing through a low restriction as it ducked into a large(for this cave) room. At this point, I turned it, knowing full well if we continued, I'd have to go back through the restriction blind. I took advantage of the big room we had to turn around cleanly, and go back through that restriction, with atleast a fraction of visibility. The rest of the trip back was in zero visibility(I say that, but I had a pocket or two of 6"-12" of visibility that lasted a few feet). Progressing slowly allows you to memorize better where line placements are and where defining features of the cave lie. I had a pretty good idea where I was in the cave throughout the 400'+ of zero visibility passage traversed on the exit. Rob was at the 2nd T waiting for me when I broke out the main passage into the junction room. At this point we had visibility again and made our exit into some cold river water for a quick safety stop and final ascent. Had a dive time of 43 minutes with a max depth of 62'.
We headed to a different launch afterwards, sans gear, and took the boat to another spring to just check out. It was a fun little trip, that ended up being the luckiest, unlucky trips ever! Rob has some great pics and his dive report up here. All I've got to add is that he'll use any excuse to get a bigger motor!
Met back up with Glen and Shagman at the hotel and we hit up Old Mexico with cmufieldhockey and mos-dav. As always, friggin awesome! As always, I made fun of Betty Crocker and Jason Bateman before I promptly went to sleep before everyone else - LOL.
Shagman picked me up early on a foggy Saturday morning. He was on time, 5:15AM, dunno what came over him. We loaded up the Matrix, which can swallow dive gear by the ton, and headed East for Mary Ester. At GLENFWB's pad, we loaded everything into the A-Team van and headed further East in search of flooded cave. It was overcast, but warm and we were all pretty excited to start the year out in a good way. Hit up Cave Adventurers with some new yearly passes to the park(hit the Sheriff's Dept on the way) for some fills and misc gear. Had some loose plans to dive with Edd, but his bass boat was on the fritz, so shot Dive_Aholic a call and firmed up my backup plan(my backup-backup plan would have me still diving, at JB). Rob was ready to go though, and he and Jen picked me up at the park and we headed West.
The boat launch was a bit flooded out and the water was tannic, but we figured it'd be worth the short ride to just go out and see what we could see. After the three of us loaded up our gear and made the short trip over to the basin, which is basically an alcove as the spring discharges for the most part directly into the waterway, we found nothing but tannic water with a slight slick from a boil welling up lightly despite the high water level. We tied off to a tree in the flooded floodplain and geared up in better than waste deep water(an area that was very much dry the last time I was onsite). Descending as a group, I promptly lost Rob and Jen as I followed the bottom down to the ledge and the cave entrance. Usually, I can see daylight clearly, but only a very very faint red glow could be identified due to overcast conditions and heavy tannic flooding. I tied off to the cave line and swam shallower into the basin and tied off to a tree limb, then surfaced to regroup with the Dive_Aholics. We headed back down, this time staying together and made it to the little cave entrance and into the cavern, then down a bedding plane at a downward angle to a large-ish room where the line T's twice(I call it the junction room). I showed Rob some fossils on the right first, then we headed towards the main passage, which is low, silty, with white limestone and a little bit of flow. On my first cave dive onsite, we went about 250'-300'p, and turned in order to learn the cave slowly. This time we penetrated to about 500', just after messily squeezing through a low restriction as it ducked into a large(for this cave) room. At this point, I turned it, knowing full well if we continued, I'd have to go back through the restriction blind. I took advantage of the big room we had to turn around cleanly, and go back through that restriction, with atleast a fraction of visibility. The rest of the trip back was in zero visibility(I say that, but I had a pocket or two of 6"-12" of visibility that lasted a few feet). Progressing slowly allows you to memorize better where line placements are and where defining features of the cave lie. I had a pretty good idea where I was in the cave throughout the 400'+ of zero visibility passage traversed on the exit. Rob was at the 2nd T waiting for me when I broke out the main passage into the junction room. At this point we had visibility again and made our exit into some cold river water for a quick safety stop and final ascent. Had a dive time of 43 minutes with a max depth of 62'.
We headed to a different launch afterwards, sans gear, and took the boat to another spring to just check out. It was a fun little trip, that ended up being the luckiest, unlucky trips ever! Rob has some great pics and his dive report up here. All I've got to add is that he'll use any excuse to get a bigger motor!
Met back up with Glen and Shagman at the hotel and we hit up Old Mexico with cmufieldhockey and mos-dav. As always, friggin awesome! As always, I made fun of Betty Crocker and Jason Bateman before I promptly went to sleep before everyone else - LOL.
I brought the camera with me on our trip, but left it in the van(no idea why?). 
