- Messages
- 93,449
- Reaction score
- 91,765
- Location
- On the Fun Side of Trump's Wall
- # of dives
- 2500 - 4999
After a six month layoff, I got my first day back in the cave today. Arrived in JAX yesterday around noon ... after a long day on short sleep ... and pulled into The Outpost around 4 PM, having arrived by way of High Springs to pick up some tanks and do some shopping. Slept pretty good last night.
Woke up this morning around 4:30 feeling like a kid on Christmas Day ... just rarin' to get up and go. My buddies, Dave and Mark, had already been here a couple days, and they were sleeping in. The wait was killin' me.
Our plan was for today to be a "warmup" for me to get my head back into the caves before my Full Cave class, which starts tomorrow. We were heading to Peacock, and thinking to do both sides of the Grand Traverse ... starting with the Orange Grove to Challenge side, and then heading off to P1 to see how far we could go.
Things didn't exactly go according to plan.
We got to the site, geared up and got in the water. Dave had replaced a HP hose after yesterday's dives, and had a leak around his SPG. He decided that we shouldn't wait for him to fix it, and told me and Mark to go ahead with our dive ... which we did.
I was leading, since I wanted some reel work before the class. Putting in the reel went OK, although I did have a minor case of "tunnel vision" and missed some opportunities for better tie-offs. But overall I kept it low, tight to the wall, and was fairly pleased with myself ... it's a lot easier when there's little to no flow. We tied in, dropped our O2 bottles near the sign, and off we went.
The first 20 minutes or so were a little shakey ... not for any reason other than myself, having not been in a cave for six months, coming down with a case of "tell me again why I'm doing this" ... that little devil sitting on my shoulder was messing with my mind, and I could tell I was all tensed up and working at it harder than I should be. But by the time we were six or seven hundred feet in I was remembering that I'd been here before and had a good time, and I could feel my breathing rate calming down as muscles relaxed into a rhythm of kick, glide, kick, glide ... slow down enough to feel the joy of being here. A little catfish swam by, looking totally bewildered ... poor thing, I wished he had the sense to just follow the gold line out. Then we hit a section where there were, literally, hundreds of little arthopods swimming up out of the mud ... tiny little half-inch wormlike critters swimming straight up ... and I stopped, put out my finger, and let one swim into me just to see what it would do. It bounced off ... probably never realizing that wasn't a rock it just swam into. I was fascinated ... and stayed put until Mark, who was behind me, signaled asking me if I was OK. I returned signal and started moving again.
Our plan had been to go past Challenge if gas allowed, and to drop a cookie at our turn point, but at 100 feet from the sink I checked my gas and decided that I was close enough to thirds that there wasn't much point in going past it ... so I gave Mark the signal that we'd surface at Challenge and put a spool on the end of the line ... and up we went for a really nice, relaxing 20 minute surface interval. Life was good.
As we started back, Mark had just gotten down to the turn and I was about six feet below the surface pulling the spool when he signaled for me to go back up ... a team of three was coming in, and we decided to wait to see what they were going to do before heading out. They surfaced next to us, and we bid them a nice dive and headed back.
The dive back was real relaxing. There ain't much flow to worry about, but what little was there was helping us along ... kick, glide, relax ... the trip back was quicker and more relaxing than the trip in ... and before I was really ready for it, we were back at the sign. Clipped in my O2 bottle, pulled the reel, and headed for the entrance.
Although with the depths and times we didn't really have any deco obligation, we still opted to do five minutes on O2, thinking that it couldn't hurt. We found Dave waiting for us when we got out ... all fixed up and ready for a dive.
About five minutes into our surface interval, one of the favorite people I've met in this caving activity ... Carl Griffing ... pulled in. Carl's from Texas, and has been down here for about six weeks, heading home tomorrow. He'd stopped by The Outpost to settle his bill, heard that I was at Peacock, and drove over to see me before heading home. That was awful nice, and my only disappointment was that I wouldn't get a chance to dive with him on this trip. But we took a long, nearly two hour SI before he finally headed out.
At that point, we decided to change plans and go do the same dive again, since Dave didn't get a chance to do it in the morning, and I said I like the dive and wouldn't mind doing it twice in the same day.
But we were only about 20 minutes into the second dive when Dave, who was in the #3 spot, got our attention and signaled a turnaround. I couldn't discern exactly what the problem was, but after ascertaining that it wasn't an emergency we dutifully turned the dive and headed out. The dive was uneventful, but about 10 seconds after I pulled the reel ... out in the basin, my primary light died. Hmmm ... what's up with that?? I turned it back on again, and ascended to 20 feet ... about a minute later it died again. This time, since I could see just fine without it, I flipped the switch off and stowed it. We ascended after a short, 40 minute dive, and Dave said he was having some physical discomfort that was taking his head out of the game, and he hoped we didn't mind but he just wasn't comfortable continuing. Nope, I don't mind at all ... I want dive buddies who'll make that call when they're not bringing their A-game. Besides, at least that way we weren't a thousand feet into the cave when my light died.
Actually, the thing I really need to figure out is how to not take so much duckweed with me when I get outta the water ... I came out completely green, and the stuff was falling of in clumps as I headed up the stairs. Man, that stuff gets into everything.
Overall, it wasn't the day we'd planned, but I got a bit more than 2 hours in the cave today, and that's a good warmup before class. Right now I'm feelin' pretty good and looking forward to tomorrow, when I'll get on with the class that brought me down here.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Woke up this morning around 4:30 feeling like a kid on Christmas Day ... just rarin' to get up and go. My buddies, Dave and Mark, had already been here a couple days, and they were sleeping in. The wait was killin' me.
Our plan was for today to be a "warmup" for me to get my head back into the caves before my Full Cave class, which starts tomorrow. We were heading to Peacock, and thinking to do both sides of the Grand Traverse ... starting with the Orange Grove to Challenge side, and then heading off to P1 to see how far we could go.
Things didn't exactly go according to plan.
We got to the site, geared up and got in the water. Dave had replaced a HP hose after yesterday's dives, and had a leak around his SPG. He decided that we shouldn't wait for him to fix it, and told me and Mark to go ahead with our dive ... which we did.
I was leading, since I wanted some reel work before the class. Putting in the reel went OK, although I did have a minor case of "tunnel vision" and missed some opportunities for better tie-offs. But overall I kept it low, tight to the wall, and was fairly pleased with myself ... it's a lot easier when there's little to no flow. We tied in, dropped our O2 bottles near the sign, and off we went.
The first 20 minutes or so were a little shakey ... not for any reason other than myself, having not been in a cave for six months, coming down with a case of "tell me again why I'm doing this" ... that little devil sitting on my shoulder was messing with my mind, and I could tell I was all tensed up and working at it harder than I should be. But by the time we were six or seven hundred feet in I was remembering that I'd been here before and had a good time, and I could feel my breathing rate calming down as muscles relaxed into a rhythm of kick, glide, kick, glide ... slow down enough to feel the joy of being here. A little catfish swam by, looking totally bewildered ... poor thing, I wished he had the sense to just follow the gold line out. Then we hit a section where there were, literally, hundreds of little arthopods swimming up out of the mud ... tiny little half-inch wormlike critters swimming straight up ... and I stopped, put out my finger, and let one swim into me just to see what it would do. It bounced off ... probably never realizing that wasn't a rock it just swam into. I was fascinated ... and stayed put until Mark, who was behind me, signaled asking me if I was OK. I returned signal and started moving again.
Our plan had been to go past Challenge if gas allowed, and to drop a cookie at our turn point, but at 100 feet from the sink I checked my gas and decided that I was close enough to thirds that there wasn't much point in going past it ... so I gave Mark the signal that we'd surface at Challenge and put a spool on the end of the line ... and up we went for a really nice, relaxing 20 minute surface interval. Life was good.
As we started back, Mark had just gotten down to the turn and I was about six feet below the surface pulling the spool when he signaled for me to go back up ... a team of three was coming in, and we decided to wait to see what they were going to do before heading out. They surfaced next to us, and we bid them a nice dive and headed back.
The dive back was real relaxing. There ain't much flow to worry about, but what little was there was helping us along ... kick, glide, relax ... the trip back was quicker and more relaxing than the trip in ... and before I was really ready for it, we were back at the sign. Clipped in my O2 bottle, pulled the reel, and headed for the entrance.
Although with the depths and times we didn't really have any deco obligation, we still opted to do five minutes on O2, thinking that it couldn't hurt. We found Dave waiting for us when we got out ... all fixed up and ready for a dive.
About five minutes into our surface interval, one of the favorite people I've met in this caving activity ... Carl Griffing ... pulled in. Carl's from Texas, and has been down here for about six weeks, heading home tomorrow. He'd stopped by The Outpost to settle his bill, heard that I was at Peacock, and drove over to see me before heading home. That was awful nice, and my only disappointment was that I wouldn't get a chance to dive with him on this trip. But we took a long, nearly two hour SI before he finally headed out.
At that point, we decided to change plans and go do the same dive again, since Dave didn't get a chance to do it in the morning, and I said I like the dive and wouldn't mind doing it twice in the same day.
But we were only about 20 minutes into the second dive when Dave, who was in the #3 spot, got our attention and signaled a turnaround. I couldn't discern exactly what the problem was, but after ascertaining that it wasn't an emergency we dutifully turned the dive and headed out. The dive was uneventful, but about 10 seconds after I pulled the reel ... out in the basin, my primary light died. Hmmm ... what's up with that?? I turned it back on again, and ascended to 20 feet ... about a minute later it died again. This time, since I could see just fine without it, I flipped the switch off and stowed it. We ascended after a short, 40 minute dive, and Dave said he was having some physical discomfort that was taking his head out of the game, and he hoped we didn't mind but he just wasn't comfortable continuing. Nope, I don't mind at all ... I want dive buddies who'll make that call when they're not bringing their A-game. Besides, at least that way we weren't a thousand feet into the cave when my light died.
Actually, the thing I really need to figure out is how to not take so much duckweed with me when I get outta the water ... I came out completely green, and the stuff was falling of in clumps as I headed up the stairs. Man, that stuff gets into everything.
Overall, it wasn't the day we'd planned, but I got a bit more than 2 hours in the cave today, and that's a good warmup before class. Right now I'm feelin' pretty good and looking forward to tomorrow, when I'll get on with the class that brought me down here.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
