Blue Hole now advertised on the interstate as a swimming spot.

[BigBubbaJ]

This isn't great for divers. Means lots of swimming and jumping traffic now all the time and I hear it's pretty packed with non local swimmers now.

Shame.

[video]https://youtu.be/BHZvWzWInWc[/video]

 

[soonerwink]

Are they charging the swimmers? I was there 2 years ago and there was a lot of swimmers, even on the night dive. They did not charge the swimmers, but they do charge the divers.

 

[BigBubbaJ]

Are they charging the swimmers? I was there 2 years ago and there was a lot of swimmers, even on the night dive. They did not charge the swimmers, but they do charge the divers.

I've never personally seen swimmers after dark.

 

[KevinNM]

They charge everyone $5 for parking (or $20/year), though they don't hit up people who park next to the building. Stella said they are now making more money from the swimmers than divers, but come September it will change back.

The the main drawback of the swimmers is the vis, as they knock a lot of junk into the water, though vis at the bottom is fine. The crowding at the stairs is sometimes annoying, but not a big deal.

The $5 ($20/year) diver fee is still pretty reasonable.

 

[boulderjohn]

It's hard to blame them. Anyone who drives around that twon once knows the economy needs any boost it can get. That's what surpsised me about their sudden stopping of the cave opening project. Why go through all of that trouble to open the cave if you are just going to close it back up again as soon as it is opened? Local cave divers would be thrilled not to have to go to Mexico or Florida to get into a cave, and they will be willing to pay to do it. It should be possible to control that access.

 

[WarrenZ]

I still have yet to be asked to pay for parking and have only had about a 50% success rate at paying for a dive permit but they have gotten easier to find the docs permits.

 

[KevinNM]

It's hard to blame them. Anyone who drives around that twon once knows the economy needs any boost it can get. That's what surpsised me about their sudden stopping of the cave opening project. Why go through all of that trouble to open the cave if you are just going to close it back up again as soon as it is opened? Local cave divers would be thrilled not to have to go to Mexico or Florida to get into a cave, and they will be willing to pay to do it. It should be possible to control that access.

Stella told me the new mayor freaked out. The team had all the documentation in order, but Richard didn't tell them about this before he retired. So when they showed up and started doing work again the admin went nuts.

In addition, it appears that nobody in the town government is a diver and they have no idea what makes sense or what would appeal.

 

[boulderjohn]

Stella told me the new mayor freaked out. The team had all the documentation in order, but Richard didn't tell them about this before he retired. So when they showed up and started doing work again the admin went nuts.

In addition, it appears that nobody in the town government is a diver and they have no idea what makes sense or what would appeal.

She told me the same thing. Too bad.

 

[KevinNM]

That's what surprised me about their sudden stopping of the cave opening project. Why go through all of that trouble to open the cave if you are just going to close it back up again as soon as it is opened? Local cave divers would be thrilled not to have to go to Mexico or Florida to get into a cave, and they will be willing to pay to do it. It should be possible to control that access.

That's true, but at this point the system accessible seems pretty small. However if you can get deeper into the system I suspect there are a lot more caves and some of them might also be viable for training. The cave they found isn't viable for training, it's too small and too deep.

The big room being closed off by a boulder shifting is kind of a problem for that, particularly as it seems to be under the parking lot...

The other thing I think the city should do is make arrangements with the owner of Rock Lake to improve that and maybe provide some sort of insurance coverage to them to enable it to be much more widely used. Figuring out how to supply/support blending would certainly encourage tech training (though I have no idea how complex/expensive this would be) and that would put people in the motels and eating in town for a week. But I don't think they have any idea what makes sense.

 

[boulderjohn]

The other thing I think the city should do is make arrangements with the owner of Rock Lake to improve that and maybe provide some sort of insurance coverage to them to enable it to be much more widely used. Figuring out how to supply/support blending would certainly encourage tech training (though I have no idea how complex/expensive this would be) and that would put people in the motels and eating in town for a week. But I don't think they have any idea what makes sense.

Rock Lake is one of my favorite dive sites in the world, believe it or not. The problem is that much of what I love about it could fall victim to overuse. The handful of people with permission to bring divers there are very, very aware of the need to preserve its natural state, and they drill that idea into the minds of the people they allow in. How do you maintain that mindset with significantly increased traffic?

That is not to say it could not stand more traffic. It is used a lot less now than it was 5-6 years ago. There aren't many places for shallow water training there, and the most heavily trafficked area is covered with vegetation that was not there then. The most heavily trafficked areas of the walls below have piles of extremely light, fluffy organic silt, like light snow piles, that blow off as a diver swims by, showing that divers have not swum by there much lately. I would happily bring more people there, but for some reason there does not seem to be the interest there was only 5 years ago.