Cave Diving In Texas?

[Amphiprion]

Hi. I'm finishing up my rebreather course and was looking to my next plan. Aside from my typical enjoyment of pretty fish and corals, I'm really interested in penetration dives.

I prefer wrecks, but I imagine that being in Texas, it would be a lot easier to load up the truck with my Houston friends and go to places like caves in the Florida panhandle rather than south Florida, the Great Lakes or Truck.

So are there good cave diving places in Texas? I've heard about Jacob's Hole and how a bunch of untrained divers met their end there, but I figure with training that would not be a problem. I've also heard that there is a spring that comes out around 150' at lake amistad. With the eventual depth there, I'll have to go hypoxic trimix. I'm guessing they there have to be more caves in Texas, but I don't know of any.

Suggestions?

 

[kensuf]

My understanding is both Jacobs Well and Goodenough (the one in the lake) are restricted to only people on permits. There used to be a fairly active "Houston Cave Diving" group that would make monthly trips to Marianna and Tallahassee, I imagine several of them are still around. Unfortunately I don't have any good contacts for you, but if you ask around at a few of the Houston area dive shops they might be able to steer you the right way.

Best of luck!

Ken

 

[sea_ledford]

I know of three diveable cave in Texas, Jacobs Well, Goodenough Springs and Phantom Springs. Jacobs requires a scientific permit, and as far as I know the only people diving it now are the USGS guys doing the water quality monitoring, they don't even get into the cave portion. Phantom Springs is out near Balmorhea, and also requires a scientific permit, of which there are two, both are currently suspended. No diving possible there.

Good Enough Springs is the one in Lake Amistad. That has a high enough difficulty barrier to effectively make it non-divable. If Ken says it requires a permit, I wouldn't be surprised. It certainly requires a crazy permit . Keep in mind that is at 2-300' +.

If you are looking for wrecks, there is the Texas Clipper off South Padre, about a dozen Liberty Ships along the coast, and the MV Kinta S about 7 miles offshore from Padre Island near Corpus Christi, all part of the Texas Artificial Reef Program. We are also currently working on putting a new ship down near Stetson Bank that will be about 300' long. You can find coordinates for all the reef sites on an interactive map on the Artificial Reef Program website (link in signature) and I recently put up a downloadable file off all the coordinates on our facebook page (Texas Parks and Wildlife Artificial Reef Program). Direct download is here:
Dropbox - 2016- Jan Public Material Summary.zip

-Chris

 

[DWMoore]

Chris is correct... Jacob's Well, Goodenough Springs and Phantom Springs are currently the only well known cave diving spots in Texas. Jacobs Well has two teams with permits - the JWEP team doing the exploration and mapping (www.JWEP.org). I am on that team. The WET team used to do some photography and erected a kiosk at the nature center about the cave. (including the JWEP survey map) It is a restricted cave requiring a permit since it has a dangerous entrance. Goodenough Springs is an interesting cave - I'm the diver that took the video above that Chris posted. It's been pushed to 515' deep and is extremely high flow as you can see from the video. During that dive the restriction was at 165' since the lake level was very low. If the lake is full then it is at 210'. So it's a sporty dive to say the least and does require a permit but it's at the bottom of the lake so if you have a boat you can check it out. Check out Goodenough Springs Exploration Project for more information. Phantom Springs also requires a permit but all access has currently been pulled. BLM is trying to decide what to do with it. So cave diving in Texas is a bit limited There are a lot of sump diving projects going on but that requires a bit of caving to get to the sumps. If you live in H-town, I would definitely refer you to hitting up the Mill Pond in Marianna. Should be about an 8 - 9 hour drive for you. Easily done during an extended weekend. And as always... get cave diving certified first if you aren't already. I can recommend good instructors if you need them.

 

[007Diver]

Chris is correct... Jacob's Well, Goodenough Springs and Phantom Springs are currently the only well known cave diving spots in Texas. Jacobs Well has two teams with permits - the JWEP team doing the exploration and mapping (www.JWEP.org). I am on that team. The WET team used to do some photography and erected a kiosk at the nature center about the cave. (including the JWEP survey map) It is a restricted cave requiring a permit since it has a dangerous entrance. Goodenough Springs is an interesting cave - I'm the diver that took the video above that Chris posted. It's been pushed to 515' deep and is extremely high flow as you can see from the video. During that dive the restriction was at 165' since the lake level was very low. If the lake is full then it is at 210'. So it's a sporty dive to say the least and does require a permit but it's at the bottom of the lake so if you have a boat you can check it out. Check out Goodenough Springs Exploration Project for more information. Phantom Springs also requires a permit but all access has currently been pulled. BLM is trying to decide what to do with it. So cave diving in Texas is a bit limited There are a lot of sump diving projects going on but that requires a bit of caving to get to the sumps. If you live in H-town, I would definitely refer you to hitting up the Mill Pond in Marianna. Should be about an 8 - 9 hour drive for you. Easily done during an extended weekend. And as always... get cave diving certified first if you aren't already. I can recommend good instructors if you need them.

I am interested in technical deep diving wreck/cave and would be interested in any instructor recommendations you may be able to provide. Thank you

 

[grantwiscour]

I am interested in technical deep diving wreck/cave and would be interested in any instructor recommendations you may be able to provide. Thank you

Jason Wright is a very good GUE/Tech trainer in DFW.
GUE Instructor resumé

There is a loose knit group of cave divers in the DFW area. A diver friend of mine, Dan Kelly does a few trips to cave country each year.

Tell them Grant said Aloha...we used to dive in Texas but these days we are retired and diving South Kona.

 

[RTodd]

If Goodenough is still at 500’ it hasn’t been pushed since Chuck did it. I have never experienced the flow that cave has anywhere else. We installed a pull line to get to the restriction because Gavins could not overcome the flow and it is a really short cave. Basically a deviated sinkhole. Interesting dive but not for the inexperienced and it is a huge logistics effort for so little overhead.

If you are interested in cave diving Cancun is about a 2 hour flight. Hard to top the stuff in Mexico.

 

[Randooski]

Call the Sea Sport Store in The Woodlands. I know a couple instructors going through their Cave Cert, and Cave Dave hangs out around there a lot he dives a side mount rebreather makes frequent trips to Fl. to Cave.

 

[ofg-1]

Lot of problems cave diving in Texas. Its hard to get those horns to stay on your helmet in a restriction, and the spurs interfere with the fin straps and get tangled in the lines.

 

[txaggie08]

Lot of problems cave diving in Texas. Its hard to get those horns to stay on your helmet in a restriction, and the spurs interfere with the fin straps and get tangled in the lines.

This is why you saw 'em off first!

;-)