SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Took Friday off from work and headed out Thursday afternoon to Tallahassee. I thought I'd have enough time to swing by a new-to-me spring with land access before it got too dark to be worthwhile, but the sun sank below the tree line before I even got to my exit. I chose to stay on interstate and continue east bound. The sunset was nice, purple and orange, which contrasted the grey morning on Thursday. I ended up catching up with the clouds again by the time I hit Tallahassee, but no biggy, they'd clear that night.
4-9-10
After checking out a potential new job Friday morning, I headed south to Medart and visited the Wakulla Diving Center after its new move and opening. Gregg was out of town but his brother was there to fill tanks and I met Jeff finally. The shop is huge and its great to have a reliable tech shop opened up again in the area. Filled my tanks, O2 bottle, and gave the shop a good once over. Headed east on Hwy 98 for a bit and visited a few sinkholes. We've finally started getting some heat and its brought out the bugs! I got chased by various stinging insects on my little foray into the woods. One of the sinks I visited(dove it a couple weeks back) was still blue, and the other was still very tannic.
TheAwesomeFish was in the area for work, so I met up with her and a coworker for a victory lunch at Burger King(she won a bet - she'd collect on a steak dinner later on). Traffic on the way was crappy as they're doing some roadwork on Crawfordville Highway. During bumper to bumper traffic, I did manage to change into some shorts and a Tshirt though - much more comfortable in the heat. After lunch, I took the bike out on a stretch of the Leon Sink trails and found P&G to be quite tannic. The bike proved very usefull though, I zipped up the trail and back to the public access in about 15 minutes. Its a much more effecient way of travel. Sucks the sinks were all stained red/brown with tannic acid.
After loading the bike back up, I decided to head back south and check out GR sink. They've regrated some of the dirt road but the wagon made it over the loose sand without too much trouble and I thought the rest of the trip would be easy. This proved quite wrong as I turned off onto another dirt road and came up on a puddle almost immediately. Foolishly without checking the water level, I gas it through the puddle and the car sinks far deeper than I'd want it to knowingly... Steams coming up from out of the hood as it evaporates off the motor and exhaust and the car gets thrown into limp mode, studdards, looses power, and all around sounds like crap. Then I come up to another puddle. No way I'm even trying this, so I find an area big enough to swing the car around(its one lane dirt road with trees on both side). Back at the first puddle, I swing to the opposite side and hang out of trouble... By the time I've gotten back into civilization the cars purged whatever crap stuck it in limp mode and I'm running hunky dory again... No idea how GR looks. Fail.
Later that afternoon, TheAwesomeFish and I head out to another sink along the Leon Sinks stretch, this one further upstream and we find a tannic creek overflowing into the sinkhole siphoning into the cave. D'Oh. This is the one I had hoped to dive on Saturday, but there are other places to go, more cave to see.
4-10-10
Saturday morning came, and I get to have a lazy start. There was a misunderstanding on a meet time so I made it to BGillespie's house 2 hours earlier than expected. Then I got trapped by some sort of run/walk being held for charity. I people watched for an hour and listed to the radio then decided to head out to Wakulla to do a bit more biking and hopefully try to look at another sink I hadn't dived(or visited). BGillespie called me enroute and said he'd meet me at the trailhead. I get to the trail, pack my camera, and hop on the bike and start shooting down the trail. I scope out a few very small dry sinks, then pass up a trail to a spring I had visited on an earlier visit, and head deeper into the woods. I get to a four way and inevitably take the wrong trail, making a huge loop to nowhere that landing me a mile down the road from the trailhead, WAY off the park map. D'Oh. I peddle back to the trailhead on the highway in shame
No pics, no news on that particular sink. Ben's at the trailhead by this time and we catch a lead for a spring further west from someone else at the park.
We head over to slough that contains a couple springs, several with cave, but one we've dived before and hoped to get a little further this time around. It was a great day, warming up, the wildlife was out in force... and oh... the wildlife... it was out in force.
We head out and find a different site. This one looks good too, and its always a great dive... when its divable.
We lay out the gear at the water and start suiting up before we are attacked by a pair of adorable muts. Ones grown, but young, and the other is a puppy. They entertain us the entire team we're still above water. The water feels good and allows us the escape from the heat we want. BGillespie leads the dive and I drop my O2 bottle on the downline around 30'. We take a line off to a seemingly abyss and follow it for a bit before we find ourselves in an overhead without warning. Visibility is in the 10-15' range at first, and smokey, so the ceiling just sort of appears out of nowhere. We head left at the 'T' which leads you to two differently layed out caves, towards the turtle passage. Visibility improves the further we go and the cave is active with cave biology. Small and large crawfish are everywhere, white, hopping along blindly. Smaller critters are swimming along midwater everywhere. There's tannic water along the deeper areas floors and the ceiling visibility is a bit better than midwater. We pass up the first 'T' and eventually check out a jump to the right, but don't take it - just scoped out a restriction into some small twisty passage, then continue in. We pass the 2nd 'T' and then the third. After the third we hit a restriction and I motion that it opens up afterwards. I took the lead at the second 'T' and head into the restriction and out the other side to find a lake of clear water. Visibility was upwards of 100' and it was pretty amazing seeing everything in detail. The walls were a contrast of pure white with absolute black goethite and striations everywhere. Fossils could be found in the walls and we followed the room back to the EOL where the cave seamed to just pinch off into the silt. We turn the dive and head out without issue, taking a look at a nomount(apparently) passage along the way. Back at the entrance 'T', we recalculate and head the other direction for a bit. We get to a 4 way and hang left for another hundred feet and find ourselves at 100' of depth looking down a endless pit(which drops another 150' of depth, ie 250'ish). Scalloped spires line the sides and the downline just disappears into the abyss. Its pretty awesome, but we turn and head out. Deco is uneventfully, 8 minutes on O2 for me and a little extra to clear Ben's computer when he gets on my 02. Had a total dive time of 93 minutes with a max depth of 101'. A bit of surface deco then the chore of getting all the gear back up the depression and into the car. We weren't lucky enough to see the pups again. Excellent dive though, always great to see some new cave at this site and enjoy the decent conditions here!
Ms. Awesome got a great steak at Marie Livingston's Steakhouse. My first time there and it was great. My debt was paid in full, I hope I win the next bet.
4-11-10
TheAwesomeFish had a treat for me on Sunday. We took out here two person kayak on Wakulla River and paddle downstream at a very leisurely pace. It was great, got a little tan going on, and the sun was out, with those neato little clouds that look great in pictures. Got to run into all kinds of wildlife too. The water was a bit tannic, but still clear enough to see bottom in several areas. Couple pics.
It was an awesome weekend hanging out with some great people, getting a great dive in, and generally staying outdoors on a perfect weekend. I even managed to get some biking and kayaking in over my little vacation. Just gets me pumped up more for this weekends shinanigans!
4-9-10
After checking out a potential new job Friday morning, I headed south to Medart and visited the Wakulla Diving Center after its new move and opening. Gregg was out of town but his brother was there to fill tanks and I met Jeff finally. The shop is huge and its great to have a reliable tech shop opened up again in the area. Filled my tanks, O2 bottle, and gave the shop a good once over. Headed east on Hwy 98 for a bit and visited a few sinkholes. We've finally started getting some heat and its brought out the bugs! I got chased by various stinging insects on my little foray into the woods. One of the sinks I visited(dove it a couple weeks back) was still blue, and the other was still very tannic.
TheAwesomeFish was in the area for work, so I met up with her and a coworker for a victory lunch at Burger King(she won a bet - she'd collect on a steak dinner later on). Traffic on the way was crappy as they're doing some roadwork on Crawfordville Highway. During bumper to bumper traffic, I did manage to change into some shorts and a Tshirt though - much more comfortable in the heat. After lunch, I took the bike out on a stretch of the Leon Sink trails and found P&G to be quite tannic. The bike proved very usefull though, I zipped up the trail and back to the public access in about 15 minutes. Its a much more effecient way of travel. Sucks the sinks were all stained red/brown with tannic acid.
After loading the bike back up, I decided to head back south and check out GR sink. They've regrated some of the dirt road but the wagon made it over the loose sand without too much trouble and I thought the rest of the trip would be easy. This proved quite wrong as I turned off onto another dirt road and came up on a puddle almost immediately. Foolishly without checking the water level, I gas it through the puddle and the car sinks far deeper than I'd want it to knowingly... Steams coming up from out of the hood as it evaporates off the motor and exhaust and the car gets thrown into limp mode, studdards, looses power, and all around sounds like crap. Then I come up to another puddle. No way I'm even trying this, so I find an area big enough to swing the car around(its one lane dirt road with trees on both side). Back at the first puddle, I swing to the opposite side and hang out of trouble... By the time I've gotten back into civilization the cars purged whatever crap stuck it in limp mode and I'm running hunky dory again... No idea how GR looks. Fail.
Later that afternoon, TheAwesomeFish and I head out to another sink along the Leon Sinks stretch, this one further upstream and we find a tannic creek overflowing into the sinkhole siphoning into the cave. D'Oh. This is the one I had hoped to dive on Saturday, but there are other places to go, more cave to see.
4-10-10
Saturday morning came, and I get to have a lazy start. There was a misunderstanding on a meet time so I made it to BGillespie's house 2 hours earlier than expected. Then I got trapped by some sort of run/walk being held for charity. I people watched for an hour and listed to the radio then decided to head out to Wakulla to do a bit more biking and hopefully try to look at another sink I hadn't dived(or visited). BGillespie called me enroute and said he'd meet me at the trailhead. I get to the trail, pack my camera, and hop on the bike and start shooting down the trail. I scope out a few very small dry sinks, then pass up a trail to a spring I had visited on an earlier visit, and head deeper into the woods. I get to a four way and inevitably take the wrong trail, making a huge loop to nowhere that landing me a mile down the road from the trailhead, WAY off the park map. D'Oh. I peddle back to the trailhead on the highway in shame
No pics, no news on that particular sink. Ben's at the trailhead by this time and we catch a lead for a spring further west from someone else at the park. We head over to slough that contains a couple springs, several with cave, but one we've dived before and hoped to get a little further this time around. It was a great day, warming up, the wildlife was out in force... and oh... the wildlife... it was out in force.
We head out and find a different site. This one looks good too, and its always a great dive... when its divable.
We lay out the gear at the water and start suiting up before we are attacked by a pair of adorable muts. Ones grown, but young, and the other is a puppy. They entertain us the entire team we're still above water. The water feels good and allows us the escape from the heat we want. BGillespie leads the dive and I drop my O2 bottle on the downline around 30'. We take a line off to a seemingly abyss and follow it for a bit before we find ourselves in an overhead without warning. Visibility is in the 10-15' range at first, and smokey, so the ceiling just sort of appears out of nowhere. We head left at the 'T' which leads you to two differently layed out caves, towards the turtle passage. Visibility improves the further we go and the cave is active with cave biology. Small and large crawfish are everywhere, white, hopping along blindly. Smaller critters are swimming along midwater everywhere. There's tannic water along the deeper areas floors and the ceiling visibility is a bit better than midwater. We pass up the first 'T' and eventually check out a jump to the right, but don't take it - just scoped out a restriction into some small twisty passage, then continue in. We pass the 2nd 'T' and then the third. After the third we hit a restriction and I motion that it opens up afterwards. I took the lead at the second 'T' and head into the restriction and out the other side to find a lake of clear water. Visibility was upwards of 100' and it was pretty amazing seeing everything in detail. The walls were a contrast of pure white with absolute black goethite and striations everywhere. Fossils could be found in the walls and we followed the room back to the EOL where the cave seamed to just pinch off into the silt. We turn the dive and head out without issue, taking a look at a nomount(apparently) passage along the way. Back at the entrance 'T', we recalculate and head the other direction for a bit. We get to a 4 way and hang left for another hundred feet and find ourselves at 100' of depth looking down a endless pit(which drops another 150' of depth, ie 250'ish). Scalloped spires line the sides and the downline just disappears into the abyss. Its pretty awesome, but we turn and head out. Deco is uneventfully, 8 minutes on O2 for me and a little extra to clear Ben's computer when he gets on my 02. Had a total dive time of 93 minutes with a max depth of 101'. A bit of surface deco then the chore of getting all the gear back up the depression and into the car. We weren't lucky enough to see the pups again. Excellent dive though, always great to see some new cave at this site and enjoy the decent conditions here!
Ms. Awesome got a great steak at Marie Livingston's Steakhouse. My first time there and it was great. My debt was paid in full, I hope I win the next bet.
4-11-10
TheAwesomeFish had a treat for me on Sunday. We took out here two person kayak on Wakulla River and paddle downstream at a very leisurely pace. It was great, got a little tan going on, and the sun was out, with those neato little clouds that look great in pictures. Got to run into all kinds of wildlife too. The water was a bit tannic, but still clear enough to see bottom in several areas. Couple pics.
It was an awesome weekend hanging out with some great people, getting a great dive in, and generally staying outdoors on a perfect weekend. I even managed to get some biking and kayaking in over my little vacation. Just gets me pumped up more for this weekends shinanigans!
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