SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Up at 5:30AM, I met up with Darcy, eanxgirl, SeaYoda, WaterDawg, outhole, and Jason in the wee hour of 8 in the morn at Vortex Springs. Our group of 7 decided to rent 3 canoes and sit three deep in one canoe and throw some of the tanks into the other 2 canoes. It was pretty cloudy outside and there was a 30-40% chance of rain coming in front of another cold front. Despite the gloomy morning, we didn't get any rain and by our first dive we enjoyed mostly sunny skies. The canoe trip was pretty easy, although its a bit tougher with three people(and gear) than it is with two. Air temps were in the high 60ºs low 70ºs and it was very comfortable outside, water temps in the high 60ºs as usual for panhandle springs.
All of us plopped, one by one, into the water as best as we could off the canoes. First snag - I busted my finstrap while pulling them tight - ugh! Outhole was kind enough to give me a ziptie(even if it was pink) which cinched the strap to the buckle enough for me to dive. There really isn't an easy way to gear up on canoes so we just tossed our BCs over, suited up, and jumped in to don the gear in the water.
The water was extremely clear, despite the rain we had last week, you could easily see from one side of the basin to the other and it was a nice blue color. We explored the cavern first, looking into all the nooks and crannies. The freshwater eels here aren't nearly as skiddish as the ones at Vortex, so you could get close and they weren't afraid of trying to nibble on the ends of your gloves. Carp were everywhere inside the cavern and they were down-right clumsy. They didn't think twice to run full speed into us while trying to get in and out of the cavern or while swimming around the basin. After burning 1000psi we swam out into the basin and explore it, there are lots of little nooks to look into and find bream, bass, whatever hiding. A small swim-thru in the middle of the basin was a bit of fun too. The basin is surrouned by Cypress trees and it gave all the fish(and turtles too) a place to hide. Submerged trees stretch out across the dive site and you have to watch for them when you come out the cavern entrance but they also house alot of fish including one huge grand-daddy bass which sat on the sand bottom until you got pretty close to it. This bass had to be close to 10lbs, maybe more. After about an hour of diving, we started getting chilly and some of us were getting low on air.
We had a long, hour and a half, surface interval and tried to warm up as much as possible in the sun, ate some crackers(thanks Liza) and drank some gatorade(thanks Bill). I was buddied up with WaterDawg, who's a great diver by the way, and he wanted to practice an OOA at somepoint during the dive - good idea, I really haven't practiced it much since OW. Sure enough 30 or so minutes into the dive he signaled an OOA and I fumbled around with my reg before popping it into his mouth(I need to practice this more, even though we talked about doing it before the dive, it still caught me off guard and I want to get faster). A few minutes later, I signaled OOA and WaterDawg had a reg in my mouth with a quickness. Other than the drills, we searched the cavern again and explored the basin more. 45min into the dive I was having trouble clearing my left ear, so I ascended a bit, still wasn't clearing, ascended more, nothing, ascended right below the surface, nothing, and even above water I couldn't get my ear to clear - aw well, still got 46min of dive time in on the 2nd dive so that ended my diving for the day.
We had a great set of dives and it was alot of fun diving with darcy, SeaYoda, and eanxgirl again. It was nice meeting WaterDawg, outhole, and Jason too - I hope to dive with them more often. After dropping the canoes back off at Vortex, the majority of us went to Sallys for a bite and headed out.
Goodtimes
All of us plopped, one by one, into the water as best as we could off the canoes. First snag - I busted my finstrap while pulling them tight - ugh! Outhole was kind enough to give me a ziptie(even if it was pink) which cinched the strap to the buckle enough for me to dive. There really isn't an easy way to gear up on canoes so we just tossed our BCs over, suited up, and jumped in to don the gear in the water.
The water was extremely clear, despite the rain we had last week, you could easily see from one side of the basin to the other and it was a nice blue color. We explored the cavern first, looking into all the nooks and crannies. The freshwater eels here aren't nearly as skiddish as the ones at Vortex, so you could get close and they weren't afraid of trying to nibble on the ends of your gloves. Carp were everywhere inside the cavern and they were down-right clumsy. They didn't think twice to run full speed into us while trying to get in and out of the cavern or while swimming around the basin. After burning 1000psi we swam out into the basin and explore it, there are lots of little nooks to look into and find bream, bass, whatever hiding. A small swim-thru in the middle of the basin was a bit of fun too. The basin is surrouned by Cypress trees and it gave all the fish(and turtles too) a place to hide. Submerged trees stretch out across the dive site and you have to watch for them when you come out the cavern entrance but they also house alot of fish including one huge grand-daddy bass which sat on the sand bottom until you got pretty close to it. This bass had to be close to 10lbs, maybe more. After about an hour of diving, we started getting chilly and some of us were getting low on air.
We had a long, hour and a half, surface interval and tried to warm up as much as possible in the sun, ate some crackers(thanks Liza) and drank some gatorade(thanks Bill). I was buddied up with WaterDawg, who's a great diver by the way, and he wanted to practice an OOA at somepoint during the dive - good idea, I really haven't practiced it much since OW. Sure enough 30 or so minutes into the dive he signaled an OOA and I fumbled around with my reg before popping it into his mouth(I need to practice this more, even though we talked about doing it before the dive, it still caught me off guard and I want to get faster). A few minutes later, I signaled OOA and WaterDawg had a reg in my mouth with a quickness. Other than the drills, we searched the cavern again and explored the basin more. 45min into the dive I was having trouble clearing my left ear, so I ascended a bit, still wasn't clearing, ascended more, nothing, ascended right below the surface, nothing, and even above water I couldn't get my ear to clear - aw well, still got 46min of dive time in on the 2nd dive so that ended my diving for the day.
We had a great set of dives and it was alot of fun diving with darcy, SeaYoda, and eanxgirl again. It was nice meeting WaterDawg, outhole, and Jason too - I hope to dive with them more often. After dropping the canoes back off at Vortex, the majority of us went to Sallys for a bite and headed out.
Goodtimes
