SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Saturday would be a long day, starting off in preparation on Friday afternoon with loading up my boat(Miss Jellyfish) and the majority of my cave diving gear. Saturday rolled around early and I was on the road around 5:45AM heading into Florida. I met up with cmufieldhockey8 at the Flagship/DairyQueen in P'Cola around 6:30 to fill up with gas. The sun was coming up about that time. It promised to be a clear day, a bit chilly at first(upper 40sF that early), but supposedly warming into the upper 60sF(and maybe around 70F).
The ride to New Hope(where we'd be launching) was pretty uneventfull and we arrived at the boat launch sometime around 9AM, I'd imagine. We were the first at the launch and the boat went together without a hitch. cmu and I loaded up and headed down river.
Ebro Blue Spring
After 5-6 miles of running down a flooded creek and a fast moving river(levels are high since rains early last week), we made it to the spring run. There were no obstacles in the run as the water levels were so high that we could boat through without much trouble. High ground was scarse as the flood plains were inundated. Water in the run turned from coffee light brown, to tea brown, and eventually a milky green color. Ebro Blue Spring's(also known as Washington Blue Spring Choctawhatchee) basin was green and milky as well. There was still a boil present however, so we tied off to a submerged stump and began gearing up. After a quick drop down to the cave entrance(not really much of a cavern here), the water cleared up quite nicely within the flow(50-60') - which was strong, but managable. I made it inside without the need to pull on the rope. After finding the beginning of the cave line, we headed back up to the surface to talk about conditions, what we'll expect to see, and go back over our dive plan and limitations. cmu and I weren't diving to see how far we could go and weren't interested in pushing any limits as this was new cave to both of us. There wasn't really any white limestone to speak of, all of it was stained a rust colored red/brown. So was the line, which was basic explorer line, knotted every ten feet and had an occasional survey tag and even less occasionally a stained line arrow. Tons of formations throughout the cave and lots of black walls as well, talk about suck the light right out of the water... Lots of fossils in the walls, anywhere you'd look. We took an incredibly slow pace and turned on my 1/6ths. Once we turned, we made our exit in visibility around 10' due to the percolation from the ceiling raining down and being sucked back towards the entrance with the flow. We drifted out and I had a max depth of 72'(average depth was much shallower) for a dive time lasting 59 minutes. Definately my favorite cave to date, untouched formations and you can forget about crowds!
Duck Spring
So after a very successfull dive at Ebro, we decided to try to find another spring I had read about(and verified having atleast a cavern by another diver) not too incredibly far off. We didn't have our hopes up, especially with the river levels so high, but we gave it a whirl regardless. We found a spot that looked like it could be the spring, hopped in the water to find nothing, and continued further up the run to see if we could find the real thing. After a bit of tooling around(and a wood duck sighting!), cmu and I found a promising run that lead us to the spring. It was in the middle of a large floodplain but had a semi-circular berm around one side. Not sure if the berm was natural or manmade. We pulled up to the berm, which was an island with the current water levels, and tied off to a cypress knee. The water was clearish and green, probably 20-30' of visibility within the basin before we stirred it up while gearing up. The basin dropped down steeply to an open bore hole about 10' wide that narrowed to 4-5' at a cavern entrance. The cavern was really neat, lots of formations and it was about 20-25' wide and about 45' high and basically cylindrical. Percolation was a problem here as well so visibility dropped from ceiling to floor, down to 15'ish. We found three lines from the cavern entrance that lead to the bottom of the cavern at about 74' where a cave started. The line didn't go into the cave and there was a strong flow with lots of sand pushing out, blocking visibility too far within. We didn't see any line inside the cave and hadn't had any information of there being line within. The passage starts off, and possibly doesn't get larger(?), relatively small but backmountable. However, it wasn't large enough to turn around in and we weren't interested in having to back out of an unknown distance so stayed within the cavern zone. Light was visible via a pale green glow even from the bottom of the cavern. Vertical marks ran up and down the cavern walls formed from sand continually falling in the same area over time. Turtle carcasses were all over the bottom of the cavern, several of them. There was another point of flow towards the top of the cavern, on the opposite side of a large sand dune that was about 3-4' wide and circular which dropped straight down. It had several limestone outcroppings within that would make traveling this tunnel hard/impossible without damage to the cave. There was no line here either and flow was strong. Very nice cavern with potential of nice cave - just need more info before proceding. Max depth of 74' for 48 minutes.
It was a slow ride back to the boat launch while fighting a strong current up the river, but we made it back and packed before it was dark. Hit up Dee's in Vernon for some grub and headed back West. Got a call from some other ScubaBoarders that were on the AL gulf coast having drinks and tried to meet up with them. By the time I made it to FloraBama, algulfdiver and his wife was there, but none of the others in that party apparently felt up to a later night - LOL. I made it home a little after mid-night, another great day of diving!
Never has my signature been so true, as long as you're ready for a bit of an adventure.
The ride to New Hope(where we'd be launching) was pretty uneventfull and we arrived at the boat launch sometime around 9AM, I'd imagine. We were the first at the launch and the boat went together without a hitch. cmu and I loaded up and headed down river.
Ebro Blue Spring
After 5-6 miles of running down a flooded creek and a fast moving river(levels are high since rains early last week), we made it to the spring run. There were no obstacles in the run as the water levels were so high that we could boat through without much trouble. High ground was scarse as the flood plains were inundated. Water in the run turned from coffee light brown, to tea brown, and eventually a milky green color. Ebro Blue Spring's(also known as Washington Blue Spring Choctawhatchee) basin was green and milky as well. There was still a boil present however, so we tied off to a submerged stump and began gearing up. After a quick drop down to the cave entrance(not really much of a cavern here), the water cleared up quite nicely within the flow(50-60') - which was strong, but managable. I made it inside without the need to pull on the rope. After finding the beginning of the cave line, we headed back up to the surface to talk about conditions, what we'll expect to see, and go back over our dive plan and limitations. cmu and I weren't diving to see how far we could go and weren't interested in pushing any limits as this was new cave to both of us. There wasn't really any white limestone to speak of, all of it was stained a rust colored red/brown. So was the line, which was basic explorer line, knotted every ten feet and had an occasional survey tag and even less occasionally a stained line arrow. Tons of formations throughout the cave and lots of black walls as well, talk about suck the light right out of the water... Lots of fossils in the walls, anywhere you'd look. We took an incredibly slow pace and turned on my 1/6ths. Once we turned, we made our exit in visibility around 10' due to the percolation from the ceiling raining down and being sucked back towards the entrance with the flow. We drifted out and I had a max depth of 72'(average depth was much shallower) for a dive time lasting 59 minutes. Definately my favorite cave to date, untouched formations and you can forget about crowds!
Duck Spring
So after a very successfull dive at Ebro, we decided to try to find another spring I had read about(and verified having atleast a cavern by another diver) not too incredibly far off. We didn't have our hopes up, especially with the river levels so high, but we gave it a whirl regardless. We found a spot that looked like it could be the spring, hopped in the water to find nothing, and continued further up the run to see if we could find the real thing. After a bit of tooling around(and a wood duck sighting!), cmu and I found a promising run that lead us to the spring. It was in the middle of a large floodplain but had a semi-circular berm around one side. Not sure if the berm was natural or manmade. We pulled up to the berm, which was an island with the current water levels, and tied off to a cypress knee. The water was clearish and green, probably 20-30' of visibility within the basin before we stirred it up while gearing up. The basin dropped down steeply to an open bore hole about 10' wide that narrowed to 4-5' at a cavern entrance. The cavern was really neat, lots of formations and it was about 20-25' wide and about 45' high and basically cylindrical. Percolation was a problem here as well so visibility dropped from ceiling to floor, down to 15'ish. We found three lines from the cavern entrance that lead to the bottom of the cavern at about 74' where a cave started. The line didn't go into the cave and there was a strong flow with lots of sand pushing out, blocking visibility too far within. We didn't see any line inside the cave and hadn't had any information of there being line within. The passage starts off, and possibly doesn't get larger(?), relatively small but backmountable. However, it wasn't large enough to turn around in and we weren't interested in having to back out of an unknown distance so stayed within the cavern zone. Light was visible via a pale green glow even from the bottom of the cavern. Vertical marks ran up and down the cavern walls formed from sand continually falling in the same area over time. Turtle carcasses were all over the bottom of the cavern, several of them. There was another point of flow towards the top of the cavern, on the opposite side of a large sand dune that was about 3-4' wide and circular which dropped straight down. It had several limestone outcroppings within that would make traveling this tunnel hard/impossible without damage to the cave. There was no line here either and flow was strong. Very nice cavern with potential of nice cave - just need more info before proceding. Max depth of 74' for 48 minutes.
It was a slow ride back to the boat launch while fighting a strong current up the river, but we made it back and packed before it was dark. Hit up Dee's in Vernon for some grub and headed back West. Got a call from some other ScubaBoarders that were on the AL gulf coast having drinks and tried to meet up with them. By the time I made it to FloraBama, algulfdiver and his wife was there, but none of the others in that party apparently felt up to a later night - LOL. I made it home a little after mid-night, another great day of diving!
Never has my signature been so true, as long as you're ready for a bit of an adventure.
