Today was my final cave dive for this trip ... and we were joined by Carl Griffing(Phreatic Fanatic) for a real treat ... Rob took me to a "big boy" cave ... Bozell.
Getting there's half the fun. We met at Edd's and loaded all our stuff into Rob's van, behind which was the boat that would get us to the dive site. We headed over to the Caverns State Park, where we launched into a very anemic-looking Chipola River for what would prove to be an eventful ride to the dive site. The river is nearly five feet below normal, and navigation through the snags was an art form ...
I'm glad we had an experienced guide to handle the helm ...
After a slow 20 minute or so ride we approached the spring that flows from Bozell ... at this point we got out to push ...
... and pull ...
... till we got to the dive site.
Somewhere under there's the cave entrance.
As fate would have it, we had beautiful weather right up to the point where we tied up the boat and started dressing into our undergarments ... then the heavens opened and it poured for about 15 minutes ... until we were in our suits and in the water putting our tanks on ... then the sun came back out.
We did our checks, slipped below the surface, stashed our O2 bottles on a shelf just inside the (smallish) cavern, and headed down into the cave. The entrance rather quickly becomes sidemount only ... requiring us to turn sideways and go head down till we hit about 45 ffw ... and then contort around a left turn and head back up again, to where it opens up into another spring. The next 300 feet or so were beautiful and fairly open passage until we hit another place where you really need sidemount to make it through. I was in the middle and mostly I was worried that wriggling through these tight passages I was stirring things up too much for Carl, who was behind me. But I just don't have the finesse to make it through these passages with the grace I was seeing Rob doing it. Oh well, that's what happens when you try to turn a bull into a mole ... I think I widened the passage a bit.
This cave is freak'n spectacular ... beautiful formations, obviously not much traffic, and some places that, a week ago, I'd have told you with all sincerity I'd never fit through ... or even be interested in trying to.
Oh my goodness ... this is addictive.
We made it back about 1500 feet, and just as I hit turn pressure and was about to signal Rob, he turned and signaled me ... we were in a very tight, silty passage and he said he knew we were close to turn pressure and it'd be a while before we had a better turn spot than where we were at. Good thought.
Turning around proved a bit ... interesting, and it got silty in a big way. I zeroed the line about a second or two before I zeroed the visibility ... and spent the next 30 feet or so doing a basic blackout drill. As I came out of the tight stuff it cleared right up, and Carl was just outside the passage, waiting for us. He OK'd me and I returned the signal ... actually, I thought experiencing a real siltout was kinda cool. I had the line and there really wasn't anyplace else to go but out anyway ... and it was yet another new experience for me on this trip. So I enjoyed it. Rob came out a few seconds behind me and we proceeded to exit the cave.
Coming back always seems easier. I know there's flow in there, but it's so minimal that you need to be completely still just to notice it. Vis was awesome ... when we weren't making it not-so-awesome. But the cave is fairly deep ... we were diving EAN27 ... and so we'd racked up quite a bit of deco by the time we got back to the cavern zone. Did about 15 minutes on the O2 ... for once I managed to find a completely comfortable niche to velcro myself to the ceiling, and deco was very relaxing. I used the time to replay the dive in my head, and found myself grinning at how much fun it was. Total dive time was 82 minutes ... and then it was time to pull the boat back to the river and make our way through the snags back to the boat ramp.
Here's a final pic ... offloading the boat before muscling it back onto the trailer ... with the "low tide" it was quite the effort getting it up there.
Great week, and if anyone's interested in learning sidemount, I can heartily recommend Rob as an excellent person to learn it from. Besides being an awesome instructor, he's a great host and dive buddy ...
... and he has a boat that can take you to some really interesting places ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
