Full Cave trip report

[FIXXERVI6]

Did you guys file down your all your bolt snaps and WD40 them prior to your trip?
I am trying to figure out what is going on with your fingers getting raw. My crew and I have dove LR and JB and Ginnie , none of us had raw fingers.
I remember thou after our Cavern/Intro course our fingers looked like they been run through a shredder. We figured out it was the the sharp edges and sticky operation of the bolt snaps. We have since then done the routine maintence on them and no more raw fingers.
I am making a weekend run over to Vortex and Morrison for some dives in a few weeks . Planning on going to back to cave country in late october or early Nov. for 4 days of diving. We plan on staying at cathy's place again. Did you guys get to do the campfire thing? Lots of fun, smores & cave stories. Cavedivers are damm good people.
When you go to marianna do you go to Houston to catch I-10?
I have dove JB about six times. I would love to rent the pontoon and do the other sites with someone who has already dove that part of the system. Maybe we can put something together.
Travis should be to ready to dance with in about 6weeks I hope. Gregg(cyclon300)
up in Austin dives travis often and posts straight up condition reports.

Anyways, Congrats on your achievements.
Dave

For me just my thumbs are raw, the rest of my fingers are just dry from "dishpan hands" or cave hands from being under water for so many hours, I didn't quite understand what you mean by file down the snaps? Do you disasemble them somehow? I know my left thumb looked like it was put in the blender from the snaps on my 02, water logged hands and pushing lots of bolt snaps has its toll.

I think we take 20 all the way through to jackson or one of those places, I usually just drive and sleep and people point so I don't know all the roads.

We are wanting to do a weekend run to merrits mill sometime to dive Twin and Hole, I'm not real big on JB as I'm lazy and thats a lot of swimming, if I had a scooter or if the bottom had something to pull on, different story, but I really like twin, its not on the calender yet, how is Vortex have you dove it yet? Every time we fly by that place I wonder about it, I hear its tight and deep, like side mount tight but never really looked into it.

Andrew tried to put a north central cave divers get together on cavediver.net and there was not enough action on there to get people interested, there seam to be several in the swamp diver forum, maybe when the windex gets back we can put it together and rent some sites at the dam or something.

 

[thesassyrabbit]

Congrats on the cave diving. Have heard great things about Mike. Not sure I'd ever be interested in cave diving, but I love hearing the stories and seeing the pics from those that are!

 

[Teknadv3x]

I didn't quite understand what you mean by file down the snaps? Do you disasemble them somehow? how is Vortex ?

No need to disasemble ,You file the track where the thumb bolt slides. Feel around on the track you will see what has been slicing you... When done filing WD 40 till you get very smooth action.....I have been diving Vortex for about 13 years.
You should try Vortex sometime. It is a nice stopping point on the way to cave country to do a tune up dive. The fisher where the 2nd restriction is pretty neat. I have been diving Vortex for about 13 years and it still winds my clock. It also has sentimental value to me, it is where I cut my teeth on cave diving.



Dave

 

[Cave Diver]

Okay, so I'm a bit late entering the discussion, but here goes anyway.

First off, congratulations to the newest victims to be bitten by the cave bug. While I enjoy just about any type of diving there's just something about cave diving...

To address a few of the other comments in this thread, "cave fingers" is a term commonly used to describe the small painful cuts on the tips of your fingers. It's kinda like having a bunch of tiny paper cuts all over your fingertips. The limestone found in caves can be quite abrasive and if you use just your finger tips to do the pull-n-glide, you can shred them pretty quickly. A better technique is to "palm" the handholds which gives you a better purchase and causes less damage to your fingers and the cave.

In regard to filing the boltsnaps, this is most commonly with brass snaps. The softer brass tends to wear from the bolt sliding back and forth, leaving a sharp edge. Operating the snap can cause your thumb to get sliced by this edge. The most common fix is to use stainless steel snaps rather than brass, as stainless has less of a tendency to have this problem.

Cow is a great system. The upstream part is even more spectacular than the downstream. However the upstream entrance has a pretty major restriction; I recommend it only for more experienced cavers.

I dove Peacock III for the first time a couple of months ago. It actually had a slight spring, rather than the traditional syphon. It was also a fantastic dive, but technique is critical.

Mike also did my training and when my other two buddies were ready, he trained them as well. He's a great instructor, a good guy and we always look forward to seeing him when we hit cave country.

Dave, next time ya'll head down there shoot me a PM on TDS (I'm not here often enough) and maybe we can try to dive together again.

Sassy, like Dave's signature line says, Either you're one of us and you get it, or you ain't and you dont!

 

[Teknadv3x]

Dave, next time ya'll head down there shoot me a PM on TDS (I'm not here often enough) and maybe we can try to dive together again.

I will pm you on TDS board. So far late OCT, early NOV. seems to be the dates for High springs area trip. Sure would like to hit Marianna in the next few months though.



Dave

 

[Cave Diver]

That's cool, those are probably good times for me.

I intend to be in Pensacola in mid May to watch the Oriskany sink. May take a few extra days and run to Marianna and get some cave time in as well.