SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Merrit's Mill Pond 9-15-7
I'm not the only one who likes early starts apparently. My Intro Cave Instructor, Kenny P, wanted an 8:30AM meet time at Edd's Cave Adventures in Marianna, FL. I left at 5:30AM, for some reason thinking that I'd have to check in with the Sheriff's office to dive Hole in the Wall and Twin Cave. After thinking about it, and a quick call, that was dismissed and we all ended up meeting at the Executive Inn(where the other student(Brian H) had stayed the night) at 8AM since we were all in the area. The day was young, skies were perfect, the trip wasn't awefull(unless you were one of the 10,000 lovebugs on the front of my car).
We got to Edd's and Gordon helped us load our gear onto the four-wheeler sherpa service they have to get everything to the bottom of the hill and down to the boat docks where the rental pontoon boats are kept. Kenny designated me Capt, knowing I owned a boat(I don't think he understands my boat basically consists of an innertube with a motor strapped to the back). I found that I suck at pontoon boats, they are pigs in the water with very noticable lag(and drag) at the controls. This early in the morning, there wasn't much traffic in the Mill Pond, so we were able to steer clear of most of the hydrilla and other plantlife abundant. It was a quick trip to Hole in the Wall.
Hole in the Wall
We tied up to the dock at Hole and Kenny started us on a dive plan. I opted to lead the first dive since I was diving air and we'd be in a cave with depths to 90' making it easy to turn with plenty of NDL and gas. The rock at the cavern was very dark and there was no noticable flow coming from within. We did a quick bubble check and S-drill. I tied off on the tree limb in OW and we entered the cavern. Its a small cavern that drops down a chimney to a room with an upstream and downstream passage. We would be diving upstream. Visibility was slightly milky, but good enough at 30-40' easily. Not far inside the upstream passage there's a finger of limestone jutting out from the leftside of the cave, very neat looking formation. The bottom was silty and often stirred by many of the catfish in the area. We saw several albino crawfish as well. I hoovered through gas and turned the dive at 1/6ths(diving doubles). I found it a bit difficult reeling in vertically up the chimney while keeping decent trim. Maxed out at 81' for a dive lasting a mere 28 minutes, NDL never came into play. Back on the boat Kenny went over everything that he thought we needed improvements on.
Twin Cave
The majority of our SI was spent going over the last dive, talking about what would be going on during the next dive, snacking on grapes and rehydrating. More time was also spent with me attempting to get our gear barge further up the pond and to our next site. I spent a little extra time in the water pulling hydrilla from the prop. We geared up and again went over the dive plan before hitting the water again 1:36 after our first dive. Again a few drills, then off we went with Brian leading the dive. He tied up to another tree limb over one of the openings(the other is nearly completely covered in hydrilla) and we dropped into the cavern. The limestone was white and quite impressive with lots of honeycombed stone towards the back. The cavern isn't big, but its very nice, shallow too. Visibility was very good at 60-80' atleast. Towards the back of the cavern, a chimney dropped to cave which I believe is called the subway tunnel? Lots of features to look at including Burge's boneyard, which was a ledge with the remains of some long dead vertabrate half buried in silt. We spotted more catfish, albino crawfish, and an albino salamander. Apparently we also passed a water sampling box somewhere along the way as well, I missed it completely. Brian turned on 1/6ths and we exitted the cave. On my way out of the cavern, I managed to blast the silt in the opening into midwater - D'Oh. The dive lasted 31 minutes with a max depth of 56'.
Kenny went back over the dive with us re-iterating on points we could work as well as pointing out aspects of the dive that he thought we had pulled off quite well. We geared down and I ate a light snack(triple decker sandwich) before lumbering our barge back over to Cave Adventures and dropped tanks off to be filled. We went over some paperwork at the hotel and reviewed our written exams. Then we hit up Old Mexico for some quality grub.
Jackson Blue Springs 9-16-7
Morning came quickly and we hit up McDonalds before the Sheriff's office to check in. Afterwards, we headed back to Cave Adventures to pick up tanks and then to the park. It was another beautiful morning, not a cloud in the sky, and air temps in the 60sF. We again went over dive plans and I would be leading this dive. We geared up and hit the water for some drills. I tied in and started out into the cavern for a secondary when I got turned around with a thumb. Brian had a light issue that was quickly worked through and we headed in again. We dropped into the cavern and made quick work of it to the goldline where I tied in with my primary. Then we worked to the back of the cavern and down the fissure to bedding plane. Visibity was pristine and there was a bit of noticable flow which allowed us the opportunity to practice our pull-n-glide. We ended up passing the first and second breakdowns and were within a few feet of the first "t" when Brian called the dive at 1/6ths(he was also overheating in his drysuit). We hit a max depth of 93' for a dive lasting 46 minutes. It was an awesome dive with lots of formations to look at. Its amazing how many passages jut one way and the other, it would take an incredible amount of time to explore them all.
We went over the dive and I went to Cave Adventures to get topped off. Kenny and Brian both have several sets of doubles. Brian took the time to swap out of his drysuit and into a 5mm wetsuit which ended up keeping him much more comfortable on our last dive. An 1:36 minutes after our first dive, we were back in the water with full tanks. We did our drills and Brian lead the dive into the cavern. Our dive plan was similar to the last and we ended up a bit past our previous dive. The cave just past the fissure from the cavern was silted up quite a bit. There were some cavers scootering around and another intro class in the area(not in the water while we were there), not sure who was responsible, but it gave us a bit to think about and we got on the line to cross that portion of cave. Dive lasted 49 minutes and hit a max depth of 93', I skirted a bit close to NDL(on EAN31%), but never crossed into a deco obligation. On exit we went over the dive, then Kenny went over some other aspects of dives over the course of the weekend and we filled out the remaining paperwork. We enjoyed a celebratory beer and congratulations abound. It was a great class and I enjoyed meeting a new buddy as well as taking another class under Kenny P, he'll end up with my business in the future as well. I learned alot and we enjoyed some great cave!
Couldn't have asked for a better class, better instructor, or a better buddy for the course! Very much looking forward to dives post Intro cert!
I'm not the only one who likes early starts apparently. My Intro Cave Instructor, Kenny P, wanted an 8:30AM meet time at Edd's Cave Adventures in Marianna, FL. I left at 5:30AM, for some reason thinking that I'd have to check in with the Sheriff's office to dive Hole in the Wall and Twin Cave. After thinking about it, and a quick call, that was dismissed and we all ended up meeting at the Executive Inn(where the other student(Brian H) had stayed the night) at 8AM since we were all in the area. The day was young, skies were perfect, the trip wasn't awefull(unless you were one of the 10,000 lovebugs on the front of my car).
We got to Edd's and Gordon helped us load our gear onto the four-wheeler sherpa service they have to get everything to the bottom of the hill and down to the boat docks where the rental pontoon boats are kept. Kenny designated me Capt, knowing I owned a boat(I don't think he understands my boat basically consists of an innertube with a motor strapped to the back). I found that I suck at pontoon boats, they are pigs in the water with very noticable lag(and drag) at the controls. This early in the morning, there wasn't much traffic in the Mill Pond, so we were able to steer clear of most of the hydrilla and other plantlife abundant. It was a quick trip to Hole in the Wall.
Hole in the Wall
We tied up to the dock at Hole and Kenny started us on a dive plan. I opted to lead the first dive since I was diving air and we'd be in a cave with depths to 90' making it easy to turn with plenty of NDL and gas. The rock at the cavern was very dark and there was no noticable flow coming from within. We did a quick bubble check and S-drill. I tied off on the tree limb in OW and we entered the cavern. Its a small cavern that drops down a chimney to a room with an upstream and downstream passage. We would be diving upstream. Visibility was slightly milky, but good enough at 30-40' easily. Not far inside the upstream passage there's a finger of limestone jutting out from the leftside of the cave, very neat looking formation. The bottom was silty and often stirred by many of the catfish in the area. We saw several albino crawfish as well. I hoovered through gas and turned the dive at 1/6ths(diving doubles). I found it a bit difficult reeling in vertically up the chimney while keeping decent trim. Maxed out at 81' for a dive lasting a mere 28 minutes, NDL never came into play. Back on the boat Kenny went over everything that he thought we needed improvements on.
Twin Cave
The majority of our SI was spent going over the last dive, talking about what would be going on during the next dive, snacking on grapes and rehydrating. More time was also spent with me attempting to get our gear barge further up the pond and to our next site. I spent a little extra time in the water pulling hydrilla from the prop. We geared up and again went over the dive plan before hitting the water again 1:36 after our first dive. Again a few drills, then off we went with Brian leading the dive. He tied up to another tree limb over one of the openings(the other is nearly completely covered in hydrilla) and we dropped into the cavern. The limestone was white and quite impressive with lots of honeycombed stone towards the back. The cavern isn't big, but its very nice, shallow too. Visibility was very good at 60-80' atleast. Towards the back of the cavern, a chimney dropped to cave which I believe is called the subway tunnel? Lots of features to look at including Burge's boneyard, which was a ledge with the remains of some long dead vertabrate half buried in silt. We spotted more catfish, albino crawfish, and an albino salamander. Apparently we also passed a water sampling box somewhere along the way as well, I missed it completely. Brian turned on 1/6ths and we exitted the cave. On my way out of the cavern, I managed to blast the silt in the opening into midwater - D'Oh. The dive lasted 31 minutes with a max depth of 56'.
Kenny went back over the dive with us re-iterating on points we could work as well as pointing out aspects of the dive that he thought we had pulled off quite well. We geared down and I ate a light snack(triple decker sandwich) before lumbering our barge back over to Cave Adventures and dropped tanks off to be filled. We went over some paperwork at the hotel and reviewed our written exams. Then we hit up Old Mexico for some quality grub.
Jackson Blue Springs 9-16-7
Morning came quickly and we hit up McDonalds before the Sheriff's office to check in. Afterwards, we headed back to Cave Adventures to pick up tanks and then to the park. It was another beautiful morning, not a cloud in the sky, and air temps in the 60sF. We again went over dive plans and I would be leading this dive. We geared up and hit the water for some drills. I tied in and started out into the cavern for a secondary when I got turned around with a thumb. Brian had a light issue that was quickly worked through and we headed in again. We dropped into the cavern and made quick work of it to the goldline where I tied in with my primary. Then we worked to the back of the cavern and down the fissure to bedding plane. Visibity was pristine and there was a bit of noticable flow which allowed us the opportunity to practice our pull-n-glide. We ended up passing the first and second breakdowns and were within a few feet of the first "t" when Brian called the dive at 1/6ths(he was also overheating in his drysuit). We hit a max depth of 93' for a dive lasting 46 minutes. It was an awesome dive with lots of formations to look at. Its amazing how many passages jut one way and the other, it would take an incredible amount of time to explore them all.
We went over the dive and I went to Cave Adventures to get topped off. Kenny and Brian both have several sets of doubles. Brian took the time to swap out of his drysuit and into a 5mm wetsuit which ended up keeping him much more comfortable on our last dive. An 1:36 minutes after our first dive, we were back in the water with full tanks. We did our drills and Brian lead the dive into the cavern. Our dive plan was similar to the last and we ended up a bit past our previous dive. The cave just past the fissure from the cavern was silted up quite a bit. There were some cavers scootering around and another intro class in the area(not in the water while we were there), not sure who was responsible, but it gave us a bit to think about and we got on the line to cross that portion of cave. Dive lasted 49 minutes and hit a max depth of 93', I skirted a bit close to NDL(on EAN31%), but never crossed into a deco obligation. On exit we went over the dive, then Kenny went over some other aspects of dives over the course of the weekend and we filled out the remaining paperwork. We enjoyed a celebratory beer and congratulations abound. It was a great class and I enjoyed meeting a new buddy as well as taking another class under Kenny P, he'll end up with my business in the future as well. I learned alot and we enjoyed some great cave!
Couldn't have asked for a better class, better instructor, or a better buddy for the course! Very much looking forward to dives post Intro cert!
