SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Jackson Blue Springs 10-18-8
Saturday morning broke early and I was able to catch a ride with cmufieldhockey across the panhandle to Marianna, FL. We met up with several other divers over at Cave Adventurers, including Willardj, Denisegg, and CaveDiver. cmufieldhockey joined up with her instructor on a boat while she was teaching classes over at Hole and Twin, while Willardj and I headed to Jackson Blue. Denisegg went with CaveDiver and his buddy to get breakfast and they met back up with us at JB.
There weren't too many people at the park, just one other person in the water and a couple other teams gearing up. By the time me and Jaime hit the water, the only other diver in the water was exitting the far stairs. We geared up and Willardj ran a reel from OW and up to the goldline. The two of us dropped our deco tanks at the beginning of the gold and headed upstream, with Jaime in the lead. I was trying out some DiveRite fins I borrowed from cmufieldhockey and my footheavy issues were cured(score!). We zipped down the chimney and could see the first breakdown right away, over a hundred feet away. The flow was noticable but we made consistant progress and we hit the first "t" before long, layed a couple cookies and headed left. At the 2nd "t" we turned and came back the same way, letting the flow take ahold of us for a relaxing drift back into daylight. We did a minute deepstop and made our way to the cavern, pulling our deco and primary lines on the way out. Once at 20' we did a short deco and safety while watching a scooter team of two, as well as a team of three on megs, enter the system. We exitted after 72 minutes of bottom time with a max depth of 95'.
Once out of the water, we watched as Denisegg and CaveDiver geared up and went in on a cave dive. When they were finished up, we hit up Vortoberfest for the festivities, which is always a ton of fun!
10-19-8
Morrison Springs
Sunday morning came early and I was ready to go, despite the chilly morning temps. We got held back a bit by telling everyone fairwell(not too often we get so many ScubaBoarders together). A fairly large group of us headed to the new boatlaunch at Morrison to get a good dive in over there. Our enlarged team consisted of me and Snepdiver, Shagman, WillardJ, Irishsquid and his buddy. The run was clear and the new boatlaunch made for an easy entry. We chatted a bit with a local fisherman on his boat and descended into the shallow run to swim out to the basin while UW(why swim on the surface and miss out on all the wildlife in between?).
Visibility at Morrison was 80'ish and we had the place to ourselves. There were lots of bream around as well as schools of small bass, shellcrackers, soles everywhere, the occassional pike, sanddivers, and a couple varieties of turtles. Snepdiver and I took a leisurely tour around the basin and swam around the edge of the treeline and under the pylons making up the boardwalk and floating dock. It was great to get another dive in at Morrison, still one of my favorite dives! We made our way back up the run and were rewarded with even more wildlife of all kinds. GlenFWB and his wife, were on the surface, camera in hand, when we surfaced. Hit a max depth of 25' for a ~40 minute dive.
Shagman and I hit up Sally's afterwards then back to Vortex to grab the rest of my stuff.
River Spring/Cavern Dive
I was looking forward to getting a cave dive in at Vortex, but instead we took advantage of the availability of Shag's dive yacht. We had looked at a spring earlier in the year, when water levels were high, and figured it might be a good time to check back on it to see if conditions were good enough to hop in the water this time. Just short of an hour later, we were gearing the yacht up for some water running. The creek was low and visibility seemed up, so things were looking good. We headed over to our destination and were greeted with crystal clear water. A large ledge was easily visible so Shagman motored us over to a shallow sandbar area bordered with water lettuce and lillypads.
We dropped down and found the large ledge covered a deceptively smaller cavern entrance. I ran a line from a tree in OW and down to the cave line running just outside the cavern entrance. The entrance was easily managed single-file against a noticable flow. The cavern area was large enough to move around in, but not overly large, it did have a few holes here and there to take a look into, while the line ran down a sloping bedding plane that was fairly low(probably too low for clean traversing in backmount). The bottom was a mix of sand and clay and was silted up quite easily, down below was a finer silt(similar to whats at the bottom of Hole in the Wall). There was also percolation from the ceiling as this cave doesn't appear to be dived much. Visibility started to go downhill so we exitted with a max depth of 58', we spent the rest of our 26 minute dive diving around the basin to check out what kind of wildlife we could harrass. Bass, bream, and turtles were all available.
After a great dive, we decided to look around a bit for a couple other leads, so we headed downstream. Didn't come across anything, but had fun running around the waterways, exploring cut-throughs and possible runs. One of the runs was incredibly muddy and even a bit long, but interesting. It wound through several private properties with no visible flow, lots of mud, lots of roots, and not much depths. It looked natural, but ended up in a little alcove with an island in the middle(and two boats far too large to have had any business being down this run). Surely didn't look like a spring, possibly just a channel running through the woods providing more boat launches for several locals?
After a bit more running around, we headed back to the launch to pack everything up. Shagman's car continued to eat up the 6 tanks, dive gear, sleeping bags, clothes, and even an 11' inflatable w/15hp outboard - defies physics I tell ya! The ride home was spent talking about the next adventures and reflecting on the weekend. Always a great time and I can't wait until the first weekend in November when we invade the Mill Pond!
Saturday morning broke early and I was able to catch a ride with cmufieldhockey across the panhandle to Marianna, FL. We met up with several other divers over at Cave Adventurers, including Willardj, Denisegg, and CaveDiver. cmufieldhockey joined up with her instructor on a boat while she was teaching classes over at Hole and Twin, while Willardj and I headed to Jackson Blue. Denisegg went with CaveDiver and his buddy to get breakfast and they met back up with us at JB.
There weren't too many people at the park, just one other person in the water and a couple other teams gearing up. By the time me and Jaime hit the water, the only other diver in the water was exitting the far stairs. We geared up and Willardj ran a reel from OW and up to the goldline. The two of us dropped our deco tanks at the beginning of the gold and headed upstream, with Jaime in the lead. I was trying out some DiveRite fins I borrowed from cmufieldhockey and my footheavy issues were cured(score!). We zipped down the chimney and could see the first breakdown right away, over a hundred feet away. The flow was noticable but we made consistant progress and we hit the first "t" before long, layed a couple cookies and headed left. At the 2nd "t" we turned and came back the same way, letting the flow take ahold of us for a relaxing drift back into daylight. We did a minute deepstop and made our way to the cavern, pulling our deco and primary lines on the way out. Once at 20' we did a short deco and safety while watching a scooter team of two, as well as a team of three on megs, enter the system. We exitted after 72 minutes of bottom time with a max depth of 95'.
Once out of the water, we watched as Denisegg and CaveDiver geared up and went in on a cave dive. When they were finished up, we hit up Vortoberfest for the festivities, which is always a ton of fun!
10-19-8
Morrison Springs
Sunday morning came early and I was ready to go, despite the chilly morning temps. We got held back a bit by telling everyone fairwell(not too often we get so many ScubaBoarders together). A fairly large group of us headed to the new boatlaunch at Morrison to get a good dive in over there. Our enlarged team consisted of me and Snepdiver, Shagman, WillardJ, Irishsquid and his buddy. The run was clear and the new boatlaunch made for an easy entry. We chatted a bit with a local fisherman on his boat and descended into the shallow run to swim out to the basin while UW(why swim on the surface and miss out on all the wildlife in between?).
Visibility at Morrison was 80'ish and we had the place to ourselves. There were lots of bream around as well as schools of small bass, shellcrackers, soles everywhere, the occassional pike, sanddivers, and a couple varieties of turtles. Snepdiver and I took a leisurely tour around the basin and swam around the edge of the treeline and under the pylons making up the boardwalk and floating dock. It was great to get another dive in at Morrison, still one of my favorite dives! We made our way back up the run and were rewarded with even more wildlife of all kinds. GlenFWB and his wife, were on the surface, camera in hand, when we surfaced. Hit a max depth of 25' for a ~40 minute dive.
Shagman and I hit up Sally's afterwards then back to Vortex to grab the rest of my stuff.
River Spring/Cavern Dive
I was looking forward to getting a cave dive in at Vortex, but instead we took advantage of the availability of Shag's dive yacht. We had looked at a spring earlier in the year, when water levels were high, and figured it might be a good time to check back on it to see if conditions were good enough to hop in the water this time. Just short of an hour later, we were gearing the yacht up for some water running. The creek was low and visibility seemed up, so things were looking good. We headed over to our destination and were greeted with crystal clear water. A large ledge was easily visible so Shagman motored us over to a shallow sandbar area bordered with water lettuce and lillypads.
We dropped down and found the large ledge covered a deceptively smaller cavern entrance. I ran a line from a tree in OW and down to the cave line running just outside the cavern entrance. The entrance was easily managed single-file against a noticable flow. The cavern area was large enough to move around in, but not overly large, it did have a few holes here and there to take a look into, while the line ran down a sloping bedding plane that was fairly low(probably too low for clean traversing in backmount). The bottom was a mix of sand and clay and was silted up quite easily, down below was a finer silt(similar to whats at the bottom of Hole in the Wall). There was also percolation from the ceiling as this cave doesn't appear to be dived much. Visibility started to go downhill so we exitted with a max depth of 58', we spent the rest of our 26 minute dive diving around the basin to check out what kind of wildlife we could harrass. Bass, bream, and turtles were all available.
After a great dive, we decided to look around a bit for a couple other leads, so we headed downstream. Didn't come across anything, but had fun running around the waterways, exploring cut-throughs and possible runs. One of the runs was incredibly muddy and even a bit long, but interesting. It wound through several private properties with no visible flow, lots of mud, lots of roots, and not much depths. It looked natural, but ended up in a little alcove with an island in the middle(and two boats far too large to have had any business being down this run). Surely didn't look like a spring, possibly just a channel running through the woods providing more boat launches for several locals?
After a bit more running around, we headed back to the launch to pack everything up. Shagman's car continued to eat up the 6 tanks, dive gear, sleeping bags, clothes, and even an 11' inflatable w/15hp outboard - defies physics I tell ya! The ride home was spent talking about the next adventures and reflecting on the weekend. Always a great time and I can't wait until the first weekend in November when we invade the Mill Pond!
