SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
So what better landmark than a Hooters to meet up with a person not so familiar with Tallahassee? Seemed logical to me. Thats where I met with Ben M Tuesday morning, slightly earlier than our 8:30AM meet time(he was quite a bit earlier). It was cold, about 35F and I scraped ice off my windshield before driving towards Monroe, damned near got into a car accident pulling into the restraunt parking lot too. Ben made it a point to let me know that he had indeed seen me try to scare the bajesus out of oncoming traffic. A stop a gas station, and we were heading a little further south for our divesite, nestled just on the side of a major highway.
We park the vehicles off in the woods just a bit, to keep them a little less obvious to anyone who wants to get curious and we go take a look at the sinkhole. The basin is blue, which is great, and a suprise considering all the rain the region has been getting over the last couple months. Its really starting to warm up too, probably close to 40F while I pull a damp wetsuit on... We hike tanks down a steep depression one at a time and set them at the waters edge. After we get our Nomads on, we hit the water, which is much more comfortable than ambient. The basin is blue, with several fallen trees, trash, and a debri cone in OW, most everything is covered in a fillamentous algae. I tie off a primary and head into the cavern and we find the permanant line quickly and make our way into the restriction that is our entrance into the cave. The first 75' or so is pretty low(plenty wide though), with a silt bottom, and is certainly the justification for this cave being considered sidemount - despite most of the main passage afterwards being easily swimmable in backmount for a capable diver. We hit a "T" and I cookie the exit and we stay left, which seems like main tunnel. The bottom is silty, with breakdown here and there(with silt on it too). The walls are several different shades of yellow, grey, brown, and black, like layer cake. The ceiling has a goethite look to it, but crumbly. Its a really beautiful cave. There are a few jumps as we progress down the mainline, we OK them, taking note for future visits, and continue on. I would say half of our dive here is in 71F water, which verifies what I thought I saw on my previous(and first) dive onsite. This is really weird for the area, I don't know of any other panhandle spring/sink/caves that have water that warm until you start into the armpit of Florida. There are several types of isopods fluttering around midwater and even a couple very healthy cave crawfish. We wind around to another "T" and hang right and then down a chute and the cave takes a far more white appearance. We navigate over a breakdown pile, then across a little more line into a room where we find the EOL(650'p). Dive gets turned and we head back with plenty of gas so we hit the opposite tunnel on our last encountered "T" and follow it a little more than a hundred feet into a large low room where the line's tied off in the center. Its really a pretty cave! Heading towards the exit again, still with lots of gas, I ask Ben if he wants to check out the other line on the first "T", he gives me the "cold" signal but I missed the part where he was asking me if I was cold(he's diving dry, I'm wet). I assume he's cold and we head down the exit and out of the cave and spend a few minutes looking around the basin. The sides undercut on one side. There are several bicycles in the debri cone. I reel up the primary and we surface with a dive time of 53 minutes and a max depth of only 65'. Back on dryland, I'm wet, and now I'm definately cold. It was a great dive and definately worth it though.
I'm short on time, so we hit up the Burger King for some quick grub before parting ways. Ben seemed to have enjoyed diving in Tally, I think he'll be back for more.
I head out to Jim Stevenson's Spring Rally at the state capitol. There are several hundred people there, lots of divers, and lots of other very avid spring lovers. Lots of great presentations, some giant birds, the creature of the black lagoon, Wes Skiles broke out a Star Wars quote, and I got some free GUE schwag(but I'm not drinking the koolaid).
Eventually, I meet back up with BGillespie and we hit up another area spring in Wakulla County for a looksy. Its looking quite blue and tempting too - might hit it up next time.
We park the vehicles off in the woods just a bit, to keep them a little less obvious to anyone who wants to get curious and we go take a look at the sinkhole. The basin is blue, which is great, and a suprise considering all the rain the region has been getting over the last couple months. Its really starting to warm up too, probably close to 40F while I pull a damp wetsuit on... We hike tanks down a steep depression one at a time and set them at the waters edge. After we get our Nomads on, we hit the water, which is much more comfortable than ambient. The basin is blue, with several fallen trees, trash, and a debri cone in OW, most everything is covered in a fillamentous algae. I tie off a primary and head into the cavern and we find the permanant line quickly and make our way into the restriction that is our entrance into the cave. The first 75' or so is pretty low(plenty wide though), with a silt bottom, and is certainly the justification for this cave being considered sidemount - despite most of the main passage afterwards being easily swimmable in backmount for a capable diver. We hit a "T" and I cookie the exit and we stay left, which seems like main tunnel. The bottom is silty, with breakdown here and there(with silt on it too). The walls are several different shades of yellow, grey, brown, and black, like layer cake. The ceiling has a goethite look to it, but crumbly. Its a really beautiful cave. There are a few jumps as we progress down the mainline, we OK them, taking note for future visits, and continue on. I would say half of our dive here is in 71F water, which verifies what I thought I saw on my previous(and first) dive onsite. This is really weird for the area, I don't know of any other panhandle spring/sink/caves that have water that warm until you start into the armpit of Florida. There are several types of isopods fluttering around midwater and even a couple very healthy cave crawfish. We wind around to another "T" and hang right and then down a chute and the cave takes a far more white appearance. We navigate over a breakdown pile, then across a little more line into a room where we find the EOL(650'p). Dive gets turned and we head back with plenty of gas so we hit the opposite tunnel on our last encountered "T" and follow it a little more than a hundred feet into a large low room where the line's tied off in the center. Its really a pretty cave! Heading towards the exit again, still with lots of gas, I ask Ben if he wants to check out the other line on the first "T", he gives me the "cold" signal but I missed the part where he was asking me if I was cold(he's diving dry, I'm wet). I assume he's cold and we head down the exit and out of the cave and spend a few minutes looking around the basin. The sides undercut on one side. There are several bicycles in the debri cone. I reel up the primary and we surface with a dive time of 53 minutes and a max depth of only 65'. Back on dryland, I'm wet, and now I'm definately cold. It was a great dive and definately worth it though.
I'm short on time, so we hit up the Burger King for some quick grub before parting ways. Ben seemed to have enjoyed diving in Tally, I think he'll be back for more.
I head out to Jim Stevenson's Spring Rally at the state capitol. There are several hundred people there, lots of divers, and lots of other very avid spring lovers. Lots of great presentations, some giant birds, the creature of the black lagoon, Wes Skiles broke out a Star Wars quote, and I got some free GUE schwag(but I'm not drinking the koolaid).
Eventually, I meet back up with BGillespie and we hit up another area spring in Wakulla County for a looksy. Its looking quite blue and tempting too - might hit it up next time.
Cavern isn't a good enough reason to get around to some good sites! 
