GLENFWB
Contributor
Suprbugman has already given the full report of our journey last weekend at the Mill Pond. I will hightlight a few of the things he left out. While Bugman hit the dark caves with some other divers, myself and Shagman hit Jackson Blue for two cavern dives. The first dive I practiced running a line in. That went fair but for some reason I was really having trouble staying balanced.
GLENFWB hanging out in front of Jackson Blue
During our SI, Shagman and I decided to walk over the the pavillons to see if we could find Cumfieldhockey and Denisregg. Sure enogh we found them and found out how the Cavern/Intro Cave course was going. Here is a shot of me and Denise solving the worlds problems...notice she seems to be doing most of the talking!
After we left Jackson Blue Cavern on our second dive, we had plenty of gas left and decided to head down the open water swim toward the pond. The park has a line strung across the pond to catch the grass before it enters the swimming area at Jackson Blue. This creates a canopy of grass that is shallow, but a lot of fun to swim under. It is full of fish...we saw large amounts of brim and bass as we swam through and under the grass. It was a nice leisurely swim that rewarded us with a lot wildlife and plants.
After our second dive Shagman and I returned to the van to pack up. Bugman met us and we were packing up to head to the Wakulla dive club meeting when the battery on the van went dead. After about an hour we resolved the situation but it was to late to go to the meeting. We headed back to Cave Adventures for some fills.
I had decided it was time to make the jump to a BP/W. Ed gave me a great deal on a Dive Rite, Back Plate, Harness, and Venture wing. I bought the setup with the understanding that Shagman and Bugman had to help me put the thing together. We headed to Marianna to secure our room at the luxurious Executive Inn located in downtown Marianna. Lets just say there is a reason the rooms are 35 dollars a night!
After a trip to Old Mexico, we settled in our room so Bugman could break down his doubles for side mount, and I could attempt to assemble my BP/W with Shagman and Bugmans help. Thanks guys, I LITERALLY couldn't have done it without you. I went to sleep that night with visions of sugar plums and my new BP/W dancing in my head.
Early the next morning we headed back to Cave Adventures to pick up a pontoon and head out for a day of exploring and diving.
Mill Pond was crystal clear:
Bugman was the captain and our first stop was the Twin Caves. The water was crystal clear as we docked at the platform divers have built to access this site. Once the beaver..."poo" was washed off the platform we were ready to gear up and get in the water. This is a shot of Twin Caves from above the water:
Bugman told us how easy this cavern will silt up. We all entered the cavern and began to explore this small area. I won't say who was responsible for the majority of the silting...let's just say we all decided to head back out to open water after some time in Twin.
Next stop was ShangraLa and for me, it was the most pristine dive site I have ever seen or been diving in. I have a short video I will try and post later. Here are some of the best shots from this site. All of these were taken by Shagman because my camera fogged up at this site...of all places to not have a camera!
This picture is me entering the cavern....the new BP/W was AWESOME. My trim was 100% better and I even got the frog kick working!
After our unsuccessful attempt to find another site...Indian Washtub I think it was called, we headed for Hole in the Wall. We found this site to be very silty, with a lot of debri in the water outside the cavern.
We played around in the cavern exploring for a while and then headed back out.
Our final job of the day was to find Gator hole. If I get any of the names wrong someone can correct me. We saw what we thought might be Gator hole. The grass and weeds were to thick to get the boat up to the site. It was determined by our boat captain (Bugman) that we would stay out a ways, and find some crazy volunteer to jump in the water, swim through the grass, stick your head in a hole, and see if it is worth gearing up and diving. You guessed it, I jumped in and made my way through the grass. Each time I moved a clump of grass aside I expected to see a gator peering back at me....I mean, I thought there had to be some reason Bugman and Shagman were on the boat cheering me on. I did notice Shagman was taking pictures...you know, in case something did happen he would have video evidence.
Once I was able to pull enough grass aside I finally made my way to the break in the limestone. I was able to see a cavern entrance and feel a temperature change. It appeared there was at least a small cavern. After hollering my report back to the boat we decided to gear up and explore this site. We ran a line in to the cavern. It was a very unique cavern with various rooms going off the left side. One room in the back appeared to be a cave. Shagman and I headed back out to chat out what we had discovered. We decided to go back in the back of the cavern and explore the air pocket above the cavern. We noticed there were plants growing in the back of the cavern...attached plants, not ones that just floated in. As we went up in to the air pocket we were shocked at what we saw. We know we are not the first ones to discover this site, but we felt like explorers discovering a hidden land.
These pictures show the HUGE cave above the cavern. It wasn't till we turned around that we saw there was a small exit above water to this cave.
It was the perfect ending to a perfect day of diving. Shagman and I really enjoyed this find and went back down in to the cavern, recovered our reel, and then made our way back to the boat to tell Bugman about our find. After a short trip around the rest of the pond, we decided we better head back to Cave Adventures so we could make our way back to reality.
Although there are many stories from our weekend of diving that I can't share...I guess the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words" is true. While we were exploring possible dive sites late Saturday evening. We went down a long dirt road to a boat launch. I told the guys that I expected to hear banjos playing out there or someone squealing like a pig (an obvious reference to the movie Deliverance). It was right after that comment that this picture was taken. I will leave the reader to determine what Shagman and Bugman were up too.
Here are some various pictures from the weekend. There are more pictures posted on my Photobucket site.
http://s116.photobucket.com/albums/o36/glenfwb/?start=0
Shagman displaying his refined bouyancy techniques
Crawfish Mating...look closely, there are two of them.
Bugman says, OK
GLENFWB hanging out in front of Jackson Blue
During our SI, Shagman and I decided to walk over the the pavillons to see if we could find Cumfieldhockey and Denisregg. Sure enogh we found them and found out how the Cavern/Intro Cave course was going. Here is a shot of me and Denise solving the worlds problems...notice she seems to be doing most of the talking!
After we left Jackson Blue Cavern on our second dive, we had plenty of gas left and decided to head down the open water swim toward the pond. The park has a line strung across the pond to catch the grass before it enters the swimming area at Jackson Blue. This creates a canopy of grass that is shallow, but a lot of fun to swim under. It is full of fish...we saw large amounts of brim and bass as we swam through and under the grass. It was a nice leisurely swim that rewarded us with a lot wildlife and plants.
After our second dive Shagman and I returned to the van to pack up. Bugman met us and we were packing up to head to the Wakulla dive club meeting when the battery on the van went dead. After about an hour we resolved the situation but it was to late to go to the meeting. We headed back to Cave Adventures for some fills.
I had decided it was time to make the jump to a BP/W. Ed gave me a great deal on a Dive Rite, Back Plate, Harness, and Venture wing. I bought the setup with the understanding that Shagman and Bugman had to help me put the thing together. We headed to Marianna to secure our room at the luxurious Executive Inn located in downtown Marianna. Lets just say there is a reason the rooms are 35 dollars a night!
After a trip to Old Mexico, we settled in our room so Bugman could break down his doubles for side mount, and I could attempt to assemble my BP/W with Shagman and Bugmans help. Thanks guys, I LITERALLY couldn't have done it without you. I went to sleep that night with visions of sugar plums and my new BP/W dancing in my head.
Early the next morning we headed back to Cave Adventures to pick up a pontoon and head out for a day of exploring and diving.
Mill Pond was crystal clear:
Bugman was the captain and our first stop was the Twin Caves. The water was crystal clear as we docked at the platform divers have built to access this site. Once the beaver..."poo" was washed off the platform we were ready to gear up and get in the water. This is a shot of Twin Caves from above the water:
Bugman told us how easy this cavern will silt up. We all entered the cavern and began to explore this small area. I won't say who was responsible for the majority of the silting...let's just say we all decided to head back out to open water after some time in Twin.
Next stop was ShangraLa and for me, it was the most pristine dive site I have ever seen or been diving in. I have a short video I will try and post later. Here are some of the best shots from this site. All of these were taken by Shagman because my camera fogged up at this site...of all places to not have a camera!
This picture is me entering the cavern....the new BP/W was AWESOME. My trim was 100% better and I even got the frog kick working!
After our unsuccessful attempt to find another site...Indian Washtub I think it was called, we headed for Hole in the Wall. We found this site to be very silty, with a lot of debri in the water outside the cavern.
We played around in the cavern exploring for a while and then headed back out.
Our final job of the day was to find Gator hole. If I get any of the names wrong someone can correct me. We saw what we thought might be Gator hole. The grass and weeds were to thick to get the boat up to the site. It was determined by our boat captain (Bugman) that we would stay out a ways, and find some crazy volunteer to jump in the water, swim through the grass, stick your head in a hole, and see if it is worth gearing up and diving. You guessed it, I jumped in and made my way through the grass. Each time I moved a clump of grass aside I expected to see a gator peering back at me....I mean, I thought there had to be some reason Bugman and Shagman were on the boat cheering me on. I did notice Shagman was taking pictures...you know, in case something did happen he would have video evidence.
Once I was able to pull enough grass aside I finally made my way to the break in the limestone. I was able to see a cavern entrance and feel a temperature change. It appeared there was at least a small cavern. After hollering my report back to the boat we decided to gear up and explore this site. We ran a line in to the cavern. It was a very unique cavern with various rooms going off the left side. One room in the back appeared to be a cave. Shagman and I headed back out to chat out what we had discovered. We decided to go back in the back of the cavern and explore the air pocket above the cavern. We noticed there were plants growing in the back of the cavern...attached plants, not ones that just floated in. As we went up in to the air pocket we were shocked at what we saw. We know we are not the first ones to discover this site, but we felt like explorers discovering a hidden land.
These pictures show the HUGE cave above the cavern. It wasn't till we turned around that we saw there was a small exit above water to this cave.
It was the perfect ending to a perfect day of diving. Shagman and I really enjoyed this find and went back down in to the cavern, recovered our reel, and then made our way back to the boat to tell Bugman about our find. After a short trip around the rest of the pond, we decided we better head back to Cave Adventures so we could make our way back to reality.
Although there are many stories from our weekend of diving that I can't share...I guess the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words" is true. While we were exploring possible dive sites late Saturday evening. We went down a long dirt road to a boat launch. I told the guys that I expected to hear banjos playing out there or someone squealing like a pig (an obvious reference to the movie Deliverance). It was right after that comment that this picture was taken. I will leave the reader to determine what Shagman and Bugman were up too.
Here are some various pictures from the weekend. There are more pictures posted on my Photobucket site.
http://s116.photobucket.com/albums/o36/glenfwb/?start=0
Shagman displaying his refined bouyancy techniques
Crawfish Mating...look closely, there are two of them.
Bugman says, OK
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Thats what I'm telling everyone anyway. Thanks for the report.
