One dead and one Missing at Buford Springs (FL, USA)

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

From a FB group, someone posted the dead divers were single tank.
 
It used to be a very difficult to access site. But they put a boardwalk in a couple of years ago. It made it much easier to get to the spring, but it does mean that a lot more divers are now diving it than before. Previously having to find the spring in the middle of a swamp probably put most people off.
 
This thread from 2020 has some pictures of the boardwalk and the spring itself. It also has a discussion about what effects the easier access to the site could lead to...

 
This is such a shame and so sad for the families involved. Buford is an absolutely beautiful place to dive, but you really need to keep a constant watch on your depth and stay within the limits of your training. It's not a place for bravado or inexperienced divers.
 
What happened?
 
Frustrating and sad. Knew it would happen at some point
 
The vis can be really good, but it can also be pretty terrible. Below ~70', you're in an overhead environment. Past the big rock (~110' there on the pic) it gets a bit smaller but it's still pretty open top in general.
That said, freedivers will often start stirring up silt in the 60-70' range, reducing visibility. OW divers who get near the bottom tend to also help reduce visibility.
It's not uncommon to see single tank recreational divers past the big rock at that site.

View attachment 729644
I think I recognize that image/cave from dive-talk, where they frequently talk about cave-diving.
What happened?
Without more details, it's probably a standard "two divers not properly trained for cave diving, decide to dive into a cave." The divers are inevitable under-equipped or under-trained for the environment, often get narc'd, lost or have an equipment failure (for which cave-divers have redundancy), and are unable to make it back to the exit/surface before running out of air.

Plenty of highly experienced divers, who lack specific cave-diving training, have died in caves. Based on a quick look at the map, it looks like no single-tank diver or one without cave-diving training should go past "the big rock."
 

Back
Top Bottom