SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
6-19-10
Hit up Edds place early Saturday morning, actually, just as they were opening, and there was still one person who beat me onsite. The early start was aided by crashing at a buddies house the previous night. After a few fills, I was out in 20 minutes and headed to one of my favorite waterways just a bit east. I called Jim C and Ben M to let them know I was headed out and we all would be meeting at a boat launch, a bit north of where we'd actually be pushing the boats off for some dives.
The weather was lookin good and it actually hadn't started getting too incredibly hot yet, especially in the shade. Jim C and I setup the boat off the banks of a private boat launch, while Ben M and a non-caver backed their boat in the water. They'd be playing surface support, and basically just enjoying the views. It didn't take us long to get everything setup, and loaded with two sets of heavy steels and full cave gear. Once the motor started up, for real(it puttered out a few times), we headed upstream slowly. A quick look at our second destination and we headed into the flood plain, picking out a spring run through several runoff channels and cut-throughs. We made it to our spring basin in short notice. Tannic water covered the surface, aside from where our motor churned up clearer blue, spring water up to the surface. The tannic water apparently just covered the immediate surface. We pulled off into floodplain, tied off to a large cypress knee, and started offloading gear.
Once kitted up and ready to go, we waded out to deeper water and started our descent. Pretty much right when I broke into blue water, my regulator started breathing very wet. I thumbed 'up', and we hit the surface again. A quick breakdown and put back together had everything working great and, more importantly, dry! Apparently when I broke it down last week, to remove some wood debri that had lodged into it and caused a freeflow, I didn't have a good seal around the diaphram when reassembling it. Everything working now, we started our dive and found the ledge, and its cave entrance. I tied off a primary to a loose log in OW and rain it the short way to the primary line inside the cave. There's a lowish sand restriction at first, but it seemed much easier to navigate than my last two dives at this location. I swam basically right through, it was great. I lead the dive and noted a jump in the very beginning of the cave that I wanted to check out later in the dive, and we headed up the line, taking a right at our first "T", to follow the majority of the flow. This passage is single file, 5-6' wide, and about 4' high in most parts. The bottom was covered in a light silt and fossils were pretty common. There were some catfish mucking up the bottom here and there. Off to the left, there was a jump line, and later a T that headed left as well. I believe these two lines probably make a circuit. The tunnel is craggly up top and lower, but looks worth exploring. Further into the system, we came upon another "T", and again headed right for a few hundred feet. There was a lineless(seemingly) passage on the left, but we headed straight up the feeder tube. The cave we were in was kinda like a subway tunnel, not an awefull lot of variation. Eventually it looked as if a silt mound would pinch the passage down substantially, so I turned the dive. The line probably continued on, I didn't see the end, but didn't feel it necessary to be pressing any silt restrictions several hundred feet back in a river cave. Our turnaround was silty enough anyway, requiring OKing the line for a bit, before getting 2-3' of visibility back for easy swimming. By the time we reached the entrance room, we had nearly all our 40'+ visibility back. I clipped an arrow and used a double-ender to connect the mainline to the jumpline and headed up the sidepassage in the beginning of the system. It had a detrius covered bottom, not so much silt, but clay and dirt, stayed low, then opened up to a small room with a debri pile on one side and a tall(relatively) ceiling. Then a bit of a terminal room where the EOL was found, a few more choked out feeder tunnels, and we turned the dive and headed up and out of the cave. A few minutes of safety stoppin and we were back in OW. Had a max depth of 59' for a dive lasting 50 minutes. Saw a few hundred feet of new cave that I hadn't seen at this cave, not difficult since I've only had one other cave dive there...
Just over 30 minutes later, we were gearing up in the water again. This time in a basin just off the main waterway. A couple boats were anchored in the middle and enjoying the cooler spring water while we geared up off to the side of the floodplain. We followed the depression of the basin down to the bottom of a large limestone ledge, 25' tall, and better than 50' long. At the bottom is a small, triangular cave entrance. You'd think a larger ledge might have a bigger opening... and possibly it was bigger at one time, but breakdown has choked it down to just a small opening. There's a lowish cavern that then angles down to a largish junction room with cave opening up in a few different directions. Mixing water is very evident, kinda interesting since there isn't an awefull lot of haloclines in the caves around here. We checked out some fossilized dugong bones on display along a pure white limestone wall, pretty amazing, everytime. Once we had finished checking out the fossils, we took the left side of a "T", then another left at an immediate second "T", then off into the main passage we went. It starts off in low, very silty bedding plain. Visibility was likely 50'+. Jim C was leading at this point, since he had never been here and it'd be good for him to see the bigger better areas to travel and where the linetraps were found. I stayed on his heals tight, and never had to worry about getting on the line. After a pull through restriction, we were in easily swimmable passage again. The cave at this point was more spacious, round, and less flat. It also winded back and forth and did a few ups and downs. There were fossils to be observed on the floors and the walls and ceilings would be crumbly. It eventually got tighter, and silty again, but would open up shortly after a few more drops and winds. We then entered a bigger room, with lots of striated limestone, which was more like clay. This whole room looked incredibly unstable. A collapse here wouldn't suprise me in the slightest. We looked down another restriction, that was doable, but it would have been messy with silt... We decided that turning at this point might be a better idea. We'd be killing the visibility with our turnaround anyway, but atleast wouldn't have to deal with another restriction in zero visibility. We made quick work of the the back of the cave, heading back home, and found friendly enough visibility before too long. We probably had 20'+ vis by the time we hit our restriction, marking the beginning of the low silty area. We exitted the cave and spent our safety stop checking out the cracks and crevices in the ledge. It was a great dive, saw more of this cave than I have in the past(and I had several dives here previously) with a max depth of 62' for a dive lasting 47 minutes.
After a quick ride back to the launch, we packed up the Miss Jellyfish and headed to Big Daddy's BBQ a little up the highway. The place looked new, or atleast recently renovated? The food was great and the portions were humungous! Had a great dive with Jim C and its always great to have Ben M for company. We parted ways and I headed to Tallahassee for the night, after another quick fill up at Edds.
6-20-10
The original plans for the weekend called for a day trip Saturday and heading home afterwards. Taking Sunday off to just veg out and do, nothing. Which is something I haven't done much of in awhile. That changed though and I ended up in Tallahassee Saturday afternoon. Since I was there anyway, I figured I'd make the most of it and get a dive in Sunday morning. Rotor60driver was in town, diving with BGillespie on Saturday and planned to dive Sunday as well. I called them up, and of course invited myself along for Sundays dive.
BGillespie had to cancel for Sunday, so I was in luck that Rotor60driver was in town. He was also in luck that my plans changed and I was in Tally, kinda funny how these things tend to work out. We made plans to meet up in the morning on the side of the road near our divesite. There's no true public landaccess to the spring we'd be driving, so we'd have to hike up a slough from a bridge, geared up, to find the spring and dive... First line of business is to make damned sure the gators aren't around, because they make their presence known far too often at this location. The slough was anywhere from ankle to shin deep with a rocky bottom, logs strewn out everywhere, and vegatation hiding everythings location. We carted all our gear off to the water, then hopped in, geared up, and started to slog everything up 'stream'. I didn't get more than 30' before my weight shifted, and between the 100+lbs of gear on me, and me twisting to stay balanced, something pulled from my back... and I'm in pain. D'Oh. I just sit down and think for a bit... Then unclip both tanks and get up. My middle back is spasming a bit and it sucks. After a bit of standing, things seem OK, but I can't put any real strain on my back. I do manage to sling a tank up on my shoulder and limp it to the spring. Then I made a seperate trip for the other tank. I knew I'd be fine once in the water... then I'd just have to get everything back to our entry, then up to the car. We never did see any gators, but I spotted a snake
There's a large flat boulder over the cave entrance, kinda splitting it in two. One side is tight and probably doable in SM, but why bother when on the other side is a single file BMable opening. The water was crystal clear, with an incredibly mild flow, nearly unnoticable. Vis was 100', easy. This is a great little cave. The passage isn't big, but its the biggest I'd be doing all weekend. The size still very much makes it technique cave, as does its meandering left, right, up, and down. The walls are incredible, tons of fossiles and craggly junk everywhere. The bottom is a fine silt/clay mix. There are sporatic geothite formations and a few side passages, lots more towards the beginning. We went in carefully and negotiated passage for likely around 1000'p, a couple hundred feet atleast past a really fun pit. Definately one of the more beautiful caves I've been into, kinda like a runt version of the offspring of a Century Tunnel and Peacock hookup... except not raped. Truly stunning. Eventually we came to the point where Rotor60driver gave us a conservative turn, I had just made it a few hundred feet past the first time I had been there so I got to see more new cave. Percolation reduced our exit visibility, but it was never substantial. I had a max depth of 70' for a dive lasting 54 minutes. Excellent dive!
The trips back splitting my gear up weren't nearly as bad as I feared... We packed up and decided to hit up some more cave sooner than later(it had been a little while since Rotor and I had dived together), then parted ways. My back didn't really start killing me until that afternoon, and when it hit me, it REALLY sucked. Its getting better day after day though. I'm taking this weekend off, I'm overdue for a do-nothing weekend and it'll give the back some additional rest(although I think it'll be good in a day or two). Looking forward to the first weekend of July though, three day weekend, and should be able to get some more great dives in!
Hit up Edds place early Saturday morning, actually, just as they were opening, and there was still one person who beat me onsite. The early start was aided by crashing at a buddies house the previous night. After a few fills, I was out in 20 minutes and headed to one of my favorite waterways just a bit east. I called Jim C and Ben M to let them know I was headed out and we all would be meeting at a boat launch, a bit north of where we'd actually be pushing the boats off for some dives.
The weather was lookin good and it actually hadn't started getting too incredibly hot yet, especially in the shade. Jim C and I setup the boat off the banks of a private boat launch, while Ben M and a non-caver backed their boat in the water. They'd be playing surface support, and basically just enjoying the views. It didn't take us long to get everything setup, and loaded with two sets of heavy steels and full cave gear. Once the motor started up, for real(it puttered out a few times), we headed upstream slowly. A quick look at our second destination and we headed into the flood plain, picking out a spring run through several runoff channels and cut-throughs. We made it to our spring basin in short notice. Tannic water covered the surface, aside from where our motor churned up clearer blue, spring water up to the surface. The tannic water apparently just covered the immediate surface. We pulled off into floodplain, tied off to a large cypress knee, and started offloading gear.
Once kitted up and ready to go, we waded out to deeper water and started our descent. Pretty much right when I broke into blue water, my regulator started breathing very wet. I thumbed 'up', and we hit the surface again. A quick breakdown and put back together had everything working great and, more importantly, dry! Apparently when I broke it down last week, to remove some wood debri that had lodged into it and caused a freeflow, I didn't have a good seal around the diaphram when reassembling it. Everything working now, we started our dive and found the ledge, and its cave entrance. I tied off a primary to a loose log in OW and rain it the short way to the primary line inside the cave. There's a lowish sand restriction at first, but it seemed much easier to navigate than my last two dives at this location. I swam basically right through, it was great. I lead the dive and noted a jump in the very beginning of the cave that I wanted to check out later in the dive, and we headed up the line, taking a right at our first "T", to follow the majority of the flow. This passage is single file, 5-6' wide, and about 4' high in most parts. The bottom was covered in a light silt and fossils were pretty common. There were some catfish mucking up the bottom here and there. Off to the left, there was a jump line, and later a T that headed left as well. I believe these two lines probably make a circuit. The tunnel is craggly up top and lower, but looks worth exploring. Further into the system, we came upon another "T", and again headed right for a few hundred feet. There was a lineless(seemingly) passage on the left, but we headed straight up the feeder tube. The cave we were in was kinda like a subway tunnel, not an awefull lot of variation. Eventually it looked as if a silt mound would pinch the passage down substantially, so I turned the dive. The line probably continued on, I didn't see the end, but didn't feel it necessary to be pressing any silt restrictions several hundred feet back in a river cave. Our turnaround was silty enough anyway, requiring OKing the line for a bit, before getting 2-3' of visibility back for easy swimming. By the time we reached the entrance room, we had nearly all our 40'+ visibility back. I clipped an arrow and used a double-ender to connect the mainline to the jumpline and headed up the sidepassage in the beginning of the system. It had a detrius covered bottom, not so much silt, but clay and dirt, stayed low, then opened up to a small room with a debri pile on one side and a tall(relatively) ceiling. Then a bit of a terminal room where the EOL was found, a few more choked out feeder tunnels, and we turned the dive and headed up and out of the cave. A few minutes of safety stoppin and we were back in OW. Had a max depth of 59' for a dive lasting 50 minutes. Saw a few hundred feet of new cave that I hadn't seen at this cave, not difficult since I've only had one other cave dive there...
Just over 30 minutes later, we were gearing up in the water again. This time in a basin just off the main waterway. A couple boats were anchored in the middle and enjoying the cooler spring water while we geared up off to the side of the floodplain. We followed the depression of the basin down to the bottom of a large limestone ledge, 25' tall, and better than 50' long. At the bottom is a small, triangular cave entrance. You'd think a larger ledge might have a bigger opening... and possibly it was bigger at one time, but breakdown has choked it down to just a small opening. There's a lowish cavern that then angles down to a largish junction room with cave opening up in a few different directions. Mixing water is very evident, kinda interesting since there isn't an awefull lot of haloclines in the caves around here. We checked out some fossilized dugong bones on display along a pure white limestone wall, pretty amazing, everytime. Once we had finished checking out the fossils, we took the left side of a "T", then another left at an immediate second "T", then off into the main passage we went. It starts off in low, very silty bedding plain. Visibility was likely 50'+. Jim C was leading at this point, since he had never been here and it'd be good for him to see the bigger better areas to travel and where the linetraps were found. I stayed on his heals tight, and never had to worry about getting on the line. After a pull through restriction, we were in easily swimmable passage again. The cave at this point was more spacious, round, and less flat. It also winded back and forth and did a few ups and downs. There were fossils to be observed on the floors and the walls and ceilings would be crumbly. It eventually got tighter, and silty again, but would open up shortly after a few more drops and winds. We then entered a bigger room, with lots of striated limestone, which was more like clay. This whole room looked incredibly unstable. A collapse here wouldn't suprise me in the slightest. We looked down another restriction, that was doable, but it would have been messy with silt... We decided that turning at this point might be a better idea. We'd be killing the visibility with our turnaround anyway, but atleast wouldn't have to deal with another restriction in zero visibility. We made quick work of the the back of the cave, heading back home, and found friendly enough visibility before too long. We probably had 20'+ vis by the time we hit our restriction, marking the beginning of the low silty area. We exitted the cave and spent our safety stop checking out the cracks and crevices in the ledge. It was a great dive, saw more of this cave than I have in the past(and I had several dives here previously) with a max depth of 62' for a dive lasting 47 minutes.
After a quick ride back to the launch, we packed up the Miss Jellyfish and headed to Big Daddy's BBQ a little up the highway. The place looked new, or atleast recently renovated? The food was great and the portions were humungous! Had a great dive with Jim C and its always great to have Ben M for company. We parted ways and I headed to Tallahassee for the night, after another quick fill up at Edds.
6-20-10
The original plans for the weekend called for a day trip Saturday and heading home afterwards. Taking Sunday off to just veg out and do, nothing. Which is something I haven't done much of in awhile. That changed though and I ended up in Tallahassee Saturday afternoon. Since I was there anyway, I figured I'd make the most of it and get a dive in Sunday morning. Rotor60driver was in town, diving with BGillespie on Saturday and planned to dive Sunday as well. I called them up, and of course invited myself along for Sundays dive.
BGillespie had to cancel for Sunday, so I was in luck that Rotor60driver was in town. He was also in luck that my plans changed and I was in Tally, kinda funny how these things tend to work out. We made plans to meet up in the morning on the side of the road near our divesite. There's no true public landaccess to the spring we'd be driving, so we'd have to hike up a slough from a bridge, geared up, to find the spring and dive... First line of business is to make damned sure the gators aren't around, because they make their presence known far too often at this location. The slough was anywhere from ankle to shin deep with a rocky bottom, logs strewn out everywhere, and vegatation hiding everythings location. We carted all our gear off to the water, then hopped in, geared up, and started to slog everything up 'stream'. I didn't get more than 30' before my weight shifted, and between the 100+lbs of gear on me, and me twisting to stay balanced, something pulled from my back... and I'm in pain. D'Oh. I just sit down and think for a bit... Then unclip both tanks and get up. My middle back is spasming a bit and it sucks. After a bit of standing, things seem OK, but I can't put any real strain on my back. I do manage to sling a tank up on my shoulder and limp it to the spring. Then I made a seperate trip for the other tank. I knew I'd be fine once in the water... then I'd just have to get everything back to our entry, then up to the car. We never did see any gators, but I spotted a snake
There's a large flat boulder over the cave entrance, kinda splitting it in two. One side is tight and probably doable in SM, but why bother when on the other side is a single file BMable opening. The water was crystal clear, with an incredibly mild flow, nearly unnoticable. Vis was 100', easy. This is a great little cave. The passage isn't big, but its the biggest I'd be doing all weekend. The size still very much makes it technique cave, as does its meandering left, right, up, and down. The walls are incredible, tons of fossiles and craggly junk everywhere. The bottom is a fine silt/clay mix. There are sporatic geothite formations and a few side passages, lots more towards the beginning. We went in carefully and negotiated passage for likely around 1000'p, a couple hundred feet atleast past a really fun pit. Definately one of the more beautiful caves I've been into, kinda like a runt version of the offspring of a Century Tunnel and Peacock hookup... except not raped. Truly stunning. Eventually we came to the point where Rotor60driver gave us a conservative turn, I had just made it a few hundred feet past the first time I had been there so I got to see more new cave. Percolation reduced our exit visibility, but it was never substantial. I had a max depth of 70' for a dive lasting 54 minutes. Excellent dive!
The trips back splitting my gear up weren't nearly as bad as I feared... We packed up and decided to hit up some more cave sooner than later(it had been a little while since Rotor and I had dived together), then parted ways. My back didn't really start killing me until that afternoon, and when it hit me, it REALLY sucked. Its getting better day after day though. I'm taking this weekend off, I'm overdue for a do-nothing weekend and it'll give the back some additional rest(although I think it'll be good in a day or two). Looking forward to the first weekend of July though, three day weekend, and should be able to get some more great dives in!
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