Thanks DIR Atlanta!

[rjack321]

Swim dives in JB? Strokes. My first swim dive in JB was back when it had a ripping flow, huge surface boil, etc. Making it to the T swimming was a huge accomplishment and felt like running a marathon. People trying to figure out how to spider walk on the celing, etc. My second dive there was my first scooter dive. Went out past the stoplight to explore a few of the lines going off from there. Double stage with a Mako. I had fun, but in hindsight probably not the best dive plan. That is a great cave though. I really need to make a trip out there.

Yeah yeah I bet it was snowing and you had to walk barefoot all the way from High Springs too.

 

[rjack321]

I just got back from a long weekend in FL with DIR-Atlanta and have a few pictures to share. We started off late, by at least 2 hours since it was hailing in Houston last Friday. Big honking hail, which really rattled the 50 seat cigar I was going to fly in. They grounded us on the tarmac for what seemed like eons. Finally we got a new runway designation, zipped along passing a whole ton of other waiting aircraft and poof we were airborn!

2 hours later (less than the wait time) I was in Jacksonville. Not exactly a cave hub, but it worked.

We drove another hour over to Lake City. At one time I had an office there, so I know how lovely it can be. Ehem well maybe some other century. This past weekend was motorcross season. Lots of those guys staying at the motel. Although they were a rather "mature" bunch.

Next AM, off we go to Peacock at 7am. We are the second car there and promptly spread our junk everywhere...

Peacock was obviously catering to divers

with nifty benches and steps leading down to... duckweed. Lots and lots of duckweed...


We did one long dive here, over 2 hours of bottom time. From Peacock1 we traversed to Olsen Sink basically on a AL80 stage plus a little bit of backgas. Then came back to Peacock1, recalculated gas and headed down the Peanut Tunnel on backgas. I guess this could have been 2 dives. We cleaned up for a few minutes on O2, although this was basically a no-deco dive.

min 0 to 38 is Peacock to Olsen.
min38 to 72 is the return
min75 to 95ish is the peanut tunnel
95+ is the peanut tunnel home and some time on O2

From Peacock we were originally going to hit Madison but it had rained and was projected to rain somemore. So we drove over to Mariana, where it was raining. Edd's Adventure's had no power so we were stuck getting fills We left the tanks and Edd was nice enough to stay up late and get them filled.

The next morning we packed up a pontoon boat with Atlanta's normal buddy Matt. Long hike down the hill, thank god Edd has a little ATV to carry the tanks.

Matt drove the boat to Hole in the Wall.

Where Atlanta proply seperated a wrist seal from his drysuit - intact. So we drove back to Edd's to get his spare neoprene suit.

We dove the upstream side first, although there's really no perceptible flow here. 1 stage plus <500psi of backgas. I put in the reel for this dive, not a shabby job thankfully. Ths is definately not a beginner cave, the floor is super fine silt and the mainline runs on the ceiling. We turned on time/max deco that we'd agreed to, and Atlanta was cold in his leaky neoprene suit.

The coolest spot was the "bridge" which is about 350ft along the mainline, min 12 on entry and min 45 or so on exit. Kinda a bit of a keyhole.

We had an hour SI although it was shaddy and none of us were really roasting. The next dive was downstream (left). Basically the same cave minus the ups and downs and no keyhole either. 1 stage plus a few hundred psi of backgas used. While for all practical purposes barely a deco dive (5mins over MDLs), we did 10mins on O2 for giggles and since we had the fairly short SI.

That was the end of Sunday.

Monday started off ambitious, we were going to do one long dive instead of 2 shorter ones. In Jackson Blue (JB) which flows about 190cfs according to some sources I've found. JB is open to divers 24hrs during the "off season", basically when people aren't jumping off this diving board into the cavern...

Kinda a pain having to check in at the sheriff's office across town, but on the other hand it was nice to have the place to ourselves. Well except for the black vultures...

There were ALOT of them, maybe an omen??

This was to be a double stage dive, oi that's alot of crapola to carry into the cave

Off we went with Atlanta leading. We swam in along the left hand side of the cavern, dropped down the middle "chute" and then dropped down the Fisher Crack to push into the flow at about 90-95ft at 8mins. We dropped stage 1 and switched to stage 2 at about 15mins, between the first and second breakdown areas. I think I still had 200psi to go in mine, although I was drafting behind Atlanta

We decided this was alot of work at min 28. And woosh we were halfway out in a heartbeat. We did some deep stops in the Fisher Crack although they were probably overkill. I found a nifty niche at 28ft to do a 30ft stop in without any work. And we did 10mins on O2 again. Zero backgas used, and very little of stage 2 got used as well, still a fun dive though. Coming back into the cavern with the sun streaming in behind was really cool.

We then went back to Edd's to pick up extra tank some of the Atlanta gang needed filled. That took a bit longer since Edd only got his Helium supply late that morning. Then it was back towards Jacksonville. Except for one minor delay with Officer Obe. Apparently cargo vans are required to stop for agricultural inspections. Since Atlanta normally drives an exempt passenger van we had no way of knowing. Thankfully just a warning, no ticket from the orange inspector.

4 hours later we were back at the airport where we parted ways. All in all a pretty good weekend of diving. Next time I really wanna see manatee(s) :cool2:

 

[DIR-Atlanta]

Nice pics. Just one quick point to add - all dives except the one in JB were done on single stages utilizing 30/30 trimix, which is why we were so particular with the deco. JB was a double stage, but still using 30/30.

Quote of the weekend - "I love having a crapload of gas!".

 

[TSandM]

Honestly, I can't imagine swimming into JB with two stages -- I find it enough of a challenge just with doubles!

Nice report. Did they tell you that those vultures eat latex?

 

[rjack321]

Honestly, I can't imagine swimming into JB with two stages -- I find it enough of a challenge just with doubles!

Nice report. Did they tell you that those vultures eat latex?

Dropping one was noticable, although I was not all that blasted by flow anyway. With 2 stages plus 600psi on backgas I'm fairly confident we could have (slowly) gotten to the second T. Although I was more impressed with JB's cavern area than the actual cave.

My only injury of the weekend was my left thumb. Starting at Peacock on Day1 I tore up the pad on a stage or maybe my spg's clip. It never really healed so I put a bandaid on it and covered it with duct tape. Much more comfortable from then on. I debated getting a pair of leather palmed neoprene gloves at Edd's (his "store" is really inexpensive, they were only $20). But the duct tape did the trick just fine. So the vultures went hungrey.

I think this might be the first ever actual dive report in the DIR scetion of SB.

 

[rjack321]

Nice pics. Just one quick point to add - all dives except the one in JB were done on single stages utilizing 30/30 trimix, which is why we were so particular with the deco. JB was a double stage, but still using 30/30.

Quote of the weekend - "I love having a crapload of gas!".

I did notice you have 0% EAD for 30/30 in your tables. I normally use -20% EAD myself but that was fine. With so much sawtoothing (most places except at downstream Hole in the Wall) its hard to know if you are over or under averaging depth anyway. And 10mins on O2 is pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things.

Lol yes I think I could have done P1 to Olsen about 5 times on the gas I had.:blinking:

 

[DIR-Atlanta]

I did notice you have 0% EAD for 30/30 in your tables. I normally use -20% EAD myself but that was fine.

Those tables were cut directly from DPlan, and then morphed a little for on-the-fly deco recalcs if necessary. They are a little more conservative on the EADs than some others I have seen.

I always clean up on O2 after any mix dive, and as you said with the sawtoothing we did in Peacock it is sometimes hard to tell where you are on the depth averaging. Of course, most people don't do main line and Peanut on the same dive, either. With the shallow exit on the Peanut line, it's probably safe enough to treat the dive we did like a 50 foot no deco profile, but O2 is cheap, so why not? JB and HITW are both more consistent depthwise, and provide a little bit better "shape" on the deco, due to the natural slope of the cave as you are exiting.

Matt and I are talking about doing a double stage dive in HITW, and maybe exploring some of the jumps in there.

I think this might be the first ever actual dive report in the DIR scetion of SB.

First one I can remember seeing. It's kind of nice - shows that we actually dive and have fun, instead of sitting around fretting over whether our hip D-ring needs to be 1/8" closer to the backplate.

 

[RTodd]

Yeah yeah I bet it was snowing and you had to walk barefoot all the way from High Springs too.

Of course not, hot lava.

Sounds like you didn't luck out and catch JB on a low flow day. Often it is bad, occassionally it is ridiculous. The cave is really different after the 2.5to 3k mark. Then you get into huge silt "dunes" and wider passages.

I had a buddy one time have a rock about the size of a stage fall between his back gas tanks back there. It obviously wasn't very heavy because he didn't even realize it was there and it was creating a huge silt plume as it feel apart being moved through the water. JB was one of the caves where I really learned how to cave dive. Of course, all of the infrastructure in your picture didn't exist the last time I dived it so to say it has been a while is a massive understatement.

 

[DIR-Atlanta]

Sounds like you didn't luck out and catch JB on a low flow day. Often it is bad, occassionally it is ridiculous.

I've been diving JB pretty consistently since my first time there during my Intro Cave class in July 1994. That summer was the year that most of south Georgia, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle were flooded from heavy Spring rains. Parts of I-10 around Chipley were actually closed at the time, and had only just opened the day before the class started. Needless to say, the flow in JB was kicking that weekend, and that has always been my barometer for how strong it is (which is why it often surprises people to hear me describe the flow in JB as "not too bad" when they are describing it as "ripping" ).

The flow this past Monday was way up (but still not as bad as 1994 ). They had about 3" of rain due to a front that moved through Saturday afternoon. Somebody else had dove JB on Sunday morning, and reported the vis was about 15 feet. By Sunday afternoon it was up to about 50 feet, and then on Monday it was more like 75-80 feet. So yeah, it was flowing pretty good.

Of course, all of the infrastructure in your picture didn't exist the last time I dived it so to say it has been a while is a massive understatement.

I remember the "good old days" too - Jackson County has really put some money in that place the last few years, which is one reason I don't complain too much about the $25 diving fee. The fee is a little steep considering what you get, but at least it appears to be going towards the benefit of the park and its patrons (including the divers).

 

[rjack321]

Those tables were cut directly from DPlan, and then morphed a little for on-the-fly deco recalcs if necessary. They are a little more conservative on the EADs than some others I have seen.

I always clean up on O2 after any mix dive, and as you said with the sawtoothing we did in Peacock it is sometimes hard to tell where you are on the depth averaging. Of course, most people don't do main line and Peanut on the same dive, either. With the shallow exit on the Peanut line, it's probably safe enough to treat the dive we did like a 50 foot no deco profile, but O2 is cheap, so why not? JB and HITW are both more consistent depthwise, and provide a little bit better "shape" on the deco, due to the natural slope of the cave as you are exiting.

Yeah I am not really accustomed to that much sawtoothing. I figure 20ft of ups and downs or less is still well within right-side-up or up-side-down profiles and so I don't agonize too much. (upside vs downside profiling DIR-diver.com - Average depth for deco? )

If your average is 10ft deeper that's only 5 mins of time on backgas anyway. And there's little point of even bringing the O2 unless you're going to do 5 mins anyway. I figured that for all but downstream hole-in-wall we probably did 2x the O2 time we actually needed.

Matt and I are talking about doing a double stage dive in HITW, and maybe exploring some of the jumps in there..

Man and you thought JB was alot of swimming! 30mins of swimming just to get to a jump sounds ugly. I don't think I'm ready (if ever) to scooter hole in the wall. That was some "serious" cave. Me kicking up the floor a tiny bit with my fin wash on the stage drop while I was 4ft above it was sobering. I can't even imagine the prop wash trepidation I'd have.

First one I can remember seeing. It's kind of nice - shows that we actually dive and have fun, instead of sitting around fretting over whether our hip D-ring needs to be 1/8" closer to the backplate.

I forgot to mention running out of inflation gas in Peacock! Damn that was annoying. That little 6cf bottle must have not been 100% full. esp after comparing to the 800psi I used upstream Hole-in-the-wall.

I did realize that my AL backplate's straps were a bit short with my 200gm undies, vest, and long underwear on. 'Twas a bit awkward getting to my left chest D-ring with my right hand on the drops. So I do have to move the straps at least 1/8"