FIXXERVI6
Contributor
Pulled the usual all nighter drive and pulled into Dive Outpost in the early am, the bunk house was ready for us so we just pulled around and crashed to catch some Z's.
First dive of the trip was an easy dive down Little River, didn't go in very far, flow was swimmable but there, vis was awesome, 66 minute dive.
Next day the wife started her cavern and intro class with Mike O Leary, the rest of us took off to peacock for another easy relaxing dive traverse from P1 to olsen, Kurt tried to shoot video but ran into exposure / battery problems, which is a shame as those 35 watt salvos throw some serious light! Surfaced at Olsen after a class had just went back into the cave, kinda gross but the water, I could have sworn, smelled like pee.
Kurt and I carried stages, the idea was to breath the stages on the traverse, on the way out dump them and jump down into PII but on the way out we saw a fairly good size team coming back out and the water was a hair on the cloudy side so we opted to skip that portion of the dive. Conditions in peacock were good, vis was good, flow non existent, basin was nasty, and the pothole line tunnel walls looked a bit whiter than normal, best dive up pothole I've ever had.
Next dive was in cow upstream, Kurt and I took stages and noticed the flow was up in the system from the last trip we had in there, the poor mans scooter was recently replaced and was in very good shape. Dropped the stage just before not my fault and continued on all the way through gnarly way and further up the line, on deco we saw two snapping turtles crawling around on a section of the wall on the prowl, those guys are very good climbers under water! Conditions were great, good vis flow was up a bit, 94 minute dive. On land my feet felt squishy in my dry suit so I thought I may have blown my catheter, so I tested in on land to see if liquid would come out the hole, if it did, it means I was hooked up, if it didnt, it meant it was in my suit. I road back to the shop in the back of the truck after no pee came out of the hole during my test, and my feet were that much squishier.
James kurt and myself went back to little river on the holiday and OMG the parking lot was beyond packed, after a couple trips around the parking lot we found a place to park, geared up and went, took stages with us. We headed up the well casing line and conditions where good all the way, once we crossed the scooter drop mound Kurt (the leader) signaled ok and ok's back and away we went, lots and lots of clay, low ceiling, gotta take it easy back there, on the way out I spotted a small eel, had to been 1400+ feet back in, I was amazed to see it back in that far. On exit we saw another team heading in. On the surface a boy came up to me and asked me to bring up the tanks he could see down in the water, I told him I could not. Kurt and James started up the stairs and I decided to watch the gear, sure enough the boy ran over and laid his hands on my stage so I marched straight at him yelling no, the look on his face was terror. Parents no where to be seen or if they were there they were not telling their child to behave, he couldnt' have been any older than 7 or 8 at the most.
Next day, the woman finished her cavern and into class and passed, so I took her to little river, I led, then her then David, I set the reel and took a nice easy pace, she made it to the triangle on her first dive on 1/6ths of double 95's. On the way out I pulled the reel, did a nice long safety stop and had a descent SIT of 20 minutes or so then gave her the reel, she ran it in tied into the main line and off we went, good conditions.
That evening went to cow downstream with the woman, she led and set the reel, I was feeling beat from all of the deco diving I had been doing every day so I breathed 50% in the cave and sat on o2 for almost 30 minutes when I came out. I was skimming around coming up real slow looking for turtles when I saw a bright flash my gut went oh hell its lightning out so I quickly rolled over and saw a bunch of people standing on land, all the guys had showed up to help us carry gear, how nice of them
James was taking pictures and that was the flash I saw.
Next day slept in a bit then I took the woman to Devils system, had to haggle with them a bit at the front desk about discretionary apprentice papers, they were trying to claim her permanent card papers were filled out wrong as it needed to say basic cave and the discretionary papers were also wrong, I tried to repeatedly explain that the intro was permanent and the basic cave paper was temp for the road to full cave etc, she continued to argue and I got pissy with her, she noticed and was telling me she was just trying to help that she would have to have the papers checked out by other people etc. I was seconds away from telling her to piss off and told her to call the instructor more than once of which she would not do. Eventually she let us in; theyll let OW divers in a cavern but make a big deal about doubles, what a joke. Anyway usual Ginnie flow, I ran the line in the eye and tied into the main line which has been moved further in and halfway up the wall, did the dive and flew back out, I turned the dive on deco, I did not bring my oxygen and I was already way loaded from the long dives I had been doing all week, I ended up with a few minutes of back gas deco, all was well, she said it was her favorite cave so far.
Here is where I hate log books, I have some things out of order, before Beck finished her class Kurt and I went to Madison Blue and wanted to see what the half hitch was all about so we stayed main line all the way up, turned at 1500 feet, which if you havent been there recently they re lined the system and the measurements have changed, the new 1500 is the old 1700, on the way back out recalced 3rds and took a look back up the Godzilla jump, then down into the banana room, then again to the century tunnel. Century tunnel was small and silty, had to poke through there, saw a jump off to the left to the well, the line in it was black and there was a clothes line pin on there that was also black and looked older than me, turned the dive when I ran out of line and the cave pinched off. Conditions were good, 133 minute dive one of my favorite caves for certain.
At some point on the trip James had gotten bitten by spiders on his leg on his trip back from New York and his leg was looking pretty bad, he did the one dive in Little River and beyond that he was limping around wrapped up with an IV hookup in his arm and going to the hospital for nightly injections of antibiotics, needless to say the double stage dive in Ginnie was called as the 3rd man was down.
Last dive of the trip was a stage dive in Madison blue, dropped the stages just before half hitch and continued up main line, got to the mount offshoot and I stopped Kurt and said here is our jump lets jump, he said no its further up, I said no, this has to be it, look it says mount, he says not further up, 1400 feet in, I say, well ok lets go, at ~1400 feet we see a jump to the right, looks nasty, Kurt ties in the jump and heads across and ties in. After we tie in we sit there a bit just looking at the tunnel, this thing was small with baby powder silt all over it, I looked at him and was like, well, we gonna try this? We move up a few inches to get a better look up in the tunnel, and it got even smaller up in, so I signaled just a little bit in then? He then waffed his hand across the silt to test its stability and it exploded, then we both looked up the tunnel again. That was not a back mount friendly tunnel so we performed an audible and pulled reel. Went back to the mount offshoot and said ok, this one, tied in and went, the flow coming out of the tunnel was impressive considering the amount of silt in the tunnel so I knew it had to have been in, we went down in there a ways and turned on 3rds, burned the gas on checking out that other hole.
Headed out, picked up the stages, got to the Godzilla jump and I turned and asked want to recalc gas and jump, I got the I dont care signal and we were off, he was heading straight for the century tunnel so he read my mind, jump, jump, we were in, stopped at the jump to the left for the well and looked it over, small, nasty, silty, no flow. Ok tie in the jump real, as he was laying it he was not happy with the slack so he tightened it back up, in my mind I was telling myself yep, get it right cause we are going to need that coming out. Kurt gave me the final look and I gave him the go for it signal and bonk, belly hit bottom tanks hit top and vis went low, the only way to get in there on back mount would be crawling and dragging and the vis would have been absolute 0, I wrote this off as has to be side mount or back mounted on a really skinny guy so we pulled reel and headed out. 160 minute dive.
The end
First dive of the trip was an easy dive down Little River, didn't go in very far, flow was swimmable but there, vis was awesome, 66 minute dive.
Next day the wife started her cavern and intro class with Mike O Leary, the rest of us took off to peacock for another easy relaxing dive traverse from P1 to olsen, Kurt tried to shoot video but ran into exposure / battery problems, which is a shame as those 35 watt salvos throw some serious light! Surfaced at Olsen after a class had just went back into the cave, kinda gross but the water, I could have sworn, smelled like pee.
Kurt and I carried stages, the idea was to breath the stages on the traverse, on the way out dump them and jump down into PII but on the way out we saw a fairly good size team coming back out and the water was a hair on the cloudy side so we opted to skip that portion of the dive. Conditions in peacock were good, vis was good, flow non existent, basin was nasty, and the pothole line tunnel walls looked a bit whiter than normal, best dive up pothole I've ever had.
Next dive was in cow upstream, Kurt and I took stages and noticed the flow was up in the system from the last trip we had in there, the poor mans scooter was recently replaced and was in very good shape. Dropped the stage just before not my fault and continued on all the way through gnarly way and further up the line, on deco we saw two snapping turtles crawling around on a section of the wall on the prowl, those guys are very good climbers under water! Conditions were great, good vis flow was up a bit, 94 minute dive. On land my feet felt squishy in my dry suit so I thought I may have blown my catheter, so I tested in on land to see if liquid would come out the hole, if it did, it means I was hooked up, if it didnt, it meant it was in my suit. I road back to the shop in the back of the truck after no pee came out of the hole during my test, and my feet were that much squishier.
James kurt and myself went back to little river on the holiday and OMG the parking lot was beyond packed, after a couple trips around the parking lot we found a place to park, geared up and went, took stages with us. We headed up the well casing line and conditions where good all the way, once we crossed the scooter drop mound Kurt (the leader) signaled ok and ok's back and away we went, lots and lots of clay, low ceiling, gotta take it easy back there, on the way out I spotted a small eel, had to been 1400+ feet back in, I was amazed to see it back in that far. On exit we saw another team heading in. On the surface a boy came up to me and asked me to bring up the tanks he could see down in the water, I told him I could not. Kurt and James started up the stairs and I decided to watch the gear, sure enough the boy ran over and laid his hands on my stage so I marched straight at him yelling no, the look on his face was terror. Parents no where to be seen or if they were there they were not telling their child to behave, he couldnt' have been any older than 7 or 8 at the most.
Next day, the woman finished her cavern and into class and passed, so I took her to little river, I led, then her then David, I set the reel and took a nice easy pace, she made it to the triangle on her first dive on 1/6ths of double 95's. On the way out I pulled the reel, did a nice long safety stop and had a descent SIT of 20 minutes or so then gave her the reel, she ran it in tied into the main line and off we went, good conditions.
That evening went to cow downstream with the woman, she led and set the reel, I was feeling beat from all of the deco diving I had been doing every day so I breathed 50% in the cave and sat on o2 for almost 30 minutes when I came out. I was skimming around coming up real slow looking for turtles when I saw a bright flash my gut went oh hell its lightning out so I quickly rolled over and saw a bunch of people standing on land, all the guys had showed up to help us carry gear, how nice of them
James was taking pictures and that was the flash I saw.Next day slept in a bit then I took the woman to Devils system, had to haggle with them a bit at the front desk about discretionary apprentice papers, they were trying to claim her permanent card papers were filled out wrong as it needed to say basic cave and the discretionary papers were also wrong, I tried to repeatedly explain that the intro was permanent and the basic cave paper was temp for the road to full cave etc, she continued to argue and I got pissy with her, she noticed and was telling me she was just trying to help that she would have to have the papers checked out by other people etc. I was seconds away from telling her to piss off and told her to call the instructor more than once of which she would not do. Eventually she let us in; theyll let OW divers in a cavern but make a big deal about doubles, what a joke. Anyway usual Ginnie flow, I ran the line in the eye and tied into the main line which has been moved further in and halfway up the wall, did the dive and flew back out, I turned the dive on deco, I did not bring my oxygen and I was already way loaded from the long dives I had been doing all week, I ended up with a few minutes of back gas deco, all was well, she said it was her favorite cave so far.
Here is where I hate log books, I have some things out of order, before Beck finished her class Kurt and I went to Madison Blue and wanted to see what the half hitch was all about so we stayed main line all the way up, turned at 1500 feet, which if you havent been there recently they re lined the system and the measurements have changed, the new 1500 is the old 1700, on the way back out recalced 3rds and took a look back up the Godzilla jump, then down into the banana room, then again to the century tunnel. Century tunnel was small and silty, had to poke through there, saw a jump off to the left to the well, the line in it was black and there was a clothes line pin on there that was also black and looked older than me, turned the dive when I ran out of line and the cave pinched off. Conditions were good, 133 minute dive one of my favorite caves for certain.
At some point on the trip James had gotten bitten by spiders on his leg on his trip back from New York and his leg was looking pretty bad, he did the one dive in Little River and beyond that he was limping around wrapped up with an IV hookup in his arm and going to the hospital for nightly injections of antibiotics, needless to say the double stage dive in Ginnie was called as the 3rd man was down.
Last dive of the trip was a stage dive in Madison blue, dropped the stages just before half hitch and continued up main line, got to the mount offshoot and I stopped Kurt and said here is our jump lets jump, he said no its further up, I said no, this has to be it, look it says mount, he says not further up, 1400 feet in, I say, well ok lets go, at ~1400 feet we see a jump to the right, looks nasty, Kurt ties in the jump and heads across and ties in. After we tie in we sit there a bit just looking at the tunnel, this thing was small with baby powder silt all over it, I looked at him and was like, well, we gonna try this? We move up a few inches to get a better look up in the tunnel, and it got even smaller up in, so I signaled just a little bit in then? He then waffed his hand across the silt to test its stability and it exploded, then we both looked up the tunnel again. That was not a back mount friendly tunnel so we performed an audible and pulled reel. Went back to the mount offshoot and said ok, this one, tied in and went, the flow coming out of the tunnel was impressive considering the amount of silt in the tunnel so I knew it had to have been in, we went down in there a ways and turned on 3rds, burned the gas on checking out that other hole.
Headed out, picked up the stages, got to the Godzilla jump and I turned and asked want to recalc gas and jump, I got the I dont care signal and we were off, he was heading straight for the century tunnel so he read my mind, jump, jump, we were in, stopped at the jump to the left for the well and looked it over, small, nasty, silty, no flow. Ok tie in the jump real, as he was laying it he was not happy with the slack so he tightened it back up, in my mind I was telling myself yep, get it right cause we are going to need that coming out. Kurt gave me the final look and I gave him the go for it signal and bonk, belly hit bottom tanks hit top and vis went low, the only way to get in there on back mount would be crawling and dragging and the vis would have been absolute 0, I wrote this off as has to be side mount or back mounted on a really skinny guy so we pulled reel and headed out. 160 minute dive.
The end
