SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
12-27-8
Saturday came and I had plans to get some diving in, but with a relatively late start. To go along with not getting up at the buttcrack of dawn, we had that nice kinda December weather I enjoy the most, 70F+, dry, and sunny. Dale Wilson picked me up at the house and we loaded up my dive gear as well as the Miss Jellyfish and we headed off to Vortex Springs.
Vortex Springs
At Vortex, we met up with spd135 and his two sons, and Kevin Carslile(I'm sure I butchered that spelling). BS'd with Shane for a bit and got our tanks topped off, analyzed and ready to go. GlenFWB and boliver both came and said hello, while we waited for gas. Lots of ScubaBoarders around Vortex it seemed, although not many other people - place was quite empty. Once our gas was squared away, we started the process of gearing up. Kevin was ready to go as he had just finished a cave dive before we got there, but he was out for better than an hour since, so he joined us for the beginning of ours. I snagged the gate key from him since we'd dabble a little further in.
Our little cave diving excursion consisted of basically a four man team, spd135, led the way after I opened the gate, Dale Wilson went in second, Kevin took the 3rd spot, and I pulled up the rear as well as closed the gate behind us. At the Ferrara's Fissure, Kevin turned and headed back, and we continued as a three man team through the vertical fissure, and down the low tunnel past the next small room. I'm not too sure how long the low passage is, but apparently we were nearing the end when the dive was turned and we started our way out for a leisurely exit. My deco obligation had cleared itself by the time I hit 20' and swapped to O2, but we did a little extended stop anyway. It was a good dive with max depth of 117' and a run time of 43 minutes.
We BS'd some more onsite, probably longer than we should have, but you can't complain about the fellowship amongst divers.
Different River Cave
Once we left Vortex, we headed out, on Dale's navigational skills in search of a boat launch that would take us up to a river cave neither of us had been to, but both of us wanted to check out. Dale was a little out of practice though, so we got lost a bit, then found our way, then even found a boat launch. Some locals promptly clued us in that we were, infact, at the wrong launch though - D'Oh! They gave us some directions and we quickly found the correct launch. By this time, it was getting late, the sun was already beneath the tree-line. We setup the boat in record time and talked with a few more locals at the launch and headed off in the late afternoon, making slow progress up a slightly high river. Our destination came without too much trouble and we found our way onsite. The basin was blue, but milky due to its very close proximity to the river with its higher than normal water levels. There was a strong boil, so Dale and I were optimistic.
After gearing up and going over a dive plan(including a turnaround based on time, more than gas consumption - since we just wanted to scope out the cave, more than do a full out exploration), we hit the water at twilight, with me in the lead, running line from the surface. A vertical chimney drops 30' shooting quite a bit of crystal clear water out(like a firehose), but it was easily managed in sidemount(probably easy to get wedged if I were diving backmounted doubles). I tied off to existing cave line and headed into the smallish cavern zone and signaled Dale an OK(to continue in - rather than leave me room to back out). The cave was narrow, but tall, ton of flow, sandy bottom, and lacked silt. Neat cave though, very unique to what I've dived so far, and we spent quite a bit of our time sideways traversing the passage. After about 200-250'p the line dropped through a very low restriction and I called the dive. Had a max depth of 92' for a dive lasting 23 minutes. By the time we made it back to the launch, it was dark, so gearing down was a bit slow.
Passed a bar, who's name caught my eye... couldn't help but take a pic.
Hit up Sally's for the first time in awhile, yum!
12-28-8 Another River Cave
So... we planned to get wet anyway. Sunday came with some pretty soggy weather. Lite showers and overcast skies pretty much all day long. Atleast it was warm-ish still. Hit up Vortex fresh tanks of 32% and BS'd with Shane and Eduardo some more. Eventually we made our way out and headed towards some water. Managed to get quite damp while setting up the boat again, but no big issue. The water was actually lower than 2 weeks ago when we were here and diving the same river cave.
We could actually see the banks of the creeks and river this time around, two weeks ago, it was all one body of water and aside from the trees, channel and floodplain were one. The spring run cleared up quickly and we spotted some large gar swimming on the surface. The basin was clear with 15'+ visibility and we could see the trees that had fallen in and the limestone ledge, vegatation, ect.
We geared up and hit the water. Getting into the crystal clear water flow is always fun, especially here, where it shoots out like a jacuzzi jets and you pull yourself in with a knotted rope. Visibility in the cave was just fine, 40-50'+, without any signs of a reversal despite the water levels spiking very high the previous week. We worked our way up and down the passage and enjoyed watching some very large albino crawfish, lots of fossils in the walls, and on the floor. At around 900'p, the dive was turned and we drifted out quickly. Hit a max depth of 76' for a dive lasting 38 minutes. It was another slow wet ride back upstream, but it was a great weekend of diving some awesome cave.
Dale hadn't seen Morrison since the park was erected, so we stopped by there. He misses the site in its pristine condition as well. Hit up Subway, and made our way back home.
Awesome weekend of diving, it was nice seeing everyone along the way! Looking forward to another great weekend in 2009!
Saturday came and I had plans to get some diving in, but with a relatively late start. To go along with not getting up at the buttcrack of dawn, we had that nice kinda December weather I enjoy the most, 70F+, dry, and sunny. Dale Wilson picked me up at the house and we loaded up my dive gear as well as the Miss Jellyfish and we headed off to Vortex Springs.
Vortex Springs
At Vortex, we met up with spd135 and his two sons, and Kevin Carslile(I'm sure I butchered that spelling). BS'd with Shane for a bit and got our tanks topped off, analyzed and ready to go. GlenFWB and boliver both came and said hello, while we waited for gas. Lots of ScubaBoarders around Vortex it seemed, although not many other people - place was quite empty. Once our gas was squared away, we started the process of gearing up. Kevin was ready to go as he had just finished a cave dive before we got there, but he was out for better than an hour since, so he joined us for the beginning of ours. I snagged the gate key from him since we'd dabble a little further in.
Our little cave diving excursion consisted of basically a four man team, spd135, led the way after I opened the gate, Dale Wilson went in second, Kevin took the 3rd spot, and I pulled up the rear as well as closed the gate behind us. At the Ferrara's Fissure, Kevin turned and headed back, and we continued as a three man team through the vertical fissure, and down the low tunnel past the next small room. I'm not too sure how long the low passage is, but apparently we were nearing the end when the dive was turned and we started our way out for a leisurely exit. My deco obligation had cleared itself by the time I hit 20' and swapped to O2, but we did a little extended stop anyway. It was a good dive with max depth of 117' and a run time of 43 minutes.
We BS'd some more onsite, probably longer than we should have, but you can't complain about the fellowship amongst divers.
Different River Cave
Once we left Vortex, we headed out, on Dale's navigational skills in search of a boat launch that would take us up to a river cave neither of us had been to, but both of us wanted to check out. Dale was a little out of practice though, so we got lost a bit, then found our way, then even found a boat launch. Some locals promptly clued us in that we were, infact, at the wrong launch though - D'Oh! They gave us some directions and we quickly found the correct launch. By this time, it was getting late, the sun was already beneath the tree-line. We setup the boat in record time and talked with a few more locals at the launch and headed off in the late afternoon, making slow progress up a slightly high river. Our destination came without too much trouble and we found our way onsite. The basin was blue, but milky due to its very close proximity to the river with its higher than normal water levels. There was a strong boil, so Dale and I were optimistic.
After gearing up and going over a dive plan(including a turnaround based on time, more than gas consumption - since we just wanted to scope out the cave, more than do a full out exploration), we hit the water at twilight, with me in the lead, running line from the surface. A vertical chimney drops 30' shooting quite a bit of crystal clear water out(like a firehose), but it was easily managed in sidemount(probably easy to get wedged if I were diving backmounted doubles). I tied off to existing cave line and headed into the smallish cavern zone and signaled Dale an OK(to continue in - rather than leave me room to back out). The cave was narrow, but tall, ton of flow, sandy bottom, and lacked silt. Neat cave though, very unique to what I've dived so far, and we spent quite a bit of our time sideways traversing the passage. After about 200-250'p the line dropped through a very low restriction and I called the dive. Had a max depth of 92' for a dive lasting 23 minutes. By the time we made it back to the launch, it was dark, so gearing down was a bit slow.
Passed a bar, who's name caught my eye... couldn't help but take a pic.
Hit up Sally's for the first time in awhile, yum!
12-28-8 Another River Cave
So... we planned to get wet anyway. Sunday came with some pretty soggy weather. Lite showers and overcast skies pretty much all day long. Atleast it was warm-ish still. Hit up Vortex fresh tanks of 32% and BS'd with Shane and Eduardo some more. Eventually we made our way out and headed towards some water. Managed to get quite damp while setting up the boat again, but no big issue. The water was actually lower than 2 weeks ago when we were here and diving the same river cave.
We could actually see the banks of the creeks and river this time around, two weeks ago, it was all one body of water and aside from the trees, channel and floodplain were one. The spring run cleared up quickly and we spotted some large gar swimming on the surface. The basin was clear with 15'+ visibility and we could see the trees that had fallen in and the limestone ledge, vegatation, ect.
We geared up and hit the water. Getting into the crystal clear water flow is always fun, especially here, where it shoots out like a jacuzzi jets and you pull yourself in with a knotted rope. Visibility in the cave was just fine, 40-50'+, without any signs of a reversal despite the water levels spiking very high the previous week. We worked our way up and down the passage and enjoyed watching some very large albino crawfish, lots of fossils in the walls, and on the floor. At around 900'p, the dive was turned and we drifted out quickly. Hit a max depth of 76' for a dive lasting 38 minutes. It was another slow wet ride back upstream, but it was a great weekend of diving some awesome cave.
Dale hadn't seen Morrison since the park was erected, so we stopped by there. He misses the site in its pristine condition as well. Hit up Subway, and made our way back home.
Awesome weekend of diving, it was nice seeing everyone along the way! Looking forward to another great weekend in 2009!
oker: 
I did a double take and we turned the vehicle around so we could get some pictures. 
