jpsexton
Contributor
Wally (crpntr133), Bruce (my brother-in-law), and I just returned from a short dive excursion to Florida. Friday afternoon Wally drove down to my house in LaGrange picked me and my gear up and we drove down to Corbin to meet Bruce and load everything into the camper. Saturday morning we left Corbin at about 5:30 am. Around ten hours later following many gas stops (A 3/4 ton Chevy towing a 5th wheel RV has a hard time passing gas stations for some reason) we pulled into Vortex Springs. We set up camp, fixed dinner, shot the breeze, and then turned in for the night after a long day on the road.
Sunday morning after breakfast we headed down to the spring to finally get in some diving. From the surface Vortex looks kinda small compared to the pictures that I had seen. After getting under the surface though I realized that its a decent sized site. The vis was outstanding compared to what we've had at Joes all year. There was a class there and they had the area around our entry point stirred up a bit but it was still very good by our standards. The first fish we saw were a couple of very large Koi. I would guess them to be near three feet long, one white with a small orange patch and the other one was allmost entirely orange. They seemed a bit skiddish and would'nt let you get too close. As soon as we got nearer to the main basin we saw many many panfish. They were a mix of crappi, bluegills, and small bass. The water flow out of the spring really kept the vis very clear. I would'nt say gin clear like Ginne, but very close. We dropped down into the entrance of the cave at depth of about 60' and then around the edges of the cavern and saw a few fresh water eels and a couple of what looked like minature grouper. We later determined the minature grouper were probably rather large black crappie. Our bottom time was just under an hour, overall a pretty cool dive.
We returned to the camper for long surface interval and lunch. We discussed the next dive and all agreed we would continue into the cave untill we hit the grate. I thought I had read somewhere that the grate was around 75'. More about that later.
After we entered the water we went straight to the cave entrance, we had all agreed that we would use the rule of thirds and start back out of the cave as soon as we hit 2000 psi. The water was extremely clear inside the cave, here was the gin clear water! The few fish that we saw on the way in looked supended it was so clear. The decent down to the bottom was very gradual, I would estimate the grate to be about 300' or so back into the cave. About half way down the shaft they had installed pool rope lights on the sides of the wall and around the paremeter of the very large room at the bottom. It was very cool to see the entire room lit up, you did'nt even need any lights at all. When we got to the grate I looked at my depth gauge and was surprised to see 105', I knew we were probably deeper that 75' but I did'nt expect it to be that deep. Very shortly after that we were near our turn pressure so I started our accent back out of the cave. I would have like'ed to spend a little more time but I had drug these guys down there and I did'nt know how they felt about being that deep so I felt it best to start back out. On the way out you realized just how far back into the cave you had come. It allmost looked like a differnt shaft but there was only one way in and out so I knew better. Our bottom time for this dive was somewhere around 45 min. We could have stayed quite a bit longer in the shallows but by this time I was getting kinda chilled so we called it. Very cool dive and for anyone who heard of my AOW adventures, no Narcosos at all. I was pretty happy about that. We finished the day again with dinner, a little shooting the breeze, and a failed attempt at a campfire. With such a nice RV to stay in the fire just did'nt seem that important.
Sunday morning after breakfast we headed down to the spring to finally get in some diving. From the surface Vortex looks kinda small compared to the pictures that I had seen. After getting under the surface though I realized that its a decent sized site. The vis was outstanding compared to what we've had at Joes all year. There was a class there and they had the area around our entry point stirred up a bit but it was still very good by our standards. The first fish we saw were a couple of very large Koi. I would guess them to be near three feet long, one white with a small orange patch and the other one was allmost entirely orange. They seemed a bit skiddish and would'nt let you get too close. As soon as we got nearer to the main basin we saw many many panfish. They were a mix of crappi, bluegills, and small bass. The water flow out of the spring really kept the vis very clear. I would'nt say gin clear like Ginne, but very close. We dropped down into the entrance of the cave at depth of about 60' and then around the edges of the cavern and saw a few fresh water eels and a couple of what looked like minature grouper. We later determined the minature grouper were probably rather large black crappie. Our bottom time was just under an hour, overall a pretty cool dive.
We returned to the camper for long surface interval and lunch. We discussed the next dive and all agreed we would continue into the cave untill we hit the grate. I thought I had read somewhere that the grate was around 75'. More about that later.
After we entered the water we went straight to the cave entrance, we had all agreed that we would use the rule of thirds and start back out of the cave as soon as we hit 2000 psi. The water was extremely clear inside the cave, here was the gin clear water! The few fish that we saw on the way in looked supended it was so clear. The decent down to the bottom was very gradual, I would estimate the grate to be about 300' or so back into the cave. About half way down the shaft they had installed pool rope lights on the sides of the wall and around the paremeter of the very large room at the bottom. It was very cool to see the entire room lit up, you did'nt even need any lights at all. When we got to the grate I looked at my depth gauge and was surprised to see 105', I knew we were probably deeper that 75' but I did'nt expect it to be that deep. Very shortly after that we were near our turn pressure so I started our accent back out of the cave. I would have like'ed to spend a little more time but I had drug these guys down there and I did'nt know how they felt about being that deep so I felt it best to start back out. On the way out you realized just how far back into the cave you had come. It allmost looked like a differnt shaft but there was only one way in and out so I knew better. Our bottom time for this dive was somewhere around 45 min. We could have stayed quite a bit longer in the shallows but by this time I was getting kinda chilled so we called it. Very cool dive and for anyone who heard of my AOW adventures, no Narcosos at all. I was pretty happy about that. We finished the day again with dinner, a little shooting the breeze, and a failed attempt at a campfire. With such a nice RV to stay in the fire just did'nt seem that important.
