SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Overdue, but better late than never?
The weatherman lied, we were supposed to warm up into the 60s with sunshine but that simply never happened. The drive out was quick, in a damp, windy, overcast morning that stretched out the length of the day. Chilly too, I'm guessing in the lower 50s, although its been several weeks now. I check in at the diveshop and spd_135 is already there filling some tanks and Kevin Carlisle has been onsite for quite awhile already it seemed. We get all our crap prepared and start checking mixes and decide we won't be going any further than the blue room, as not to push O2 content. Vortex was crazy busy, lots of classes in the water. Visibility in the basin was no more than 10' or so.
I clip the key, to the gate, to myself and we hook up our tanks up and slide under the waters. We duck and bob and weave through the hoards of classes and OW teams and finally find ourselves at the mouth of the cavern. There are fewer people here and we descend to the beginning of the cave and completely leave everyone else behind, stowing our O2 tanks in an alcove hidden to the sights of OW and the cavern. Visibility is 20-30' throughout this beginning stretch of cave. I unlock the padlock and pull the gate open to let everyone through, shutting it behind us(locking the pad with the gate open). Manipulating the lock is a pretty good indicator of how narc'd you are at these depths(already better than 100'). I'm happy with my articulation and we continue moving in. Visibility never exceeds 30-40'. Flow is up higher than I've ever swam against it in Vortex, its actually pretty tough. We cross the second restriction with no problems and get to the long third restriction. Between the flow and how small/low this restriction was, it was pretty tough to make progress without groveling through the sand. Kevin cramped up and called his dive. We'd all meet back up in the piano room by the gate. Spd_135 and continued forward to the blue room, which opened up, giving us relief from the flow. The bottom of the room is around 145' deep and the cave continues on, but we weren't going there today. A 'T' in the line goes straight back to where the room pinches off, and straight down to the continuing cave. I cookie the 'T' and get my max depth of 132' for the dive. Instead we just perused to the back of the room where it winds around gently and pinches off into a low mud tunnel that eventually becomes too small to pass through - although we didnt get nearly that far. We hit turn pressure and turned the dive. Heading back through the restrictions were easy, we just rode the flow. We met back up with Kevin in the Piano Room and started our exit, picking up O2 bottles along the way.
In the cavern we were treated to some really interesting 'cavern' teams. A sidemount diver that looked relatively put together ran a line around the cavern leading a team of two other single tank divers who were doing more walking than swimming. Another sidmeount diver, with an obvious homemade rig, had the largest taco'd wing I had ever seen with sidemount tanks that hung way lower than his body. He looked like a catamaran with two pontoons under him and a sail upright and pushing him around. Interesting. I had about 16 minutes of deco starting when we ascended out of the cavern and hit 20'. I spent it swimming above the fake caves and watching the other divers in the water. spd_135 nearly had a regulator malfunction, but he fixed it promptly. The dive lasted 66 minutes overall.
After alot of chatting, I decided to head out. spd_135 and Kevin would make another dive, diving dry. My wet ass had enough and let them have it. Hit up the Subway on the way out then off to Marianna to pick up a new $22 OMS mask(I had broken mine at Peacock a couple weeks before - borrowed spd's extra for this dive). Had a great time though, looking forward to going back for more.
I attempted some dives this past weekend, but I'll get back to them later... Gotta get ready for work.
The weatherman lied, we were supposed to warm up into the 60s with sunshine but that simply never happened. The drive out was quick, in a damp, windy, overcast morning that stretched out the length of the day. Chilly too, I'm guessing in the lower 50s, although its been several weeks now. I check in at the diveshop and spd_135 is already there filling some tanks and Kevin Carlisle has been onsite for quite awhile already it seemed. We get all our crap prepared and start checking mixes and decide we won't be going any further than the blue room, as not to push O2 content. Vortex was crazy busy, lots of classes in the water. Visibility in the basin was no more than 10' or so.
I clip the key, to the gate, to myself and we hook up our tanks up and slide under the waters. We duck and bob and weave through the hoards of classes and OW teams and finally find ourselves at the mouth of the cavern. There are fewer people here and we descend to the beginning of the cave and completely leave everyone else behind, stowing our O2 tanks in an alcove hidden to the sights of OW and the cavern. Visibility is 20-30' throughout this beginning stretch of cave. I unlock the padlock and pull the gate open to let everyone through, shutting it behind us(locking the pad with the gate open). Manipulating the lock is a pretty good indicator of how narc'd you are at these depths(already better than 100'). I'm happy with my articulation and we continue moving in. Visibility never exceeds 30-40'. Flow is up higher than I've ever swam against it in Vortex, its actually pretty tough. We cross the second restriction with no problems and get to the long third restriction. Between the flow and how small/low this restriction was, it was pretty tough to make progress without groveling through the sand. Kevin cramped up and called his dive. We'd all meet back up in the piano room by the gate. Spd_135 and continued forward to the blue room, which opened up, giving us relief from the flow. The bottom of the room is around 145' deep and the cave continues on, but we weren't going there today. A 'T' in the line goes straight back to where the room pinches off, and straight down to the continuing cave. I cookie the 'T' and get my max depth of 132' for the dive. Instead we just perused to the back of the room where it winds around gently and pinches off into a low mud tunnel that eventually becomes too small to pass through - although we didnt get nearly that far. We hit turn pressure and turned the dive. Heading back through the restrictions were easy, we just rode the flow. We met back up with Kevin in the Piano Room and started our exit, picking up O2 bottles along the way.
In the cavern we were treated to some really interesting 'cavern' teams. A sidemount diver that looked relatively put together ran a line around the cavern leading a team of two other single tank divers who were doing more walking than swimming. Another sidmeount diver, with an obvious homemade rig, had the largest taco'd wing I had ever seen with sidemount tanks that hung way lower than his body. He looked like a catamaran with two pontoons under him and a sail upright and pushing him around. Interesting. I had about 16 minutes of deco starting when we ascended out of the cavern and hit 20'. I spent it swimming above the fake caves and watching the other divers in the water. spd_135 nearly had a regulator malfunction, but he fixed it promptly. The dive lasted 66 minutes overall.
After alot of chatting, I decided to head out. spd_135 and Kevin would make another dive, diving dry. My wet ass had enough and let them have it. Hit up the Subway on the way out then off to Marianna to pick up a new $22 OMS mask(I had broken mine at Peacock a couple weeks before - borrowed spd's extra for this dive). Had a great time though, looking forward to going back for more.
I attempted some dives this past weekend, but I'll get back to them later... Gotta get ready for work.
