Wakulla County Sinks on 12-4 & 12-5-10

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SuPrBuGmAn

Contributor
Messages
12,436
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Location
Tallahassee, FL
# of dives
500 - 999
12-4-10

After a lazy Saturday morning start, Kevin Carlisle and I headed to Jenny's Lunchbox for breakfast, then to Gregg's so I could get some fills. No reason to head out early when its this damned cold outside. We were shooting for a mid-day dive, when we'd get as much heat as possible. We payed up with the landowner, which allowed us closer access to this stretch of sinks, and started carting gear to the water. We''d be diving from the closest sink available, which is inline with a series of shallow sinks within the Leon Sinks cave system. My wetsuit was still cold, kinda sucked. It didn't take too long for us to get everything into the water, including ourselves. Vis was good enough, but slightly milky, I'd say in the 30-40' range. I took the lead and we headed upstream, past three obvious karst windows and two more that weren't so obvious. We saw the cave change from light sucking darkness due to tons of goethite, into creamy stratified layers, to cragly, to huge scallopped Wakulla power cave. I put a jump reel in from the mainline to where we'd be exitting a circuit on the exit. We hit a T and peeled L, we didn't go far before the cave makes a hard left, with seemingly wide open passage to the right as well(without line). I jumped off and looked for line and found some in short order. The passage was smaller and soon gave way to a room with tannic water ontop, which was the way the rest of the passage we went through was... Tannic on top, spring water on the bottom, with a clearly defined halocline and a hydrogen sulfide smell to it all. It was damned spooky, siltsycles hung from the lines and the halocline played tricks with visibility. We went a few hundred feet in and turned to make our exit down the circuit I finished up earlier in the dive. I hit a max depth of 102' for a dive lasting 73 minutes, no deco, and the drift out was excellent. One hellovaway to spend my birthday and it was Kevin's 100th cave dive!

Hit up Hammaknockers, went to a great WCDC meeting, then El Jalisco before heading home for some sleep. Kevin headed home after some great Wakulla County diving, his first time in the area.

12-5-10

DogHouseDiver and I got a late start, it was even colder on Sunday. The wind cut right through you. I went back and forth on which site to dive but we settled on a sink within some private lands that the WCDC has access to. There are actually several sinks on the lands and we visited three of them, but only dove one. This particular sink was looking as clear as I've ever seen it. The club has installed some stairs here, so access is easier. We geared up and hit the water, the wetsuit was REALLY cold today. I tied off a primary to the stairs and we headed down the hole in the center of the basin. There was a crawfish right at the lip of the funnel, it'd be the first of several hundred isopods I'd see during the dive. It seemed like there were cave crawfish and tinyer isopods everywhere we looked. We found the main cave first and headed into the first room. There are multiple lines running around the room, often crossing, so we cookied with zest. There were other lines that just shot out in different directions, some tied off just feet from where they started, ending at nothing. Its just a real mess in there. The room itself is white and very nice. Vis was 30' or so, better than I've ever seen it, and good enough to get an idea of whats going on in there. It kinda reminded me of a small crystal room, from another area cave. We found a lead that continued into cave, but it woulda been a no vis exit, so we left it alone on this trip. Eventually, we headed out, then circumnavigated the debri cone, checking on the other small cave passage found in this system. It was a great dive, as great as I've ever had in this particular system. It just really needs some line work - I hope to fix atleast the first room up shortly. I had a max depth of 130' with an entire dive time of 39 minutes.

We headed out to the Leon Sinks Geological Park afterwards and eventually checked out Gopher Hole, Big and Little Dismals, all were clear. Took longer than expected because we had a run in with some strange dude who stalked us for about an hour. He was seriously off his rocker and we ended up calling the cops on him. Hit up Gordos after the adventures for some excellent Cuban grub - it was fantastic.
 
Enjoyed it Mat. Looking forward to doing some more of it with you. Great reports too, that one section was spooky LOL. Cool as hell but spooky.
 
Cool Mat! Sounds like you and Kevin had a good time. Glad you're keeping at it! I'm headed to the millpond this weekend. Scales are getting a bit dry:D
Bless,
Kenny P.
 
Mat, great write-up, I got chills reading the spooky part and I'm not referring to the stalker. :D

Happy belated birthday to you!!!!!!!!!

And, another congrats to Kevin for his 100th safe cave dive milestone!!!!!
 
Thanks Sam. Oh and by the way, it was great to meet you ths weekend. That was a surprise LOL. Wish I would have gotten that pic tho :D
 
Thanks Sam. Oh and by the way, it was great to meet you ths weekend. That was a surprise LOL. Wish I would have gotten that pic tho :D

Hi, Kevin. Ditto, it was great to meet you and put a face on ya. :wink:

Photographic evidence in the wrong hands can be a bad thing. :shocked2: I promise to pose next time if you join me in the pic. :D
 
Pics

12-4-10

CS323.jpg


12-5-10

We dove the one with stairs, just looked at the other two.

FC327.jpg


EBS332.jpg


GS338.jpg
 
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