I have yet to do Cow... so it's a date.
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Madison is open and offers good Intro to Cave level diving with two potential entrances and plenty of flow most of the time.
Manatee is Intro to Cave friendly if you go upstream from Catfish and swim into the flow. You can go downstream as well, but it's a pretty strong siphon to come back to Catfish.
Orange Grove at Peacock is a good Intro to cave level dive. The main line is pretty easy to dive, and it will go farther than your sixths will allow. The major caution would be that if you get to the hole in then floor at the jump to the Distance Tunnel, enter it, then turn the dive, the line will be over head and turn to the right as you come out of the hole, and you'll be looking more or less at the opening of the Distance Tunnel. In the distant past the Distance Tunnel line was much more visible and there was a fatality where a team of divers came out of the hole and followed the Distance Tunnel line. One of them figured it out and turned, the other didn't, couldn't be convinced of the error, refused to turn around, and died. If you get that far on sixths, just be careful to trace the line while coming out of the hole in the floor and you'll be fine.
PIII is a technically a siphon but it's rarely siphoning enough to make any changes in gas planning necessary. It is however siltier and generally lower viz than P1 and OG.
PI is ideal for Intro level diving as you can do both the Peanut and Olsen lines, and once your comfort level increases you can run your primary line through the right hand side of the cavern down through an interesting little room then cross a passage to connect to the Well line, or turn left in that passage to connect to the Olsen line.
Little River can accommodate Intro to Cave level diving, but there is usually a lot of low and it gets deep fairly quick so penetration tends to be limited on sixths. Still, with good gas consumption you should make the first T - which is of course where you have to turn as it is a navigational decision. There are a couple of unmarked jumps close enough to the entrance that you could tie a primary line to, but you don't want to do that at the Intro level. The passages are short, tight, very silty and are essentially side mount passages. They are also the passages that made Little River such an effective killer of divers in the distant past. Stay on the main line.
The Mill pond is a good destination as well. Jackson Blue offers great diving, but the flow can be high so if the flow is up, swimming it is a fair amount of work and penetration on sixths is limited. Still, there is a lot to see in the first section of the cave. Twin Cave and Hole in the Wall are superb dives, but both have a restriction to enter - not horribly tight but a restriction none the less that would require gas sharing in trail to exit.
Manatee is Intro to Cave friendly if you go upstream from Catfish and swim into the flow. You can go downstream as well, but it's a pretty strong siphon to come back to Catfish.
Orange Grove at Peacock is a good Intro to cave level dive. The main line is pretty easy to dive, and it will go farther than your sixths will allow. The major caution would be that if you get to the hole in then floor at the jump to the Distance Tunnel, enter it, then turn the dive, the line will be over head and turn to the right as you come out of the hole, and you'll be looking more or less at the opening of the Distance Tunnel. In the distant past the Distance Tunnel line was much more visible and there was a fatality where a team of divers came out of the hole and followed the Distance Tunnel line. One of them figured it out and turned, the other didn't, couldn't be convinced of the error, refused to turn around, and died. If you get that far on sixths, just be careful to trace the line while coming out of the hole in the floor and you'll be fine.
PIII is a technically a siphon but it's rarely siphoning enough to make any changes in gas planning necessary. It is however siltier and generally lower viz than P1 and OG.
PI is ideal for Intro level diving as you can do both the Peanut and Olsen lines, and once your comfort level increases you can run your primary line through the right hand side of the cavern down through an interesting little room then cross a passage to connect to the Well line, or turn left in that passage to connect to the Olsen line.
Little River can accommodate Intro to Cave level diving, but there is usually a lot of low and it gets deep fairly quick so penetration tends to be limited on sixths. Still, with good gas consumption you should make the first T - which is of course where you have to turn as it is a navigational decision. There are a couple of unmarked jumps close enough to the entrance that you could tie a primary line to, but you don't want to do that at the Intro level. The passages are short, tight, very silty and are essentially side mount passages. They are also the passages that made Little River such an effective killer of divers in the distant past. Stay on the main line.
The Mill pond is a good destination as well. Jackson Blue offers great diving, but the flow can be high so if the flow is up, swimming it is a fair amount of work and penetration on sixths is limited. Still, there is a lot to see in the first section of the cave. Twin Cave and Hole in the Wall are superb dives, but both have a restriction to enter - not horribly tight but a restriction none the less that would require gas sharing in trail to exit.
Kristi@CCDS
Contributor
Ginnie is beautiful right now! It looks like you are coming in next week. By that time it's possible conditions will have improved to some degree at most of the other sites. Right now most of the reports I'm getting are in the 20-30' range from Peacock, and Little River. Madison just opened up on the 2nd. Manatee has dropped to about 20-30' in the first couple thousand feet from last week when it was closer to 60'. I have divers going to Little River this morning so I should have a fresh report this afternoon. Oh, if anyone has a P3 report that would be greatly appreciated, in fact, any fresh reports are appreciated! I try to keep our conditions board as fresh as possible for divers and instructors in the area to plan out their trips. Safe diving everyone!
It's not that bad unless you're diving a backmount ccr and twin sidemount bailout bottles. Getting in was easy, getting out, not so much. Not that I've done that...
We did Cow about a six weeks ago. I had no issues clearing the entrance and Not My Fault in back mounted HP100's. My buddy was diving his machine and had to un-clip a bailout bottle. Just go slow and think about how you need to approach it. It looks more daunting than it actually is. To be sure I was apprehensive on my first visit however.
If you are including Martz in your potential entrances, at the intro level,not really if proceeding to the main line.
That is a good precaution,but fortunately the line placement that promoted that accident had been changed decades ago. It is worth noting the area between OG and Challenge is lower and flat, and deserves spot on trim and buoyancy. This passage has show significant degradation from poor cave diving technique, and there are a few biologically sensitive spots along there.
1. I am not including Martz.
2. I noted "in the distant past", but wanted to make the point that even at the Intro level you have to pay attention to the line, rather than blindly following it.
3. OG isn't that low, and part of the buoyancy challenge is that it actually isn't that flat. But sadly you are correct that the floor seems to get badly chewed up and will be that way within a couple weeks of a flood reflooring it. To be fair to Intro Level divers however, I see places all over Peacock that are badly chewed up and they are in passages where Intro divers don't go. I suspect that we have:
a) too many cave instructors passing full cave students with marginal skills;
b) too few cave instructors putting sufficient priority on teaching the ethics of and need for cave conservation; and
c) too many full cave level divers fail to realize how perishable cave skills can be, and/or over estimate their ability, and/or lack the discipline and ego strength to turn a dive if their skills are not up to the level needed to do a dive cleanly.
The areas between OG and challenge have less floor to ceiling height than the other parts of the cave. We did some vertical height mapping, and in a lateral view it becomes self evident. Unlike P1 to Olsen, there is a lot of drift room for the marginally buoyant ,in that section, lack of mastery causes floor and ceiling contact, which correlates to the wear and tear.
d) the rebreather diver,who doesn't have mastery of trim and goes in vertically trimmed, and then contacts the floor. There are have a lot of observations from many cave divers, in many systems, testifying that there is a problem here.
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