SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Early reports for some of the Wakulla dive sites were extremely promising a week previous to our departure and subsequent dive trip. Unfortunatley, the rains we got regularly every afternoon ended up affecting the systems in a negative way and reports mid-week weren't so great. The saturday of our weekend originally started off to jump on a boat with rox@ucf. He had messaged a group of divers, trying to find interest in splitting costs on one of Edd's pontoon boats for a day of diving the Mill Pond. This usually goes one of two ways. Nobody is interested, or too many people are interested. On this particular occassion, the later was true and GlenFWB and I opted out of the boat trip and planned to either take the Miss Jellyfish out on the pond, or just continue on to Wakulla(previous to reports of it being less diver friendly). We opted out of taking my boat, since it was an added hassle and I had already taken it out once that week.
Saturday rolled around and I met up with GlenFWB at the Wilcox Exit, just west of the Florida border a little before 7AM. This is actually a bit of a late start of a cave trip, but we weren't on any time frame and at this point, unsure of even where were were going to dive. We hit up Cave Adventurers for fills and ran into Kevin Carlisle, who was heading to Jackson Blue for a dive. DiveAholic was also heading to JB to teach an Intro Cave class. Kenny P was out there with a fresh set of Cavern students and I believe HappyHacker was shadowing their dives? Gregg Stanton was out there with some cavern students, including DogHouseDiver. We also ran into Cwick and his brother, who'd be diving on the boat with rox@ucf, Litehedded, and a couple other divers. At this point, the Mill Pond was looking pretty busy, but we figured we'd go ahead and knock a dive out at Jackson Blue since we were here and it was atleast a sure thing.
Jackson Blue Springs 8-8-9
We headed into the gates at Jackson Blue with swimmers already lining up at the entry kiosk. We showed our passes and drove on through, waving at the line of vehicles sitting idle. Onsite, we ran into Rotor60Driver and one of his buddies, finishing up a dive. Kevin Carlisle would be joining GlenFWB and me for our dive into the cave. We geared up as quickly as possible to escape the rising heat and swarms of gnats, the water was cool, clear and quite refreshing. I volunteered to run the line(using Kevin's primary) and GlenFWB would take the lead at the goldline as the newest caver of the bunch. After a quick hiccup with a light, we were zipping down the cavern and enjoying a very noticable LACK of flow. While the flow was present, at no point was it necessary to make contact to the cave to progress as far as we penetrated(~750'p). I made sure to zig-zag the primary line a bit, don't want to make it too easy for the 3 classes being held onsite! Visibility was plenty good at around 60', with ever so slight of a haze. We pushed on to the second breakdown where Glen had hit 1/6ths and the dive was turned. The flow was gentle and it was actually necessary to kick on occassion to aid in returning to our exit point. Once back in the cavern, we were treated to a light show of two of the classes entering into the system. Its always kinda fun to sit back in the shadows and watch the classes, it wasn't that long ago when we were all part of one. Kevin would be diving all day here, so we left the primary in place and made our exit. After a quick safety stop on the ledge, and a little bit of spidermanning on the ceiling, we exitted after a 40 minute dive, hitting a max depth of 96'. Great dive to start the weekend!
We hit up Edd's once more to top our tanks off and eat some sandwiches. Have I mentioned how much Glen's wife rocks? Always a feast on a dive trip with GlenFWB! We left Kevin, who I believe ended up buddying back up with Rotor60Driver for some more diving, and headed East, to Wakulla. We crossed a few afternoon thunderstorms and for the rest of the day continued through hit and miss showers.
Wakulla and Leon County sites 8-8-9
Our first destination was a tract of Nat'l Forest land that contained P&G Sinks as well as several others along an extremely long length of cave system that stretches of Leon and Wakulla Counties, likely connecting as far South as the Gulf of Mexico. We made the walk from the closest public access in order to evaluate conditions. As WCDC members, we actually have closer access, but reserve that right for the actual diving since we end up paying the land owner in return for the closer access. The rains had cooled the temperatures quite a bit, so the walk was comfortable. The first sink we came across was pretty smokey and tannic. This sink was offset, so not necessarily the best indication of the rest of the system, despite being connected. Once we found ourselves at a few of the sinks further downstream, it was confirmed that the sinks in this area weren't in the best shape. There was enough tannic water to cut visibility down to less than 10'. It wasn't as dark of a tannic stain as our previous visit(flooded then too), but still plenty enough to keep us from being able to enjoy the sites and scenes we dive caves to view. There was also a new tree strewn across our preffered entry point.
By this point, BGillespie had gotten off of work and had driven down to meet us at P Sink. From there, we made the walk(maybe 1/2 mile or a bit more) to the next sink downstream. I had never been here and it was neat to see another window into this system. This sink was also quite large.
After walking back to our cars, we made our way further south to check on conditions at a spring in the same county. The 8 sites we had already visited were sinkholes and get affected by local rainfall quickly and easily. The spring we visited in the afternoon was different as the water seemed to discharge from deeper in the aquiffer and not as affected by the local rainfall, atleast not as quickly. The slough was clear, despite having a green tint to it. BGillespie had dived the spring previously and they had used a canoe to traverse the run to the springhead, which wasn't far off. It was definately within walking distance, but there was a tremendous amount of vegatation between our entry and our destination that didn't seem to make the watery hike a fun one... especially while carrying cave gear. We hadn't been able to round up a canoe for today, so decided to consider this dive for Sunday. We had the options of either heading to Jackson Blue again or heading east to dive Madison Blue Springs with another group on Sunday as well. We zipped down south to St. Marks to pick up some tanks Jmaddox had left for DogHouseDiver. There seems to be a turf war going on in his yard between a group of guinea and group of roosters.
Our next site was another sinkhole in south Wakulla. This particular sinkhole nearly always looks like crap from the surface, but in the past has proven a great dive, even when everything else in the area was blown out. The water levels were definately up, and recent reports weren't promising(but often aren't despite sometimes great conditions). BGillespie had free dived into the sink a few days earlier, and while there was a clearish layer up top, he found a funky layer down to 15-20' with very little visibility. After considering a few things, including the higher water levels, I decided to mask up and superman a tank into the basin with a light strapped to it to see how conditions were a little deeper. My powersnorkel broke me free under the funky area and into cooler and noticably clearer water. It was inky, but clean with seemingly 20-30' visibility and only a slight tannic intrusion giving it a yellowish tint. It was getting dark and we were hungry, so we figured we'd save this one for Sunday as well. El Jalisco is our favorite joint in south Wakulla and we enjoyed some awesome mexican food. DogHouseDiver and his buddy met up with us after we finished up to pick up the tanks, then they headed over to Wakulla Diving Center to rig the tanks up and finish up with their first day of Cavern class.
We headed north to Leon County to check out another sink, likely linked to the same stretch of sinks we visited earlier in the day. This sink was further north and I had never been there previously. The ride out to it was fun, BGillespie nearly managed to get his Caprice wagon(aka Ecto 1) airborn. We made it to the sink in no time to find a small grouping of trees that distracted you from an incredibly sizable depression. The thing just seemed to keep dropping the further you went down. At the bottom was a semi-clear, smokey, little puddle of tannic water, that apparently has cave in it. There was limestone peaking out from different points of the depression and several bullfrogs voiced there dissapproval for our intrusion before plunging into the water. Really interesting site, but we aren't diving it this trip. Still very cool to find new places to dive for future expeditions.
We crashed at BGillespie's place and watched a couple cave diving video's before hitting sofas/beds for some needed sleep. Many jokes were made at the videos expense.
Saturday rolled around and I met up with GlenFWB at the Wilcox Exit, just west of the Florida border a little before 7AM. This is actually a bit of a late start of a cave trip, but we weren't on any time frame and at this point, unsure of even where were were going to dive. We hit up Cave Adventurers for fills and ran into Kevin Carlisle, who was heading to Jackson Blue for a dive. DiveAholic was also heading to JB to teach an Intro Cave class. Kenny P was out there with a fresh set of Cavern students and I believe HappyHacker was shadowing their dives? Gregg Stanton was out there with some cavern students, including DogHouseDiver. We also ran into Cwick and his brother, who'd be diving on the boat with rox@ucf, Litehedded, and a couple other divers. At this point, the Mill Pond was looking pretty busy, but we figured we'd go ahead and knock a dive out at Jackson Blue since we were here and it was atleast a sure thing.
Jackson Blue Springs 8-8-9
We headed into the gates at Jackson Blue with swimmers already lining up at the entry kiosk. We showed our passes and drove on through, waving at the line of vehicles sitting idle. Onsite, we ran into Rotor60Driver and one of his buddies, finishing up a dive. Kevin Carlisle would be joining GlenFWB and me for our dive into the cave. We geared up as quickly as possible to escape the rising heat and swarms of gnats, the water was cool, clear and quite refreshing. I volunteered to run the line(using Kevin's primary) and GlenFWB would take the lead at the goldline as the newest caver of the bunch. After a quick hiccup with a light, we were zipping down the cavern and enjoying a very noticable LACK of flow. While the flow was present, at no point was it necessary to make contact to the cave to progress as far as we penetrated(~750'p). I made sure to zig-zag the primary line a bit, don't want to make it too easy for the 3 classes being held onsite! Visibility was plenty good at around 60', with ever so slight of a haze. We pushed on to the second breakdown where Glen had hit 1/6ths and the dive was turned. The flow was gentle and it was actually necessary to kick on occassion to aid in returning to our exit point. Once back in the cavern, we were treated to a light show of two of the classes entering into the system. Its always kinda fun to sit back in the shadows and watch the classes, it wasn't that long ago when we were all part of one. Kevin would be diving all day here, so we left the primary in place and made our exit. After a quick safety stop on the ledge, and a little bit of spidermanning on the ceiling, we exitted after a 40 minute dive, hitting a max depth of 96'. Great dive to start the weekend!
We hit up Edd's once more to top our tanks off and eat some sandwiches. Have I mentioned how much Glen's wife rocks? Always a feast on a dive trip with GlenFWB! We left Kevin, who I believe ended up buddying back up with Rotor60Driver for some more diving, and headed East, to Wakulla. We crossed a few afternoon thunderstorms and for the rest of the day continued through hit and miss showers.
Wakulla and Leon County sites 8-8-9
Our first destination was a tract of Nat'l Forest land that contained P&G Sinks as well as several others along an extremely long length of cave system that stretches of Leon and Wakulla Counties, likely connecting as far South as the Gulf of Mexico. We made the walk from the closest public access in order to evaluate conditions. As WCDC members, we actually have closer access, but reserve that right for the actual diving since we end up paying the land owner in return for the closer access. The rains had cooled the temperatures quite a bit, so the walk was comfortable. The first sink we came across was pretty smokey and tannic. This sink was offset, so not necessarily the best indication of the rest of the system, despite being connected. Once we found ourselves at a few of the sinks further downstream, it was confirmed that the sinks in this area weren't in the best shape. There was enough tannic water to cut visibility down to less than 10'. It wasn't as dark of a tannic stain as our previous visit(flooded then too), but still plenty enough to keep us from being able to enjoy the sites and scenes we dive caves to view. There was also a new tree strewn across our preffered entry point.
By this point, BGillespie had gotten off of work and had driven down to meet us at P Sink. From there, we made the walk(maybe 1/2 mile or a bit more) to the next sink downstream. I had never been here and it was neat to see another window into this system. This sink was also quite large.
After walking back to our cars, we made our way further south to check on conditions at a spring in the same county. The 8 sites we had already visited were sinkholes and get affected by local rainfall quickly and easily. The spring we visited in the afternoon was different as the water seemed to discharge from deeper in the aquiffer and not as affected by the local rainfall, atleast not as quickly. The slough was clear, despite having a green tint to it. BGillespie had dived the spring previously and they had used a canoe to traverse the run to the springhead, which wasn't far off. It was definately within walking distance, but there was a tremendous amount of vegatation between our entry and our destination that didn't seem to make the watery hike a fun one... especially while carrying cave gear. We hadn't been able to round up a canoe for today, so decided to consider this dive for Sunday. We had the options of either heading to Jackson Blue again or heading east to dive Madison Blue Springs with another group on Sunday as well. We zipped down south to St. Marks to pick up some tanks Jmaddox had left for DogHouseDiver. There seems to be a turf war going on in his yard between a group of guinea and group of roosters.
Our next site was another sinkhole in south Wakulla. This particular sinkhole nearly always looks like crap from the surface, but in the past has proven a great dive, even when everything else in the area was blown out. The water levels were definately up, and recent reports weren't promising(but often aren't despite sometimes great conditions). BGillespie had free dived into the sink a few days earlier, and while there was a clearish layer up top, he found a funky layer down to 15-20' with very little visibility. After considering a few things, including the higher water levels, I decided to mask up and superman a tank into the basin with a light strapped to it to see how conditions were a little deeper. My powersnorkel broke me free under the funky area and into cooler and noticably clearer water. It was inky, but clean with seemingly 20-30' visibility and only a slight tannic intrusion giving it a yellowish tint. It was getting dark and we were hungry, so we figured we'd save this one for Sunday as well. El Jalisco is our favorite joint in south Wakulla and we enjoyed some awesome mexican food. DogHouseDiver and his buddy met up with us after we finished up to pick up the tanks, then they headed over to Wakulla Diving Center to rig the tanks up and finish up with their first day of Cavern class.
We headed north to Leon County to check out another sink, likely linked to the same stretch of sinks we visited earlier in the day. This sink was further north and I had never been there previously. The ride out to it was fun, BGillespie nearly managed to get his Caprice wagon(aka Ecto 1) airborn. We made it to the sink in no time to find a small grouping of trees that distracted you from an incredibly sizable depression. The thing just seemed to keep dropping the further you went down. At the bottom was a semi-clear, smokey, little puddle of tannic water, that apparently has cave in it. There was limestone peaking out from different points of the depression and several bullfrogs voiced there dissapproval for our intrusion before plunging into the water. Really interesting site, but we aren't diving it this trip. Still very cool to find new places to dive for future expeditions.
We crashed at BGillespie's place and watched a couple cave diving video's before hitting sofas/beds for some needed sleep. Many jokes were made at the videos expense.
