SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Another early morning, I met up with Shagman in Loxley to carpool with him to Morrison Springs as he carted his boat out to Florida for its maiden dive voyage. The trip started out with a bang as my doubles slid out the back of the pickup to get run over by the boat after I did a crappy job of securing the load. Arg. The backplate and buckle took the brunt of the damage, tanks are fine and there was no impact to the manifold, thank God. Aside from that, it was an uneventfull trip and we made it to Morrison by 8:05AM, just a bit late. Already onsite were SeaYoda, Capt Grumby, GLENFWB, kchFLA, halftime, and Centerius. Quite the ScubaBoard gathering for a random weekend. Clear skies and it was fairly hot outside(but a few degrees cooler than a week ago) with steam over the spring and run. The water looked great!
We were diving as a loose group of buddy teams, I buddied with Shagman and Centerius. We entered the water, with only a set of tech divers in the water before us, to find excellent visibility, probably 100' or better. Our dive time was typical, dive the cavern, hit a turnaround pressure, then ascend to goof around the basin, then do a safety and surface. I ran a line completely around the cavern and back to the entry. The typical life could be observed, rockbass, eels, and catfish. The flow seemed to be up since the last time I was onsite. It managed to pull my line from its ties near the flow. Once our turnaround pressure was met, we headed up to the log to goof around where we could see bream, bass, and sole. I hit a max depth of 84' and the dive lasted 35 minutes.
We spent a bit over an hour BS'ng on dry land, warming up a bit, and eating some awesome brownies that kchFLA had brought for us. Thanks kch! Afterwards, we were back in the water, with the same dive plan. The dive led on pretty much identically to our first, hit a max depth of 83' for a dive lasting 40 minutes. I was a bit more carefull with the line this time and it stayed where I layed this time around.
We took an extended SI this time around, degassing, and more importantly, get some food. Half our party hit up Sally's and the other half stayed onsite to eat what was at hand, or wait till later. My brother and his fiance were coming to check out the springs(they've never seen them) and I got him to pick up a Sub for me to scarf down. we enjoyed watching the local shinanigans. We also got to meet up with Dive-aholic and his wife during the SI. After the rest of our party made it back onsite, we would be back in the water after a total SI of nearly two and a half hours. The dive group now included just myself, Shagman, SeaYoda, GLENFWB, halftime, and Capt Grumby. We followed the same basic diveplan as our previous dive. I ran line again, and again no problems with the line coming loose or snagging. We goofed around with the various cavern fauna, including porcelain fish, gnomes, ect. Hit a max depth of 83' for a total dive time of 35 minutes. On surfacing, there was thunder and some darker clouds were heading in and the spring started to empty out. By the time we had left it was raining.
Shagman, SeaYoda, and I headed to the Ponce De Leon rest area in order to tromp about 500' into the woods to find Jackson Spring(not to be confused with Jackson Blue in Marianna). Most reports on this spring were not in favor of it being worthy for a dive, but I had read atleast one that stated otherwise. So we figured we'd just take a look. Its in the middle of some lowlying woodlands, probably very swampy on most occassions, but we haven't had a ton of rain lately so we were able to walk around easily(even if the ground was mushy). The spring itself is milky and slightly blue, no visibile boil and likely not very deep. There wasn't much in terms of noticable flow, so we wrote it off.
Shagman and I still had a bit of adventure left in us so we headed down to New Hope to find a boatlaunch pretty far down Holmes Creek. We launched the SS Minnow(?) with our gear and my GPS and we headed downstream. All the info I've read regarding the location of Ebro Blue Springs(Washington Blue Springs) stated that you go downstream Holmes Creek, to its confluence into the Choctawhatchee, then upstream about a mile to look for the spring run. The info is innaccurate as the GPS lead us downstream the Choctawhatchee and eventually we found the spring run. River levels have been low and the springrun was shallow. We ended up having to tow the boat a few hundred feet before it deepend enough for us to run the motor again. The run itself seemed to have quite a bit of clear, cool moving water. It eventually split into two runs and we chose the branch that seemed to have more movement. There were a few clear deeper holes within the run after this point. I cannot verify, but I'd imagine these are smaller vents and the other run may lead to another vent as well? We followed the run up to what we would think would make up the headspring and were rewarded by finding Ebro Blue Springs. Published GPS #s seem to be about a half mile off anyway. There was a strong boil and aside from the elongated depression opening up to a small vent pushing alot of water, the basin was shallow. We geared up and dove to the bottom of the basin. You could explore the entirety in 10 minutes and we spent most that time just looking down the vent. Flow was strong, but passable for the trained. It reminded me of Cypress on a day with strong flow. The opening is probably 2.5x4' or so and there is a ski rope down a bit to aid in penetrating, which we didn't attempt. I've read accounts where flow can apparently be much stronger, flow may have been down due to low water levels. Its a pretty little spring, but unless you are full cave and experienced, probably not worth more than a single trip to in order to say you've seen it. It really is a pretty little spring and the ride to and from is very picturesque. I dived to a max depth of 23' for early stated 10 minutes.
Shagman and I hit up Dee's in Vernon on the way out before hitting the interstate for the ride home. We had a full day of diving and I was wore out. Really was a great day with great buddies, can't wait till next weekend!
I'll add pics in a bit.
We were diving as a loose group of buddy teams, I buddied with Shagman and Centerius. We entered the water, with only a set of tech divers in the water before us, to find excellent visibility, probably 100' or better. Our dive time was typical, dive the cavern, hit a turnaround pressure, then ascend to goof around the basin, then do a safety and surface. I ran a line completely around the cavern and back to the entry. The typical life could be observed, rockbass, eels, and catfish. The flow seemed to be up since the last time I was onsite. It managed to pull my line from its ties near the flow. Once our turnaround pressure was met, we headed up to the log to goof around where we could see bream, bass, and sole. I hit a max depth of 84' and the dive lasted 35 minutes.
We spent a bit over an hour BS'ng on dry land, warming up a bit, and eating some awesome brownies that kchFLA had brought for us. Thanks kch! Afterwards, we were back in the water, with the same dive plan. The dive led on pretty much identically to our first, hit a max depth of 83' for a dive lasting 40 minutes. I was a bit more carefull with the line this time and it stayed where I layed this time around.
We took an extended SI this time around, degassing, and more importantly, get some food. Half our party hit up Sally's and the other half stayed onsite to eat what was at hand, or wait till later. My brother and his fiance were coming to check out the springs(they've never seen them) and I got him to pick up a Sub for me to scarf down. we enjoyed watching the local shinanigans. We also got to meet up with Dive-aholic and his wife during the SI. After the rest of our party made it back onsite, we would be back in the water after a total SI of nearly two and a half hours. The dive group now included just myself, Shagman, SeaYoda, GLENFWB, halftime, and Capt Grumby. We followed the same basic diveplan as our previous dive. I ran line again, and again no problems with the line coming loose or snagging. We goofed around with the various cavern fauna, including porcelain fish, gnomes, ect. Hit a max depth of 83' for a total dive time of 35 minutes. On surfacing, there was thunder and some darker clouds were heading in and the spring started to empty out. By the time we had left it was raining.
Shagman, SeaYoda, and I headed to the Ponce De Leon rest area in order to tromp about 500' into the woods to find Jackson Spring(not to be confused with Jackson Blue in Marianna). Most reports on this spring were not in favor of it being worthy for a dive, but I had read atleast one that stated otherwise. So we figured we'd just take a look. Its in the middle of some lowlying woodlands, probably very swampy on most occassions, but we haven't had a ton of rain lately so we were able to walk around easily(even if the ground was mushy). The spring itself is milky and slightly blue, no visibile boil and likely not very deep. There wasn't much in terms of noticable flow, so we wrote it off.
Shagman and I still had a bit of adventure left in us so we headed down to New Hope to find a boatlaunch pretty far down Holmes Creek. We launched the SS Minnow(?) with our gear and my GPS and we headed downstream. All the info I've read regarding the location of Ebro Blue Springs(Washington Blue Springs) stated that you go downstream Holmes Creek, to its confluence into the Choctawhatchee, then upstream about a mile to look for the spring run. The info is innaccurate as the GPS lead us downstream the Choctawhatchee and eventually we found the spring run. River levels have been low and the springrun was shallow. We ended up having to tow the boat a few hundred feet before it deepend enough for us to run the motor again. The run itself seemed to have quite a bit of clear, cool moving water. It eventually split into two runs and we chose the branch that seemed to have more movement. There were a few clear deeper holes within the run after this point. I cannot verify, but I'd imagine these are smaller vents and the other run may lead to another vent as well? We followed the run up to what we would think would make up the headspring and were rewarded by finding Ebro Blue Springs. Published GPS #s seem to be about a half mile off anyway. There was a strong boil and aside from the elongated depression opening up to a small vent pushing alot of water, the basin was shallow. We geared up and dove to the bottom of the basin. You could explore the entirety in 10 minutes and we spent most that time just looking down the vent. Flow was strong, but passable for the trained. It reminded me of Cypress on a day with strong flow. The opening is probably 2.5x4' or so and there is a ski rope down a bit to aid in penetrating, which we didn't attempt. I've read accounts where flow can apparently be much stronger, flow may have been down due to low water levels. Its a pretty little spring, but unless you are full cave and experienced, probably not worth more than a single trip to in order to say you've seen it. It really is a pretty little spring and the ride to and from is very picturesque. I dived to a max depth of 23' for early stated 10 minutes.
Shagman and I hit up Dee's in Vernon on the way out before hitting the interstate for the ride home. We had a full day of diving and I was wore out. Really was a great day with great buddies, can't wait till next weekend!
I'll add pics in a bit.
