Need Info: Merrit's Mill Pond and all the springs that go with it.

[jviehe]

Superbugman,

There isnt much at Merrits if you stay in OW. I would deem the JB cavern safe for OW if you know what youre doing, however. The rest of the sites are pretty much all cave.

Check this out, scroll to the bottom - http://northfloridadiver.net/sites/panhandlecaves.htm

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Thanks for the link, I actually visit your site semi-regularly to see if conditions have been updated.

Even if I can't go into the caves, I can still waste 10-15 min above them taking pictures. It'll give me something to do, new sites, a chance to use my boat more often, lots of pictures

 

[Spectre]

There isnt much at Merrits if you stay in OW. I would deem the JB cavern safe for OW if you know what youre doing, however.

I would disagree imphatically on principle, even without the shear number of accidents and deaths we've had lately.

In regards to diving the mill pond; I'm starting to hear that there are ordinances against non-cave certified divers; so that's something you might want to check into before going out there.

 

[CajunNms]

Superbugman,

Think that's smart of you to sort out what's what there before going.

(Long time back, a college friend of mine who thought he could go dive Meritt's, and his buddy died in there.)

 

[simbrooks]

So which of these holes are reasonable for intro diving? Havent been up that end of the state to dive yet, only bike and kayak, one day i would like to make a road trip!

 

[jviehe]

So which of these holes are reasonable for intro diving? Havent been up that end of the state to dive yet, only bike and kayak, one day i would like to make a road trip!

All of them. Gator hole is probably the worst one as its abotu 3ft deep and technically OW most of the time. Its half dry half wet cave. Kind of a scary place actually. JB is the best for INtro. Lots to see in the first few hundred feet, hard to silt up.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

In regards to diving the mill pond; I'm starting to hear that there are ordinances against non-cave certified divers; so that's something you might want to check into before going out there.

I'll be calling chickdiver before I head out that way, apparently she helped work out making JB accessible to divers again(atleast cave divers) and knows of the ordinances in place - from what I understand, they are on JB but not on the rest of the pond(I will confirm this before making the trip).

 

[OneBrightGator]

Jackson is the easiest, high flow, pretty big and not a lot of silt.

Hole in the Wall has a tight squeeze to get in, and then a drop down and two lines, on opposite sides, it's huge, but silty on the bottom

The entrance Twin is low and the siltiest cave I have seen, it gets a little bigger on the mainline, but still slity on the bottom.

All of the caves on The Pond will give your primary reel a workout, the mainline is significantly further back then our local caves.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Aside from silty bottoms, are they "pretty" caves? I want cavern training, but haven't really considered cave training due to the need for pretty much an entire new set of gear and I wasn't sure what was available in the area for a full out caver. If they are nice, cave training may be in my future - who knows... I know I won't go into any of the caves in this area without that training - I really enjoy seeing daylight

 

[OneBrightGator]

I could dive there every weekend, each cave is different, but the caves of the Mill Pond are definitely high on the list, go for it, an Intro class is a cheap way to figure out if cave diving is for you.