SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
After rains and howling winds on Friday, I was looking forward to a drier weekend. I didn't realize there would be a trade off for this, dryness, though...
A River Cave on 10-17-9
Woke up at a reasonable time(considering a cave trip was about to happen) and loaded up the car with ambient light from the sunrise that was closing in shortly. HOLY CRAP was it cold! There was no transition for the cold weather, we went from 90F with 100% humidity to gusty, overcast, damp, and frigid(40sF) all in about a day! I dressed like an eskimo and started heading east. The weather never really improved, it was cold and windy all damned day.
I met up with Cwick and BGillespie at Cave Adventurers on a busy morning. Edd was preparing to take a group to do a guided dive on one of the harder to reach springs in the area, but kept getting held up. Many other dive teams were in and out, place was kicking moreso than usual. After I topped off my tanks with air to dilute my mix, filled my deco tank w/100%, and loaded back up, our group of three headed out. Cwick had his new boat/motor in tow and we were looking to have a great day of diving off the beaten path. After a quick check-in at the local state park, with a ranger far cuter than any other I had seen(especially in the likes of this part of Florida), we zipped off to the boatlaunch. The boat hit the water without any troubles and we loaded gear into it. We geared up in our exposure suits, my wetsuit was still damp from the previous weekend so I commenced bitching and moaning. After the boat(needs a name) was still afloat(far less of a stretch compared to my boat loaded up) we hopped in and Gillespie shoved us off. A sheriff motioned us back to shore almost immediately. Crap. It was a minor holdup though, he just wanted to make sure we weren't going to dive the riversink that swallows this particular river, gave us some seemingly outlandish depth of the sink and let us go... and here we thought we'd be asked about the lifejackets that were still sitting on Edd's chairs in the driveway(oops). We garaunteed that we'd be looking for clearer waters and headed upstream at a slow pace. We only managed to knock the motor on a single submerged "object" on the trip upstream. Some of you may find it amusing to know that we didn't meet up with any swarms of stinging insects. Not long after our departure, we were looking down a run of cool, clear spring water with a set of basins. We'd be using the most upstream basin on this particular trip due to the odd man out, still diving backmount(Ben!). A few failed attempts on getting the boat to the second basin had us tie off the boat in the first basin and slog gear over to the second. A few trips later, we were in the water geared up.
After a short amount of flailing around in OW to get accustomed to our surroundings and we were all ready for a cave dive. I tied in a primary and headed into the elusive easy backmount spring entrance found in the second basin(most people keyhole themselves in the bottom of a vertical fissure crack to gain access in backmount). A minute after tying in, I'm looking down a ledge to line upstream of the fissurecrack restriction, tie in, and wait for everyone else to get down to my level. Once everyone was ready to go, we skipped through a couple dozen feet of smallish cave and down another restriction to huge passage gaining depth quickly. There were large sand/silt dunes, and massive areas of breakdown. Vertical fissure cracks in the ceiling towered far out of visibility(60'ish). We hit a 4-way and continued forward, then continued forward down the next "T". Just shy of the second "T", which just just around the next bend, the dive was called and we started our exit. I spent about 8 minutes sitting on a rock for my deco obligation before surfacing to more gusty winds, bringing the cold back. I had a max depth of 119' for a dive lasting about an hour.
We hit up the Winn Dixie on the way back to Cave Adventurers, grabbed a few select flavors of coldbeer. By the time we arrived, cars filled the parking lot and adjascent grass lot next to Edd's house. Stacey was passing out Edd Sorenson masks and dressed to impress. A few large tents were up and the caterers started preparing. Easily better than 150 of Edd's friends and family lined the road, all wearing Edd Sorenson masks, awaiting his arrival for his 50th birthday, suprise, party. This was quite the site, Edd was truly suprised and the party began. Madison's was catering the event, which is about as fancy as Marianna gets. Grilled chicken, prime rib, and some awesome potatoe fixins filled my plate... atleast twice. The alcohol flowed as much as the bull****, this was an event with mostly cave divers in attendance afterall. Some bonfires cut the chill out of the air and DJs kept butts bouncin until late that night. Seriously a hellova party.
Jackson Blue Springs 10-18-9
Looking out the window Sunday morning was deceptive. The skies were clear and blue as the sun came up, it looked warm outside. Once the door was open, the truth was told and the cold bit at you once again. I ate at the Waffle Iron with cmufieldhockey, and a bunch of her regular dive buddies, then parted ways for Cave Adventurers once again. I put my tanks in line to be filled and helped break down the tables and tents. There was alot to cleanup after the previous nights shinanigans, but with other divers onsite helping as well, it all dissappeared in no time. With fills finished off, we head over to Blue Springs park where we'll be doing a couple dives.
Once onsite, with one other team already in the water(Kevin Carslile and his buddy), we started gearing up for our dive. I get all my tanks to the water(well, nearly all of them) and forgot to check my mix, so break it all back down, and analyze at the waters edge. I'd be diving with Ben M today, he's brought me a stage for the dive and we discuss some plans, with some alternatives if the flow keeps us from our intended plan. By the time we actually get into the water, Kevin has surfaced again with news that the flow is still way down and swimming a stage isn't gonna be a problem. Visibility is great as I lead into the cavern and eventually into the cave as well. I stuck to the right side of the cave and Ben M stuck to the left, to see which offered better cover from the flow(low flow in JB is still a hinderance at times). Both sides offered what seemed to be about the same relief to the first breakdown, from the first to second breakdown the right-side seemed to win out. Once I hit the bottom after the second breakdown, the flow hit me and slowed me to a snails pace and Ben was able to catch up to me easily. We dropped our stages at the 1st "T" and Ben took the lead forward through the Court's Squeeze side of the passage. We zipped out and along through the main passage and upstream from the 2nd "T". Several jumps were pointed out to me along the way to the King's Bypass jump. A double-ender was used to gap the jump and we headed into a lowish silty passage with lots of side passages and silt dunes. Pretty neat, but that just preceeded certainly the nicest part of Jackson Blue(what little I've seen) that I've seen to this point. We hit a "T" and went vertical up a large picturesque fissurecrack that was darkish, but covered in all sorts of interesting details from different formations to fossils. Its truly amazing back there and we travelled King's Canyon for quite sometime before descending back down and coming to the end of the line. We jumped off back to the gold and checked gas... I'm at 3000psi by this point, tons of gas, so we head off to the 3rd goldline "T" and Ben points out the memorial placed for Richard Mork. Its discrete and contains a passage that summed up Richard nicely. After a few moments there, we turned the dive, and headed out down the mainline. The flow aiding us, put us back to our stage bottles in no time whatsoever. We passed EEL and his wife just upstream of the 2nd "T". Back at the second breakdown, we passed up Benthic and amphipod and Scott as well as an OC diver with them. Running with a slightly lean mix(after leaning it out for a slightly deeper dive the previous mornign) cost me about 14 minutes of deco, but we sat content watching a few teams enter the cavern. It was a great dive though, definately one of my top 3 in Jackson Blue! Max depth of 97' for a dive lasting 90 minutes. I was chilly in the water, but out of the water was down right frigid...atleast if you're wet. Eventually I headed out, peeled down and dried off.
Some dry clothes and lots of sunlight help me warm up a bit. Infact, an hour and a half later I was back in the water. Ben brought along his pair of scooters to help start getting me acclimated to what all the cool kids are doing nowadays. I'm a total newb to scooters, aside from a quick set of loops around in Morrison on cmufieldhockey's Mako, I've never driven one. I clumsily looped the basin of JB several times until I could pass off a few loops that were acceptable. At this point, we headed into the cavern for some more loops. Bouyancy and control were much easier in deeper water, that and surely my form and comfort level were increasing. After lots of frustration and aggrivation in the beginning, I had actually gained control by the end of our little halfhour dive. We went through some of the protocols, but I'll need much more easy time before doing any real dives with this new tool. It was colder exitting the second time around. We packed up and headed back to Edd's so I could settle up and said my goodbyes to everyone. Hoping to get back in some other river caves with Ben in a couple weeks, maybe find something newish? Who knows. I stopped by McD's for some late lunch of dollar menu garbage and headed home(OK, maybe one stop along the way for some Redbull).
It was a great weekend with an awesome set of dives. The weather was chilly as all hell, but the dives and the huge party more than made up for it. Looking forward to next time I get to hit the caves!
A River Cave on 10-17-9
Woke up at a reasonable time(considering a cave trip was about to happen) and loaded up the car with ambient light from the sunrise that was closing in shortly. HOLY CRAP was it cold! There was no transition for the cold weather, we went from 90F with 100% humidity to gusty, overcast, damp, and frigid(40sF) all in about a day! I dressed like an eskimo and started heading east. The weather never really improved, it was cold and windy all damned day.
I met up with Cwick and BGillespie at Cave Adventurers on a busy morning. Edd was preparing to take a group to do a guided dive on one of the harder to reach springs in the area, but kept getting held up. Many other dive teams were in and out, place was kicking moreso than usual. After I topped off my tanks with air to dilute my mix, filled my deco tank w/100%, and loaded back up, our group of three headed out. Cwick had his new boat/motor in tow and we were looking to have a great day of diving off the beaten path. After a quick check-in at the local state park, with a ranger far cuter than any other I had seen(especially in the likes of this part of Florida), we zipped off to the boatlaunch. The boat hit the water without any troubles and we loaded gear into it. We geared up in our exposure suits, my wetsuit was still damp from the previous weekend so I commenced bitching and moaning. After the boat(needs a name) was still afloat(far less of a stretch compared to my boat loaded up) we hopped in and Gillespie shoved us off. A sheriff motioned us back to shore almost immediately. Crap. It was a minor holdup though, he just wanted to make sure we weren't going to dive the riversink that swallows this particular river, gave us some seemingly outlandish depth of the sink and let us go... and here we thought we'd be asked about the lifejackets that were still sitting on Edd's chairs in the driveway(oops). We garaunteed that we'd be looking for clearer waters and headed upstream at a slow pace. We only managed to knock the motor on a single submerged "object" on the trip upstream. Some of you may find it amusing to know that we didn't meet up with any swarms of stinging insects. Not long after our departure, we were looking down a run of cool, clear spring water with a set of basins. We'd be using the most upstream basin on this particular trip due to the odd man out, still diving backmount(Ben!). A few failed attempts on getting the boat to the second basin had us tie off the boat in the first basin and slog gear over to the second. A few trips later, we were in the water geared up.
After a short amount of flailing around in OW to get accustomed to our surroundings and we were all ready for a cave dive. I tied in a primary and headed into the elusive easy backmount spring entrance found in the second basin(most people keyhole themselves in the bottom of a vertical fissure crack to gain access in backmount). A minute after tying in, I'm looking down a ledge to line upstream of the fissurecrack restriction, tie in, and wait for everyone else to get down to my level. Once everyone was ready to go, we skipped through a couple dozen feet of smallish cave and down another restriction to huge passage gaining depth quickly. There were large sand/silt dunes, and massive areas of breakdown. Vertical fissure cracks in the ceiling towered far out of visibility(60'ish). We hit a 4-way and continued forward, then continued forward down the next "T". Just shy of the second "T", which just just around the next bend, the dive was called and we started our exit. I spent about 8 minutes sitting on a rock for my deco obligation before surfacing to more gusty winds, bringing the cold back. I had a max depth of 119' for a dive lasting about an hour.
We hit up the Winn Dixie on the way back to Cave Adventurers, grabbed a few select flavors of coldbeer. By the time we arrived, cars filled the parking lot and adjascent grass lot next to Edd's house. Stacey was passing out Edd Sorenson masks and dressed to impress. A few large tents were up and the caterers started preparing. Easily better than 150 of Edd's friends and family lined the road, all wearing Edd Sorenson masks, awaiting his arrival for his 50th birthday, suprise, party. This was quite the site, Edd was truly suprised and the party began. Madison's was catering the event, which is about as fancy as Marianna gets. Grilled chicken, prime rib, and some awesome potatoe fixins filled my plate... atleast twice. The alcohol flowed as much as the bull****, this was an event with mostly cave divers in attendance afterall. Some bonfires cut the chill out of the air and DJs kept butts bouncin until late that night. Seriously a hellova party.
Jackson Blue Springs 10-18-9
Looking out the window Sunday morning was deceptive. The skies were clear and blue as the sun came up, it looked warm outside. Once the door was open, the truth was told and the cold bit at you once again. I ate at the Waffle Iron with cmufieldhockey, and a bunch of her regular dive buddies, then parted ways for Cave Adventurers once again. I put my tanks in line to be filled and helped break down the tables and tents. There was alot to cleanup after the previous nights shinanigans, but with other divers onsite helping as well, it all dissappeared in no time. With fills finished off, we head over to Blue Springs park where we'll be doing a couple dives.
Once onsite, with one other team already in the water(Kevin Carslile and his buddy), we started gearing up for our dive. I get all my tanks to the water(well, nearly all of them) and forgot to check my mix, so break it all back down, and analyze at the waters edge. I'd be diving with Ben M today, he's brought me a stage for the dive and we discuss some plans, with some alternatives if the flow keeps us from our intended plan. By the time we actually get into the water, Kevin has surfaced again with news that the flow is still way down and swimming a stage isn't gonna be a problem. Visibility is great as I lead into the cavern and eventually into the cave as well. I stuck to the right side of the cave and Ben M stuck to the left, to see which offered better cover from the flow(low flow in JB is still a hinderance at times). Both sides offered what seemed to be about the same relief to the first breakdown, from the first to second breakdown the right-side seemed to win out. Once I hit the bottom after the second breakdown, the flow hit me and slowed me to a snails pace and Ben was able to catch up to me easily. We dropped our stages at the 1st "T" and Ben took the lead forward through the Court's Squeeze side of the passage. We zipped out and along through the main passage and upstream from the 2nd "T". Several jumps were pointed out to me along the way to the King's Bypass jump. A double-ender was used to gap the jump and we headed into a lowish silty passage with lots of side passages and silt dunes. Pretty neat, but that just preceeded certainly the nicest part of Jackson Blue(what little I've seen) that I've seen to this point. We hit a "T" and went vertical up a large picturesque fissurecrack that was darkish, but covered in all sorts of interesting details from different formations to fossils. Its truly amazing back there and we travelled King's Canyon for quite sometime before descending back down and coming to the end of the line. We jumped off back to the gold and checked gas... I'm at 3000psi by this point, tons of gas, so we head off to the 3rd goldline "T" and Ben points out the memorial placed for Richard Mork. Its discrete and contains a passage that summed up Richard nicely. After a few moments there, we turned the dive, and headed out down the mainline. The flow aiding us, put us back to our stage bottles in no time whatsoever. We passed EEL and his wife just upstream of the 2nd "T". Back at the second breakdown, we passed up Benthic and amphipod and Scott as well as an OC diver with them. Running with a slightly lean mix(after leaning it out for a slightly deeper dive the previous mornign) cost me about 14 minutes of deco, but we sat content watching a few teams enter the cavern. It was a great dive though, definately one of my top 3 in Jackson Blue! Max depth of 97' for a dive lasting 90 minutes. I was chilly in the water, but out of the water was down right frigid...atleast if you're wet. Eventually I headed out, peeled down and dried off.
Some dry clothes and lots of sunlight help me warm up a bit. Infact, an hour and a half later I was back in the water. Ben brought along his pair of scooters to help start getting me acclimated to what all the cool kids are doing nowadays. I'm a total newb to scooters, aside from a quick set of loops around in Morrison on cmufieldhockey's Mako, I've never driven one. I clumsily looped the basin of JB several times until I could pass off a few loops that were acceptable. At this point, we headed into the cavern for some more loops. Bouyancy and control were much easier in deeper water, that and surely my form and comfort level were increasing. After lots of frustration and aggrivation in the beginning, I had actually gained control by the end of our little halfhour dive. We went through some of the protocols, but I'll need much more easy time before doing any real dives with this new tool. It was colder exitting the second time around. We packed up and headed back to Edd's so I could settle up and said my goodbyes to everyone. Hoping to get back in some other river caves with Ben in a couple weeks, maybe find something newish? Who knows. I stopped by McD's for some late lunch of dollar menu garbage and headed home(OK, maybe one stop along the way for some Redbull).
It was a great weekend with an awesome set of dives. The weather was chilly as all hell, but the dives and the huge party more than made up for it. Looking forward to next time I get to hit the caves!
