SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
ShangriLa 12/19/9
All the best laid plans can come to a crashing end when Mother Nature decides it so... A botched camping trip, thanks to torrential December rains flooding out Caverns State Park, resulted in a lazy day and incredibly late start for Saturdays adventures. Theawesomefish and I started with some excellent mexican food at Moes before heading to Marianna for a few tank fills and some Mill Pond shenanigans. We setup the illustrious Miss Jellyfish on Day Loop and loaded her down with the typical dive essentials before a slow ride south. Mrs awesome had only experienced the headspring of Merrits Mill Pond, Jackson Blue Springs, so we headed off to Gator Hole to start her topside tour of the pond. The temps were a bit on the chilly side, but at this point we were still dry and things were quite bareable. Gator Hole is a neat little crack in the side of a limestone bluff thats partially in open air with the majority of the fissure underwater. After a quick look at that site, we hit up another not far north. Then we hit Hole in the Wall, which is tucked away near another bluff with a dry cave above a submerged hole in the ground. Next was Twin, which was located in the bottom of the pond, so didn't offer much to look at from the surface, then Indian Washtub, which was closeby and also in the middle of the pond. Lastly, we hit up Shangri La, which is IMO, the most beautiful spring in the pond, atleast as far as looking from the surface. Its on a very impressive limestone bluff with several small vents and one decently sized vent submerged. There are several chimneys that lead to the water from the surface as well. There's also a vent further out in the pond, just 50' or so from the headsprings on the bluff. All in all, it makes for a great little dive and a nice cavern to visit.
We tied off to the remains of the old walkway pilings that are onsite and geared up in the shallower water there. We didn't have much daylight left by this point, so we set off for our dive, beginning in OW, to acclimate to some new gear and the site. We found both fish and crawdad to chase, but came up empty on turtles. Visibility was down from the normal crystal clear water, at maybe 40' or so and slightly milky... certainly due to runoff into the system from the recent rains. We explored the fissure crack and eventually headed off into the main vent to explore the cavern. I ran the reel and tied off at the back of the cavern. There was already another line in place, but no signs of active dives being made - probably left in place for a future dive. ShangriLa has a neat little cavern, very pretty, but quickly explored. We peered down the main vent to where the cave starts at a low bedding plane that continues for several hundred feet. There are also several chimneys and side passages that feed into the cavern, some now have line in them, others just pass into seemingly endless small labyrinths. Our exhausted gas chimed on the ceiling like a piano and we made the most out of the small cavern. I found a crawfish, that didn't appear to be having a great day as it didn't move much at all when I picked it up. We harassed bream inside the cavern and picked up some fishing line. Theawesomefish found the smallest crawfish I had ever seen, probably 1/4", likely just out of its larval state? It was barely visible amongst the sand and rocks. We surfaced with a dive time of atleast 45 minutes(computers typically don't track time where we were in the shallows in OW) with a max depth of 21'. The sun had gone down and we didn't have much ambient light left, so we piled back into the Miss Jellyfish and headed back to Day Loop. The ride back was frigid, now that we were wet. It was a great dive though, and while a little chilly, the sun was out and skies were clear, not a bad day to spend some time out on the Mill Pond.
Jackson Blue 12/26/9
An unexpected Christmas bonus allowed a dive that I didn't think I'd be able to make. Ben M and Kevin Carlisle had plans to dive JB and they allowed me to join in on the fun. It was cold and windy, something of a regularity this December, ugh! Diving wet, I was only interested in a single dive, then I would head off to find some warmth. Kevin has seen the light of sidemount and has been working on getting comfortable in the new gear. So our plan was to have fun and dive passage he had been familiar with previously.
Ben the dive in with Kevin second and me following behind for the time being. Ben ran a jump from the gold to the Goodman circuit and I followed with Kevin behind me at this point, we completed the line up into the cavern but Kevin wasn't feeling the vertical fissure crack that gets you inverted a bit, so we headed back down the gold and retrieved the reel. I tied off my reel and tied into the hatroom line and we followed it until it ended and turned back towards the mainline. By that time, we went ahead and turned the dive and exitted the cave. I always have fun messing around in the few hundred feet of JB, I didn't have any deco obligation and that kept me from getting too cold. I just wish the surface temps weren't so chilly. We hit up Firehouse Subs for lunch and parted ways with a max depth of 93' and dive time of 45 minutes.
Jackson Blue 12/28/9
The Christmas holidays allowed for more free time than usual so I got to enjoy the elusive weekday dive on Monday. I met up with jmaddox, cwick, and bgillespie for dive at Jackson Blue. We'd be splitting up into two seperate teams with the same basic dive plan. Gillespie has a new scooter he's been trying to get some stick time with and Maddox had his scooter with him as well, so we incorporated them into our plan. I'd be buddied with Maddox and Cwick with Gillespie. I'm getting introduced to not-so-crazy morning dive times... I like it, especially in the winter, when its damned cold(even in FL).
Damned cold again, and pretty much for the rest of the year, so get used to hearing it. Getting into a damp wetsuit wasn't fun, so I ran to the spring water for relief from the temperatures - 68F feels SO GOOD!. The plan was to bring safeties with us, but not use them unless necessary. Maddox would tow me, while Gillespie would tow cwick; we'd all drop the safeties and the scooters at the first "T". Maddox and I started off pretty caddywhompous in the cavern, we were slow, clumsy, and just weren't jiving all that greatly. I dropped my ride to get down the chimney into the main part of the cave and used my other hand to hold onto Maddox this time around. Things went much better and we made good time up the goldline and things were just clicking. Still, with two on the scooter, our pace wasn't exactly screaming and it was 18 minutes into the dive when we hit the "T" and dropped off our excess baggage. We waited for the other team to arrive and we started our swim, up the leftside of the "T" and through Court's squeeze until we hit the second "T" and continued upstream. I had taken the lead at the first "T" and set a doublender at our jumps into King's. We made good time and we had plenty of gas to complete the circuit and get back on the goldline despite being on backgas the entire dive. We drifted back to our original jump and I left the connection in place incase the other team was still in play. Back at the second "T", we took the opposite side of the goldline circuit to complete our second circuit of the dive. We picked up the safeties and scooter, and started our exit. With the flow to our backs, we made an excellent pace out and surely looked like we had done this nonsense before. Back in the cavern, I grabbed my O2 and started my little bit of deco, something like 10 minutes of it - I hate my hoodvest. Fish are sitting pretty in the warm cavern water, its like a fishbowl in there. Gives you something to harrass while freezing your ass off on deco. It was a great dive in my current favorite part of the little bit of Jackson Blue that I've seen. I had a max depth of 97' with a dive time lasting 81 minutes. I froze my butt off on the surface until I got into dry clothes, but the dive was worth it. Cwick relayed to another team later that week to grab my doublender, so I got it back on New Years Eve. It was a great time, but I think swimming(and breathing the stages) would have taken a little hassle out of the dive without handicapping us any.
Maddox had to haul back to the family, but Gillespie, Cwick, and I had food on our minds. We tried Old Mexico, but they weren't open for dinner yet, so we hit up Dino's Pizza. Dino's was bought out by new owners and has less of a menu now, the pizza and cheesebread is still great and the current owners are really nice. Apparently they'll be increasing the menu again shortly. There are still no plans to be open on weekends though??! Great day of diving to finish off a great weekend.
Jackson Blue New Years Eve/New Years Dive 2009/2010
Cave Adventurers sponsored a New Years Eve dive this year, opening up the park for free to anyone wanting to participate. Divers came out in hoards, filling the parking moreso than I've seen in awhile. It was great, all this and free food! Theawesomefish and I arrived early afternoon thinking this would be a dinner cookout, only to learn that it was more of a late lunch thing. No problem, it was still good and had been kept warm on the grill. There were fried turkeys, game hens, stuffing, mac-n-cheese, etc. Great stuff. The day started off warm too, like 68F and sunny! Unfortunately, by late evening the chilly temps returned. We did the WCDC meeting at JB this time around, thinking there would be more club members in attendance there than in Wakulla the following weekend, but most people opted out of the actual midnight dive for warmer surroundings. So it was just a quick business meeting.
So after figuring out our overnight plans, original plans to camp were out of the window when nobody else decided to camp and temps were dropping rapidly, we headed back to JB for the midnight dive. RN had drained the contents of 30 glowsticks into a bag and Sludge would be doing the honours of releasing the "fireworks" at midnight to bring in 2010 with the galaxy dive. By this time, theawesomefish and I were scurring to get our crap together for midnight, finally dropping below the surface with about 5 minutes to spair, just enough time to run a primary and tuck into a nice little alcove to enjoy the underwater festivities. There were about 8 divers in the water and the fireworks took part in the upper cavern at the mouth of the spring, so when the glowing goo was let loose, it illuminated the entire cavern and filled in nicely with the aid of the flow. It was a great night with steam coming off the pond, a true blue moon had enough light to give ambient light from the surface even at night, super beautiful. After a couple dozen minutes sitting still while watching the chemicals float around in the water, the cold started to set in and we proceeded with a cavern dive. I tied into the goldline with Mrs awesome's new primary and we slowly poked around the cavern looking at fossils and other features that make JB one of the best places for a cavern dive. Eventually, the dive was called, we were cold and theawesomefish reeled us out in good form. We saw one of the most gnarly old catfish I've ever seen in the cavern on the way out, dude looked like he had a rough life. We had a max depth of 43' for a dive lasting 49 minutes.
It was a great dive though and a perfect way to start off the New Year. It was DAMNED cold on the surface... a champagne toast brought a little warmth though!
Cypress Springs 1/1/10
Hoped to dive Cypress, but the basin was still quite tannic, but seemingly on the edge of clearing. Waterlevels in Vernon were around 14' if anyone is interested in keeping track. The boat motor sputtered to a hault as we zipped around the creek, time for a tuneup. No diving, but had a decent time anyway.
Jackson Blue 1/3/10
Another late meet time at the Flying J in Tally(I'm getting used to meeting at 11AM), which has by far the worst layout for a gas station in history. BGillespie was alreayd onsite, the temps were still below freezing, but we were hoping for one last dive before the new work year started back up. We high tailed it over to Edds for some fills and to let the sun warm up a bit more. I'm guessing it was near 50F(and windy) by the time we actually arrived at JB for the dive.
Gillespie would be scootering while I'd be swimming, since he's still trying to get profficient with the new tool. We'd be taking stages in and dropping them at the first "T" with the scooter, then taking backgas in hopes of diving King's and maybe more if gas allowed. Flow was up, it was actually noticably up for the first time in a couple months, still easily swimmable - just with a bit more effort and gas to get to the same areas. We still made it to the first "T" with the stage, dropped them off and headed up the Court's side of the first goldline circuit. Visibility in the first part of the system was pretty dissappointing, at 40-50', due to diver traffic; but after the "T" it opened up to clear cobalt blue visibility closer to whats expected from Jackson Blue. I doublended to the King's line again and we started heading down the low silty passage leading to the canyon. We were about 50' short when Ben turned us, back at the goldline, things were fine, so we continued upstream some more. I showed Ben the memorial placed for Richard Mork(packetsniffer here on ScubaBoard) and we figured that was a good point for us to turn the dive. The swim back was easy with flow aiding us in speed. We took the opposite passage from the 2nd "T", to complete the first goldline circuit and picked up our stages and the scooter. The exit was uneventfully and we had a great dive with about 10 minutes of deco back in the cavern. Again, it was a mad dash once on the surface to get into some dry clothes. We had a max depth of 97' for a dive lasting 92 minutes.
After several trips to the water to get all the gear back to the vehicles, we decided it was more than time for some warm grub. San Marco's had the mexican food we craved and were open. Old Mexico is my favorite, but not open on Sundays - ick. It was a great dive into an area that we've been able to enjoy easily with the flow being down. Not sure if the flow will continue to increase, definately good to take advantage of being able to swim the distance while the swimming is good! Had a great time, looking forward to my next weekend of diving!
All the best laid plans can come to a crashing end when Mother Nature decides it so... A botched camping trip, thanks to torrential December rains flooding out Caverns State Park, resulted in a lazy day and incredibly late start for Saturdays adventures. Theawesomefish and I started with some excellent mexican food at Moes before heading to Marianna for a few tank fills and some Mill Pond shenanigans. We setup the illustrious Miss Jellyfish on Day Loop and loaded her down with the typical dive essentials before a slow ride south. Mrs awesome had only experienced the headspring of Merrits Mill Pond, Jackson Blue Springs, so we headed off to Gator Hole to start her topside tour of the pond. The temps were a bit on the chilly side, but at this point we were still dry and things were quite bareable. Gator Hole is a neat little crack in the side of a limestone bluff thats partially in open air with the majority of the fissure underwater. After a quick look at that site, we hit up another not far north. Then we hit Hole in the Wall, which is tucked away near another bluff with a dry cave above a submerged hole in the ground. Next was Twin, which was located in the bottom of the pond, so didn't offer much to look at from the surface, then Indian Washtub, which was closeby and also in the middle of the pond. Lastly, we hit up Shangri La, which is IMO, the most beautiful spring in the pond, atleast as far as looking from the surface. Its on a very impressive limestone bluff with several small vents and one decently sized vent submerged. There are several chimneys that lead to the water from the surface as well. There's also a vent further out in the pond, just 50' or so from the headsprings on the bluff. All in all, it makes for a great little dive and a nice cavern to visit.
We tied off to the remains of the old walkway pilings that are onsite and geared up in the shallower water there. We didn't have much daylight left by this point, so we set off for our dive, beginning in OW, to acclimate to some new gear and the site. We found both fish and crawdad to chase, but came up empty on turtles. Visibility was down from the normal crystal clear water, at maybe 40' or so and slightly milky... certainly due to runoff into the system from the recent rains. We explored the fissure crack and eventually headed off into the main vent to explore the cavern. I ran the reel and tied off at the back of the cavern. There was already another line in place, but no signs of active dives being made - probably left in place for a future dive. ShangriLa has a neat little cavern, very pretty, but quickly explored. We peered down the main vent to where the cave starts at a low bedding plane that continues for several hundred feet. There are also several chimneys and side passages that feed into the cavern, some now have line in them, others just pass into seemingly endless small labyrinths. Our exhausted gas chimed on the ceiling like a piano and we made the most out of the small cavern. I found a crawfish, that didn't appear to be having a great day as it didn't move much at all when I picked it up. We harassed bream inside the cavern and picked up some fishing line. Theawesomefish found the smallest crawfish I had ever seen, probably 1/4", likely just out of its larval state? It was barely visible amongst the sand and rocks. We surfaced with a dive time of atleast 45 minutes(computers typically don't track time where we were in the shallows in OW) with a max depth of 21'. The sun had gone down and we didn't have much ambient light left, so we piled back into the Miss Jellyfish and headed back to Day Loop. The ride back was frigid, now that we were wet. It was a great dive though, and while a little chilly, the sun was out and skies were clear, not a bad day to spend some time out on the Mill Pond.
Jackson Blue 12/26/9
An unexpected Christmas bonus allowed a dive that I didn't think I'd be able to make. Ben M and Kevin Carlisle had plans to dive JB and they allowed me to join in on the fun. It was cold and windy, something of a regularity this December, ugh! Diving wet, I was only interested in a single dive, then I would head off to find some warmth. Kevin has seen the light of sidemount and has been working on getting comfortable in the new gear. So our plan was to have fun and dive passage he had been familiar with previously.
Ben the dive in with Kevin second and me following behind for the time being. Ben ran a jump from the gold to the Goodman circuit and I followed with Kevin behind me at this point, we completed the line up into the cavern but Kevin wasn't feeling the vertical fissure crack that gets you inverted a bit, so we headed back down the gold and retrieved the reel. I tied off my reel and tied into the hatroom line and we followed it until it ended and turned back towards the mainline. By that time, we went ahead and turned the dive and exitted the cave. I always have fun messing around in the few hundred feet of JB, I didn't have any deco obligation and that kept me from getting too cold. I just wish the surface temps weren't so chilly. We hit up Firehouse Subs for lunch and parted ways with a max depth of 93' and dive time of 45 minutes.
Jackson Blue 12/28/9
The Christmas holidays allowed for more free time than usual so I got to enjoy the elusive weekday dive on Monday. I met up with jmaddox, cwick, and bgillespie for dive at Jackson Blue. We'd be splitting up into two seperate teams with the same basic dive plan. Gillespie has a new scooter he's been trying to get some stick time with and Maddox had his scooter with him as well, so we incorporated them into our plan. I'd be buddied with Maddox and Cwick with Gillespie. I'm getting introduced to not-so-crazy morning dive times... I like it, especially in the winter, when its damned cold(even in FL).
Damned cold again, and pretty much for the rest of the year, so get used to hearing it. Getting into a damp wetsuit wasn't fun, so I ran to the spring water for relief from the temperatures - 68F feels SO GOOD!. The plan was to bring safeties with us, but not use them unless necessary. Maddox would tow me, while Gillespie would tow cwick; we'd all drop the safeties and the scooters at the first "T". Maddox and I started off pretty caddywhompous in the cavern, we were slow, clumsy, and just weren't jiving all that greatly. I dropped my ride to get down the chimney into the main part of the cave and used my other hand to hold onto Maddox this time around. Things went much better and we made good time up the goldline and things were just clicking. Still, with two on the scooter, our pace wasn't exactly screaming and it was 18 minutes into the dive when we hit the "T" and dropped off our excess baggage. We waited for the other team to arrive and we started our swim, up the leftside of the "T" and through Court's squeeze until we hit the second "T" and continued upstream. I had taken the lead at the first "T" and set a doublender at our jumps into King's. We made good time and we had plenty of gas to complete the circuit and get back on the goldline despite being on backgas the entire dive. We drifted back to our original jump and I left the connection in place incase the other team was still in play. Back at the second "T", we took the opposite side of the goldline circuit to complete our second circuit of the dive. We picked up the safeties and scooter, and started our exit. With the flow to our backs, we made an excellent pace out and surely looked like we had done this nonsense before. Back in the cavern, I grabbed my O2 and started my little bit of deco, something like 10 minutes of it - I hate my hoodvest. Fish are sitting pretty in the warm cavern water, its like a fishbowl in there. Gives you something to harrass while freezing your ass off on deco. It was a great dive in my current favorite part of the little bit of Jackson Blue that I've seen. I had a max depth of 97' with a dive time lasting 81 minutes. I froze my butt off on the surface until I got into dry clothes, but the dive was worth it. Cwick relayed to another team later that week to grab my doublender, so I got it back on New Years Eve. It was a great time, but I think swimming(and breathing the stages) would have taken a little hassle out of the dive without handicapping us any.
Maddox had to haul back to the family, but Gillespie, Cwick, and I had food on our minds. We tried Old Mexico, but they weren't open for dinner yet, so we hit up Dino's Pizza. Dino's was bought out by new owners and has less of a menu now, the pizza and cheesebread is still great and the current owners are really nice. Apparently they'll be increasing the menu again shortly. There are still no plans to be open on weekends though??! Great day of diving to finish off a great weekend.
Jackson Blue New Years Eve/New Years Dive 2009/2010
Cave Adventurers sponsored a New Years Eve dive this year, opening up the park for free to anyone wanting to participate. Divers came out in hoards, filling the parking moreso than I've seen in awhile. It was great, all this and free food! Theawesomefish and I arrived early afternoon thinking this would be a dinner cookout, only to learn that it was more of a late lunch thing. No problem, it was still good and had been kept warm on the grill. There were fried turkeys, game hens, stuffing, mac-n-cheese, etc. Great stuff. The day started off warm too, like 68F and sunny! Unfortunately, by late evening the chilly temps returned. We did the WCDC meeting at JB this time around, thinking there would be more club members in attendance there than in Wakulla the following weekend, but most people opted out of the actual midnight dive for warmer surroundings. So it was just a quick business meeting.
So after figuring out our overnight plans, original plans to camp were out of the window when nobody else decided to camp and temps were dropping rapidly, we headed back to JB for the midnight dive. RN had drained the contents of 30 glowsticks into a bag and Sludge would be doing the honours of releasing the "fireworks" at midnight to bring in 2010 with the galaxy dive. By this time, theawesomefish and I were scurring to get our crap together for midnight, finally dropping below the surface with about 5 minutes to spair, just enough time to run a primary and tuck into a nice little alcove to enjoy the underwater festivities. There were about 8 divers in the water and the fireworks took part in the upper cavern at the mouth of the spring, so when the glowing goo was let loose, it illuminated the entire cavern and filled in nicely with the aid of the flow. It was a great night with steam coming off the pond, a true blue moon had enough light to give ambient light from the surface even at night, super beautiful. After a couple dozen minutes sitting still while watching the chemicals float around in the water, the cold started to set in and we proceeded with a cavern dive. I tied into the goldline with Mrs awesome's new primary and we slowly poked around the cavern looking at fossils and other features that make JB one of the best places for a cavern dive. Eventually, the dive was called, we were cold and theawesomefish reeled us out in good form. We saw one of the most gnarly old catfish I've ever seen in the cavern on the way out, dude looked like he had a rough life. We had a max depth of 43' for a dive lasting 49 minutes.
It was a great dive though and a perfect way to start off the New Year. It was DAMNED cold on the surface... a champagne toast brought a little warmth though!
Cypress Springs 1/1/10
Hoped to dive Cypress, but the basin was still quite tannic, but seemingly on the edge of clearing. Waterlevels in Vernon were around 14' if anyone is interested in keeping track. The boat motor sputtered to a hault as we zipped around the creek, time for a tuneup. No diving, but had a decent time anyway.
Jackson Blue 1/3/10
Another late meet time at the Flying J in Tally(I'm getting used to meeting at 11AM), which has by far the worst layout for a gas station in history. BGillespie was alreayd onsite, the temps were still below freezing, but we were hoping for one last dive before the new work year started back up. We high tailed it over to Edds for some fills and to let the sun warm up a bit more. I'm guessing it was near 50F(and windy) by the time we actually arrived at JB for the dive.
Gillespie would be scootering while I'd be swimming, since he's still trying to get profficient with the new tool. We'd be taking stages in and dropping them at the first "T" with the scooter, then taking backgas in hopes of diving King's and maybe more if gas allowed. Flow was up, it was actually noticably up for the first time in a couple months, still easily swimmable - just with a bit more effort and gas to get to the same areas. We still made it to the first "T" with the stage, dropped them off and headed up the Court's side of the first goldline circuit. Visibility in the first part of the system was pretty dissappointing, at 40-50', due to diver traffic; but after the "T" it opened up to clear cobalt blue visibility closer to whats expected from Jackson Blue. I doublended to the King's line again and we started heading down the low silty passage leading to the canyon. We were about 50' short when Ben turned us, back at the goldline, things were fine, so we continued upstream some more. I showed Ben the memorial placed for Richard Mork(packetsniffer here on ScubaBoard) and we figured that was a good point for us to turn the dive. The swim back was easy with flow aiding us in speed. We took the opposite passage from the 2nd "T", to complete the first goldline circuit and picked up our stages and the scooter. The exit was uneventfully and we had a great dive with about 10 minutes of deco back in the cavern. Again, it was a mad dash once on the surface to get into some dry clothes. We had a max depth of 97' for a dive lasting 92 minutes.
After several trips to the water to get all the gear back to the vehicles, we decided it was more than time for some warm grub. San Marco's had the mexican food we craved and were open. Old Mexico is my favorite, but not open on Sundays - ick. It was a great dive into an area that we've been able to enjoy easily with the flow being down. Not sure if the flow will continue to increase, definately good to take advantage of being able to swim the distance while the swimming is good! Had a great time, looking forward to my next weekend of diving!
