With all my recent trips and classes my pasture felt neglected. Lots of high grass and persistent bushes needed mowing really bad. I started on the tractor around eight Sunday morning and didn’t finish until around five. I was hot, sweaty, and in need of cooling off so I stopped by Lake Martin on the way home.
When I was a kid the public swimming beach was at Kowaliga. That was when the old bridge was still in use. There is a certain place on the road where you top a hill and can see the cobalt blue water. Today I noticed that the surface of the water looked much like the ocean with waves even though there was no wind. As I got closer I could see the constant stream of boats back and forth, back and forth. The wakes were pounding on the shore like surf and the water murky with silt and trash. I donned tank and jumped in with only my cutoff jeans and enjoyed the coolness against my skin. Unfortunately around 23 feet the first thermocline hit and I knew that if I was to continue I would have to go back and don the trusty wetsuit. Since I carried a steel tank I was spared the cumbersome weight belt.
Although visibility was sometimes less than a foot, I enjoyed the coolness and solitude of an almost hour dive. I didn’t find any bottles of interest but I did find the title to a boat. Now if I could only find the boat. Water temperature on the surface was 84 and dropped to mid seventies at 23 feet and at max depth of 40 some odd feet I saw 66 degrees. Later in the summer you can do the lake in a swimsuit down to 40 feet but that time ain't here yet. After two wonderful and refreshing dives I headed home.
Next morning I awoke at five and was on my way to the Panhandle by six. I had intentions of renting a canoe and trying Cypress but got sidetracked. Connie is in the process of finishing the pond beside Vortex into a cave training facility. They need to pump all the old water out so they can shape and finish the bottom. One of her fire hoses was kinked up in the mud and she asked me to go down there and uncouple it. The dive was really interesting – absolutely zero visibility and about ten feet deep. I uncovered the hose by standing on the bottom and pulling hard. This progressed nicely until the hose took a nose dive straight down into coarse sand. As fast as I could dig the sand filled back in. We salvaged enough of the hose to start pumping water.
Next dive Vortex to clean the muddy water from me and my gear. Just eased around the bowl and looked for stuff and then into the hole to the grate. Compared to the warm water in the hole, Vortex turned out to be very chilly, especially in the cave. As I slowly drifted out I spotted a small, dime-sized vertebrae fossil. A really great find, the fossil is in excellent shape.
My next adventure came at Morrison Spring. My dive mobile is a 1993 Chevrolet pickup. It has among other things about 160,000 miles on the odometer. Best thing for remote dive sites is that it has four-wheel drive. Now I think it should be a part of elementary school education that if you drive a two-wheel drive vehicle into loose sand you will become stuck. Evidently in the Florida panhandle this is not the case. I can’t imagine a panhandler without a four-wheel drive vehicle but there are some. One such young man drove directly into the sand pile and became stuck. Instead of calling for help he did the manly thing and floor boarded the accelerator in reverse. The resultant dust cloud became massive. The dust settled quickly but the string of profanity and bidirectional threats of 357's under the seat lasted much longer. "Oh yeah? I'll trump your 357 with my 44!" I really wanted a lawn chair and some popcorn but it was too hot.
I just looked at the young fellow – grotesquely overweight, buzzed haircut, and one of those scruffy beards that is only a moustache leading into a goatee. Years ago I think they called it a Van Dyke. I just felt that the dust storm show and resultant loud muffler might be an attractant to the opposite sex in north Florida and God knows the guy needed all the help he could get.
The dives were marvelous. The water cool, clear, and inviting, I welcomed the relief from overbearing heat. Hydraulic pressure from the cave entrance was much higher than my last trip here. It seemed that the floor was alive with sand boiling everywhere. I searched through the rubble for fossils and found several nice ones. My first ever open water dive so long ago was Morrison Spring and after all these years it remains a fantastic site.
Two days, good friends, Panhandle entertainment at its finest, six dives, a lake, two springs, and a mud-hole. What a wonderful way to celebrate my country’s 230th birthday.
When I was a kid the public swimming beach was at Kowaliga. That was when the old bridge was still in use. There is a certain place on the road where you top a hill and can see the cobalt blue water. Today I noticed that the surface of the water looked much like the ocean with waves even though there was no wind. As I got closer I could see the constant stream of boats back and forth, back and forth. The wakes were pounding on the shore like surf and the water murky with silt and trash. I donned tank and jumped in with only my cutoff jeans and enjoyed the coolness against my skin. Unfortunately around 23 feet the first thermocline hit and I knew that if I was to continue I would have to go back and don the trusty wetsuit. Since I carried a steel tank I was spared the cumbersome weight belt.
Although visibility was sometimes less than a foot, I enjoyed the coolness and solitude of an almost hour dive. I didn’t find any bottles of interest but I did find the title to a boat. Now if I could only find the boat. Water temperature on the surface was 84 and dropped to mid seventies at 23 feet and at max depth of 40 some odd feet I saw 66 degrees. Later in the summer you can do the lake in a swimsuit down to 40 feet but that time ain't here yet. After two wonderful and refreshing dives I headed home.
Next morning I awoke at five and was on my way to the Panhandle by six. I had intentions of renting a canoe and trying Cypress but got sidetracked. Connie is in the process of finishing the pond beside Vortex into a cave training facility. They need to pump all the old water out so they can shape and finish the bottom. One of her fire hoses was kinked up in the mud and she asked me to go down there and uncouple it. The dive was really interesting – absolutely zero visibility and about ten feet deep. I uncovered the hose by standing on the bottom and pulling hard. This progressed nicely until the hose took a nose dive straight down into coarse sand. As fast as I could dig the sand filled back in. We salvaged enough of the hose to start pumping water.
Next dive Vortex to clean the muddy water from me and my gear. Just eased around the bowl and looked for stuff and then into the hole to the grate. Compared to the warm water in the hole, Vortex turned out to be very chilly, especially in the cave. As I slowly drifted out I spotted a small, dime-sized vertebrae fossil. A really great find, the fossil is in excellent shape.
My next adventure came at Morrison Spring. My dive mobile is a 1993 Chevrolet pickup. It has among other things about 160,000 miles on the odometer. Best thing for remote dive sites is that it has four-wheel drive. Now I think it should be a part of elementary school education that if you drive a two-wheel drive vehicle into loose sand you will become stuck. Evidently in the Florida panhandle this is not the case. I can’t imagine a panhandler without a four-wheel drive vehicle but there are some. One such young man drove directly into the sand pile and became stuck. Instead of calling for help he did the manly thing and floor boarded the accelerator in reverse. The resultant dust cloud became massive. The dust settled quickly but the string of profanity and bidirectional threats of 357's under the seat lasted much longer. "Oh yeah? I'll trump your 357 with my 44!" I really wanted a lawn chair and some popcorn but it was too hot.
I just looked at the young fellow – grotesquely overweight, buzzed haircut, and one of those scruffy beards that is only a moustache leading into a goatee. Years ago I think they called it a Van Dyke. I just felt that the dust storm show and resultant loud muffler might be an attractant to the opposite sex in north Florida and God knows the guy needed all the help he could get.
The dives were marvelous. The water cool, clear, and inviting, I welcomed the relief from overbearing heat. Hydraulic pressure from the cave entrance was much higher than my last trip here. It seemed that the floor was alive with sand boiling everywhere. I searched through the rubble for fossils and found several nice ones. My first ever open water dive so long ago was Morrison Spring and after all these years it remains a fantastic site.
Two days, good friends, Panhandle entertainment at its finest, six dives, a lake, two springs, and a mud-hole. What a wonderful way to celebrate my country’s 230th birthday.
