Got back into Twin Caves for a dive. We checked into the sheriff's office, drove to JB and loaded up the canoe at the docks for this trip (last time we launched from Day Loop). We paddled over to the Twin dock and got ready for the dive. The last time I was there, the visibility was down to less than 3' and didn't make for a fun dive. I hit the gold line and went another 50' or so before turning it because it didn't get any better. This time we had a good 30' or so of visibility in the Subway. We were diving sidemounted AL80s with a stage (getting in trim for our Mexico trip next week). We swam back and dropped our stages at the stage bracket just before the 1st T, dropped a marker at the T and continued on through the subway to the end of it. We dropped down through the fissure to the deeper section of Twin and the visibility opened up quite a bit, at least 60' down there. We took the circuit around, came back up the other fissure to the gold line, retrieved our marker and grabbed our bottles for the long swim out. For some reason, the Subway always seems like on the way out than on the way in. As we got to the chimney, there was a class at the bottom trying to route their primary line under ours (very thoughtful). We hung back and waited for a few seconds, then their instructor saw us and quickly got out of the way to let us, the exiting team, out (not that we were in any hurry, we barely hit thirds for the whole dive and had no issues). But we complied and made our way out while they waited for us to get through. All in all, it was a good dive. I thought I might take my wet suit to Mexico next week, but I'm not so sure. It's been a few months since I've been in it and I didn't feel like my buoyancy and trim were all that great even though Jenn said I looked fine. I may have looked fine, but I was struggling most of the dive to keep it that way. I should have gotten the wet suit out a few weeks ago. We did a 57 minute dive with a max depth of 104'.
A shot of the Twin cave openings.
We loaded the canoe back up with our tanks and gear and decided to head over to Shangri-La. We still had plenty of gas left in our tanks and thought this would be a great time to see this cave. We made our way across the pond, tied up to one of the metal posts and geared up. We made our way into the cavern to immediately find white line heading to the left and up into the ceiling. It was immediately apparent that this passage was a small one, so we decided to check it out after checking out the rest of the cavern. We swam back through the main passage to the restriction at the back. I was able to squirm myself down into it and see the line running to the left in the bedding plain. It also looked like it opened up a little about 50' or so, but the first part of the bedding plain is definitely squirm and crawl area. There's no swimming here. I was only 25' deep, but with this restriction, I didn't want to chance going in there is already used tanks. I decided to save that for another day and pushed myself out of the crack I got myself in. We headed back towards the entrance and decided to check out the other passage. I squirmed my way up the tube and could see a small closet I thought I'd be able to turn around in. I tried to squirm my way in (my computer wasn't even registering depth here - 3 or 4'), but Jenn kept tugging on my fin. I'd pull my fin up and squirm some more. After a few attempts I decided it was just too small to get through without unclipping a tank, something I haven't tried yet on dives. So this passage will also have to wait for another day after I've had some practice clipping and unclipping my tanks in larger spaces. We came out and played around in the pond for a few minutes and I decided to check out the fissure about 50' away from Shangri-La. I couldn't find a decent tie off, so I handed Jenn the end of my reel line and dropped down head first. There are some fallen rocks in there, but they aren't covering anything up except sand. Under the wall there's a small space that's way to small for a diver, even in no mount, to get in. I was able to get my head down there and it doesn't seem to go anywhere anyway. So I slowly started pushing myself back up the crack upside down. This crack is tight enough so there's only enough space to get in it without any backmounted tanks. It was interesting backing out while working the reel. We headed back towards Shangri-La and Jenn poked around a few more minutes along the shoreline looking into small holes that appears to head up to dry land. We loaded our tanks back in the canoe and headed back to JB for a scooter dive. This was a 23 minute dive with a max depth of 25'.
A shot of the opening to Shangri_La.
Here's a shot Jenn took of me going into the fissure.
Notice the blue stripes at the top left and bottom right of the photo...those are the bottom of my booties.
A no mount area on the wall above Shangri-La.
Back at the JB docks, we unloaded the canoe and got ready to do our 3rd scooter dive into JB. Before our last 2 scooter dives we spent a few minutes playing around in the basin to get the feel for the scooter. Well, our 2nd scooter dive was Friday, so we just jammed on into the cave this time. We scooted along doing fairly well (no prop silt anyway and only a couple of prop wash free flows). Visibility was about 60' back to the King's area, then it dropped to about 40'. It opened back up to 60' back at the Trash Room. We kept heading back until the 2700' marker (our farthest swim penetration in JB) where we turned it. It took us 36 minutes to get there, and this was with a couple of stops to readjust ourselves (buoyancy, gear, etc) The ride out took about 23 minutes. We had a max depth of 97' with 61 minutes of actual dive time and 15 minutes of deco. And we had a blast. We can't wait to get some more trigger time in there!
A shot of what we look at while deco'ing in JB.
A shot of the Twin cave openings.
We loaded the canoe back up with our tanks and gear and decided to head over to Shangri-La. We still had plenty of gas left in our tanks and thought this would be a great time to see this cave. We made our way across the pond, tied up to one of the metal posts and geared up. We made our way into the cavern to immediately find white line heading to the left and up into the ceiling. It was immediately apparent that this passage was a small one, so we decided to check it out after checking out the rest of the cavern. We swam back through the main passage to the restriction at the back. I was able to squirm myself down into it and see the line running to the left in the bedding plain. It also looked like it opened up a little about 50' or so, but the first part of the bedding plain is definitely squirm and crawl area. There's no swimming here. I was only 25' deep, but with this restriction, I didn't want to chance going in there is already used tanks. I decided to save that for another day and pushed myself out of the crack I got myself in. We headed back towards the entrance and decided to check out the other passage. I squirmed my way up the tube and could see a small closet I thought I'd be able to turn around in. I tried to squirm my way in (my computer wasn't even registering depth here - 3 or 4'), but Jenn kept tugging on my fin. I'd pull my fin up and squirm some more. After a few attempts I decided it was just too small to get through without unclipping a tank, something I haven't tried yet on dives. So this passage will also have to wait for another day after I've had some practice clipping and unclipping my tanks in larger spaces. We came out and played around in the pond for a few minutes and I decided to check out the fissure about 50' away from Shangri-La. I couldn't find a decent tie off, so I handed Jenn the end of my reel line and dropped down head first. There are some fallen rocks in there, but they aren't covering anything up except sand. Under the wall there's a small space that's way to small for a diver, even in no mount, to get in. I was able to get my head down there and it doesn't seem to go anywhere anyway. So I slowly started pushing myself back up the crack upside down. This crack is tight enough so there's only enough space to get in it without any backmounted tanks. It was interesting backing out while working the reel. We headed back towards Shangri-La and Jenn poked around a few more minutes along the shoreline looking into small holes that appears to head up to dry land. We loaded our tanks back in the canoe and headed back to JB for a scooter dive. This was a 23 minute dive with a max depth of 25'.
A shot of the opening to Shangri_La.
Here's a shot Jenn took of me going into the fissure.
Notice the blue stripes at the top left and bottom right of the photo...those are the bottom of my booties.
A no mount area on the wall above Shangri-La.
Back at the JB docks, we unloaded the canoe and got ready to do our 3rd scooter dive into JB. Before our last 2 scooter dives we spent a few minutes playing around in the basin to get the feel for the scooter. Well, our 2nd scooter dive was Friday, so we just jammed on into the cave this time. We scooted along doing fairly well (no prop silt anyway and only a couple of prop wash free flows). Visibility was about 60' back to the King's area, then it dropped to about 40'. It opened back up to 60' back at the Trash Room. We kept heading back until the 2700' marker (our farthest swim penetration in JB) where we turned it. It took us 36 minutes to get there, and this was with a couple of stops to readjust ourselves (buoyancy, gear, etc) The ride out took about 23 minutes. We had a max depth of 97' with 61 minutes of actual dive time and 15 minutes of deco. And we had a blast. We can't wait to get some more trigger time in there!
A shot of what we look at while deco'ing in JB.
Glad you made it out to ShangriLa finally 
