SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
3-7-9 River Cave Report
cmufieldhockey, diverdiva, and Ernest headed out from Pensacola on a foggy Saturday morning, heading East to Cave Adventurers in hopes to get fills before a little adventure on the river. After a bit of a wait at the shop, we headed out to a local park to launch out the Miss Jellyfish as well as a canoe to get our group of 4 to a cave about a mile upstream. Diverdiva and Ernest managed to get the last canoe that the park had available! Score.
The Miss Jellyfish made quick work of the river, and we were warned by other canoers that there was a big gator along the banks. We kept our eye open and, sure enough, there was a 6' gator on the banks. Looks like the warm weather has brought the big lizards back out to sun, sweet! We dropped some tanks off at the spring and headed back to give our canoers a quick tow to finish off the little bit of river they had left before reaching the spring. The mosquitos were out too, guess they come with the gators.
We entered the system at the downstream basin and spring, enjoying the sidemount bedding planes and chimney back up to shallow water and the vent in the second basin. We passed through the second vent, twisted vertical, and went through a fissure crack running vertical before popping back out into swimmable cave. After this, we dropped into the deep section. By this point cmufieldhockey and I had gotten a bit ahead of Diverdiva and Ernest(making up a 2nd team). Tannic water had intruded into the cave as far as we ended up penetrating, ~1500'p? Visibility suffered a bit from this and we had 15-20' of visibility(still enough to enjoy the cave a little at a time). We went straight at the 4-way, left at the first "t", and tried a right at the second "t" before we hit a restriction. We turned and took the left line and came on another restriction before turning the dive. Hit a max depth of 118' for a dive lasting 78 minutes including a short amount of decompression. The gator was still on the banks on the way back and the diverdiva and Ernest, in the canoe, spotted a 2nd gator on the way back.
We dropped tanks off at Cave Adventurers and headed to the hotel to shower up before dinner. Ended up eating at the Cornerstone, which is always a treat! Edd and Gordon joined us so cave stories bounced around like crazy.
3-8-9 River Cave
Sunday morning came early and we all climbed out of bed(or sleeping bag
). We headed to the Waffle Iron for some great country breakfast before picking up some tanks and heading down river to dive another cave. We launched off a small area on the side of the river that was used as a swimming hole and fire pit. It took us a few trips to get all the gear and all our divers to location(especially with a bit of a problem with a couple of the tanks which required a run back to the fill station).
The river was muddy, but this was a cave that didn't blow out easily so we splashed with confidence. As we dropped near the vent, the water cleared and warmed up significantly(river was 62F and spring water was 68F). Visibility was easily 100' and we headed up the torrent of water pouring out the spring. Slow progress was made against the strong flow in the restrictive areas of the passage, but we continued on. It was a great dive and we spotted several 20lb+ flathead catfish. Its a beautiful cave with fragile passage, lots of variation in limestone color, texture, and form. There used to be a large turtle breast plate intact a few hundred feet into the cave, but unfortunately we found it on this dive in several pieces. I can only hope this occurred naturally, as it was a neat little landmark to pass on previous dives. I imagined we penetrated around 1600'p before hitting a sidemount restriction. We all took turns checking out the restriction and then turned the dive. I popped through the restriction and the line still went, looking forward to seeing the rest one of these days. It took us around 60 minutes to get to this point and we drifted out with the flow in around 20 minutes on exit. cmufieldhockey and I also took a quick detour to check out a passage in the cavern area before exitting. It was a great dive! I definately waited too long to get back to this cave, gonna make an effort not to wait so long till the next time. I had a max depth of 39' for a total dive lasting 91 minutes.
Great dive and we were all hungry, so we hit Zaxby's on the way out. The ride home was filled with talks of different caves, future trips, and how great of a time we had over the weekend.
cmufieldhockey, diverdiva, and Ernest headed out from Pensacola on a foggy Saturday morning, heading East to Cave Adventurers in hopes to get fills before a little adventure on the river. After a bit of a wait at the shop, we headed out to a local park to launch out the Miss Jellyfish as well as a canoe to get our group of 4 to a cave about a mile upstream. Diverdiva and Ernest managed to get the last canoe that the park had available! Score.
The Miss Jellyfish made quick work of the river, and we were warned by other canoers that there was a big gator along the banks. We kept our eye open and, sure enough, there was a 6' gator on the banks. Looks like the warm weather has brought the big lizards back out to sun, sweet! We dropped some tanks off at the spring and headed back to give our canoers a quick tow to finish off the little bit of river they had left before reaching the spring. The mosquitos were out too, guess they come with the gators.
We entered the system at the downstream basin and spring, enjoying the sidemount bedding planes and chimney back up to shallow water and the vent in the second basin. We passed through the second vent, twisted vertical, and went through a fissure crack running vertical before popping back out into swimmable cave. After this, we dropped into the deep section. By this point cmufieldhockey and I had gotten a bit ahead of Diverdiva and Ernest(making up a 2nd team). Tannic water had intruded into the cave as far as we ended up penetrating, ~1500'p? Visibility suffered a bit from this and we had 15-20' of visibility(still enough to enjoy the cave a little at a time). We went straight at the 4-way, left at the first "t", and tried a right at the second "t" before we hit a restriction. We turned and took the left line and came on another restriction before turning the dive. Hit a max depth of 118' for a dive lasting 78 minutes including a short amount of decompression. The gator was still on the banks on the way back and the diverdiva and Ernest, in the canoe, spotted a 2nd gator on the way back.
We dropped tanks off at Cave Adventurers and headed to the hotel to shower up before dinner. Ended up eating at the Cornerstone, which is always a treat! Edd and Gordon joined us so cave stories bounced around like crazy.
3-8-9 River Cave
Sunday morning came early and we all climbed out of bed(or sleeping bag
). We headed to the Waffle Iron for some great country breakfast before picking up some tanks and heading down river to dive another cave. We launched off a small area on the side of the river that was used as a swimming hole and fire pit. It took us a few trips to get all the gear and all our divers to location(especially with a bit of a problem with a couple of the tanks which required a run back to the fill station).
The river was muddy, but this was a cave that didn't blow out easily so we splashed with confidence. As we dropped near the vent, the water cleared and warmed up significantly(river was 62F and spring water was 68F). Visibility was easily 100' and we headed up the torrent of water pouring out the spring. Slow progress was made against the strong flow in the restrictive areas of the passage, but we continued on. It was a great dive and we spotted several 20lb+ flathead catfish. Its a beautiful cave with fragile passage, lots of variation in limestone color, texture, and form. There used to be a large turtle breast plate intact a few hundred feet into the cave, but unfortunately we found it on this dive in several pieces. I can only hope this occurred naturally, as it was a neat little landmark to pass on previous dives. I imagined we penetrated around 1600'p before hitting a sidemount restriction. We all took turns checking out the restriction and then turned the dive. I popped through the restriction and the line still went, looking forward to seeing the rest one of these days. It took us around 60 minutes to get to this point and we drifted out with the flow in around 20 minutes on exit. cmufieldhockey and I also took a quick detour to check out a passage in the cavern area before exitting. It was a great dive! I definately waited too long to get back to this cave, gonna make an effort not to wait so long till the next time. I had a max depth of 39' for a total dive lasting 91 minutes.
Great dive and we were all hungry, so we hit Zaxby's on the way out. The ride home was filled with talks of different caves, future trips, and how great of a time we had over the weekend.
