SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Hole in the Wall 3/22
Per the new ordinary, Dale W and I got a later than expected start. Loaded the venerable Miss Jellyfish along with a newly tuned up 15hp(Dale's newish purchase), a plethora of dive gear, and some caffeine before heading East into Florida. As usual, our goal was to find some waterfilled hole in the ground(actually, Hole in the Wall, per chance).
We hit up Cave Adventurer's for some fills and other doo-dads before heading up to the proper boat launch(not Day Loop this time) to setup and launch the boat. Rotor60driver showed up at Edds and we invited him along for a dive, having him meet us at Edds dock. I dropped Dale and both of our sets of gear off at the platform and Hole before shuttling Rotor60 over from Edds. Right as we were finishing gearing up, the burst disk on Rotor's HP100 blew out, sending it twirling into oblivion(and nearly into Dale's face) before plunging into the depths of the Mill Pond, turning the area into a jacuzzi.
I took a nap at the Hole in the Wall dock while they zipped over to Edd's with the boat, for some double disking and a fresh fill.
We were in the water before long, enjoying 40' visibility throughout the first 1500'p, afterwards it improved to nearly 100' along the goldline to the "T" in the downstream section of Hole in the Wall. Rotor60 dived with us until around the 1000'p mark where he turned his dive(eventually recalculating and checking out some upstream cave as well). Dale and I continued to the "T", enjoying the Big E, the dragon formation, speed bump, diamond sands restriction, the big room with the air bell and arch. At the "T", we turned right at the white line and continued for a few hundred feet before turning our dive. Visibility in this tunnel was around 15-20' and milky. I'm guessing we turned around the 2200-2300'p and headed out. We enjoyed visits from several cave crawfish, blind salamander, and lots of siltyass catfish. I had a max depth of 91' for a total dive time of 89 minutes which included a slight bit of decompression.
ShangriLa 3/22
I shuttled Rotor60 back to Edds dock and headed back for the Hole in the Wall platform. Dale and I both were diving with larger tanks, LP121s and HP130s with cave fills, and had plenty of gas left. So off to ShangriLa we went. It wasn't even an hour before we were back in the water. We had toyed with the idea for awhile about making a cave dive onsite with smaller tanks, and figured we'd eye the cave out a bit as well as some of the solution tubes in the system. Talk about fun! Shinanigans ensued and I entered the cave, I even managed to wiggle in to the first "T" eyeing out the passage to the left(thinking maybe its a bottle off restriction?). Anyway, I wiggled back out and Dale screwed around a bit in the solution tube heading to the chimney on dry land. After goofing around there, we headed into OW and wiggled into another solution tube on the topside of the cavern entrance. Total dive lasted 30 minutes with a max depth of 26'. Looking forward to going back with smaller tanks
Hit up Taco Bell on the way home, talked cave diving, talked about the million places we need to dive next, and made it home a little after 9PM.
Cypress Springs 3/23
Jwhitlock met me at the house at 5:30AM and we loaded up the Miss Jellyfish(even my motor this time) for another trip out to Florida-land. We had clear skies and while the morning was cool, we were looking forward to some warmer temperatures as the day grew later. A quick stop at Vortex had us with full tanks and I helped Whitlock tweak some items on his new doubles setup.
We were there only truck at Culpepper Landing when we got there and made quick work of setting up the dive yacht. Holmes Creek was high and tannic, but still within its banks so I had no doubt Cypress would be its typical awesomeness. The ride upstream was short and we were rewarded with a clearing spring run and the striking blue basin of Cypress Springs. The boil was strong, and fish darted in and around the run and basin.
The water was cool, but felt nice and we dropped down into the basin to make sure Jwhitlock was acclimating to his new gear without any issues. I ended up running a reel into the cavern and checked out the bottom section before squeezing into the bottom breakdown. Passing through this restriction required pulling a tank off and supermanning through, but it wasn't as difficult as I thought it'd be. Soon enough, I was looking at the end of the line, whoopidydoo! After looking around the cavern area a little more I exitted into OW and Whitlock and I gave the basin a good lookover and circled the interior a bit. We checked out all the vents and then swam around the outskirts of the basin. We found bream, bass, hog choakers, horsesuckers, eels, crawfish, small fish fry and little snapping turtles. Had a max depth of 64' for a dive time of 37 minutes.
The sun beat down on us, which was exactly what I needed to warm up a bit. We were only dry for 46 minutes before our second dive. I pulled my reel after some more cavern sightseeing and made my exit to OW to look around the basin and spring outskirts again, mimmicking our first dive. Had a max depth of 62' for a dive lasting 32 minutes.
We loaded the boat off and headed downstream. We decided to pass the boat launch and cut through the floodplains to shortcut into Becton Springs. Becton was dark blue/grey and milky as expected. The trip to it was great through, we saw a beautiful night heron along the way, made me wish I had a camera and telephoto lense with me. Hit up Dee's on the way home, as always, we left full and satisfied! Talked diving on the way home. I'm exhausted though, two days of early mornings and diving off the Miss Jellyfish can take a toll!
Per the new ordinary, Dale W and I got a later than expected start. Loaded the venerable Miss Jellyfish along with a newly tuned up 15hp(Dale's newish purchase), a plethora of dive gear, and some caffeine before heading East into Florida. As usual, our goal was to find some waterfilled hole in the ground(actually, Hole in the Wall, per chance).
We hit up Cave Adventurer's for some fills and other doo-dads before heading up to the proper boat launch(not Day Loop this time) to setup and launch the boat. Rotor60driver showed up at Edds and we invited him along for a dive, having him meet us at Edds dock. I dropped Dale and both of our sets of gear off at the platform and Hole before shuttling Rotor60 over from Edds. Right as we were finishing gearing up, the burst disk on Rotor's HP100 blew out, sending it twirling into oblivion(and nearly into Dale's face) before plunging into the depths of the Mill Pond, turning the area into a jacuzzi.
I took a nap at the Hole in the Wall dock while they zipped over to Edd's with the boat, for some double disking and a fresh fill.
We were in the water before long, enjoying 40' visibility throughout the first 1500'p, afterwards it improved to nearly 100' along the goldline to the "T" in the downstream section of Hole in the Wall. Rotor60 dived with us until around the 1000'p mark where he turned his dive(eventually recalculating and checking out some upstream cave as well). Dale and I continued to the "T", enjoying the Big E, the dragon formation, speed bump, diamond sands restriction, the big room with the air bell and arch. At the "T", we turned right at the white line and continued for a few hundred feet before turning our dive. Visibility in this tunnel was around 15-20' and milky. I'm guessing we turned around the 2200-2300'p and headed out. We enjoyed visits from several cave crawfish, blind salamander, and lots of siltyass catfish. I had a max depth of 91' for a total dive time of 89 minutes which included a slight bit of decompression.
ShangriLa 3/22
I shuttled Rotor60 back to Edds dock and headed back for the Hole in the Wall platform. Dale and I both were diving with larger tanks, LP121s and HP130s with cave fills, and had plenty of gas left. So off to ShangriLa we went. It wasn't even an hour before we were back in the water. We had toyed with the idea for awhile about making a cave dive onsite with smaller tanks, and figured we'd eye the cave out a bit as well as some of the solution tubes in the system. Talk about fun! Shinanigans ensued and I entered the cave, I even managed to wiggle in to the first "T" eyeing out the passage to the left(thinking maybe its a bottle off restriction?). Anyway, I wiggled back out and Dale screwed around a bit in the solution tube heading to the chimney on dry land. After goofing around there, we headed into OW and wiggled into another solution tube on the topside of the cavern entrance. Total dive lasted 30 minutes with a max depth of 26'. Looking forward to going back with smaller tanks
Hit up Taco Bell on the way home, talked cave diving, talked about the million places we need to dive next, and made it home a little after 9PM.
Cypress Springs 3/23
Jwhitlock met me at the house at 5:30AM and we loaded up the Miss Jellyfish(even my motor this time) for another trip out to Florida-land. We had clear skies and while the morning was cool, we were looking forward to some warmer temperatures as the day grew later. A quick stop at Vortex had us with full tanks and I helped Whitlock tweak some items on his new doubles setup.
We were there only truck at Culpepper Landing when we got there and made quick work of setting up the dive yacht. Holmes Creek was high and tannic, but still within its banks so I had no doubt Cypress would be its typical awesomeness. The ride upstream was short and we were rewarded with a clearing spring run and the striking blue basin of Cypress Springs. The boil was strong, and fish darted in and around the run and basin.
The water was cool, but felt nice and we dropped down into the basin to make sure Jwhitlock was acclimating to his new gear without any issues. I ended up running a reel into the cavern and checked out the bottom section before squeezing into the bottom breakdown. Passing through this restriction required pulling a tank off and supermanning through, but it wasn't as difficult as I thought it'd be. Soon enough, I was looking at the end of the line, whoopidydoo! After looking around the cavern area a little more I exitted into OW and Whitlock and I gave the basin a good lookover and circled the interior a bit. We checked out all the vents and then swam around the outskirts of the basin. We found bream, bass, hog choakers, horsesuckers, eels, crawfish, small fish fry and little snapping turtles. Had a max depth of 64' for a dive time of 37 minutes.
The sun beat down on us, which was exactly what I needed to warm up a bit. We were only dry for 46 minutes before our second dive. I pulled my reel after some more cavern sightseeing and made my exit to OW to look around the basin and spring outskirts again, mimmicking our first dive. Had a max depth of 62' for a dive lasting 32 minutes.
We loaded the boat off and headed downstream. We decided to pass the boat launch and cut through the floodplains to shortcut into Becton Springs. Becton was dark blue/grey and milky as expected. The trip to it was great through, we saw a beautiful night heron along the way, made me wish I had a camera and telephoto lense with me. Hit up Dee's on the way home, as always, we left full and satisfied! Talked diving on the way home. I'm exhausted though, two days of early mornings and diving off the Miss Jellyfish can take a toll!
