Jackson Blue and mill pond 4/4-4/5/2009

I'm really surprised that nobody has posted a trip report yet...

I suck at these, but here we go!!

Saturday morning, I got on the road at about 6AM, and headed to Marianna, FL. About 40 miles from Marianna, some crazy Florida resident in a big Dodge Ram passed me up, that would be Glen... in a big rush... to meet me at the dive shop. Yeah, I was a little confused there too.

So anyways, we got to the dive shop, which was having a very slow day due to the flooded conditions of the local cave systems. While we were waiting on fills, Mat and Dale show up, they were doing some Mill Pond and various other caves, while Glen and I would be doing some cavern diving at Jackson Blue.

Here's what Edd's place looks like:

Edd working on some paperwork behind the counter


Gordon talking with Dale... wait... what's that white blotch that my camera focused on, on the right??


It's Mat "photobomber" Bull!!!


So anyway, we get our fills, and make our way over to Jackson Blue. The water quality was lower than I had seen in a while, but was in no way undivable. The flow was WAY up!



I couldn't decide which HDR I liked, so here's both. If somebody can donate $90, I'll get rid of the watermarks haha


and another pair:


Glen was trying out his fancy new side-mount rig, and I was breaking my back with my small doubles setup. Glen had also rented a 700 lumen canister light, which we both didn't care for by the end of the day.

We ended up with two very enjoyable cavern dives, and we packed up for gas, and to take the boat out on mill pond before dark.

continues on next post.

boat dive to Hole in the Wall 4/4/2009

So Glen and I went down to Mat's preferred boat ramp, a dirt road that ends into the pond. I didn't care for the muck, but it really wasn't too too muddy, and Hole in the Wall and Twin are very nearby.

Getting ready to head out in the boat


I managed to get zero pics of Hole in the Wall, doh!

Glen and I did a dive into Hole in the Wall, checking out the chimney drop into the up and down stream areas. As we are cavern divers, that's about all we could do, but we did enjoy it, and we both noticed more offshoots and areas above the chimney than we had remembered before. It's amazing what you see when you are comfortable with your dives and are looking around a bit more.

We headed out from there, and over to Twin, but there were fishermen hogging up the dive platform, and the last thing I wanted to do was to ward off angry fishermen, and then leave my INFLATABLE BOAT tied up while we take a dive... so... we went over to Shangri-La to take a look... wow, yuck...

Got Milk?


Glen was still smiling tho


That was the end of our day, as it was getting dark.

A word from our sponsor...

WOW, buzzards are hanging out all over the pond... here's a few pics.

three stooges


In flight


Continued next post...

So, Glen and I loaded up and checked into our fine lodgings, hung up our gear, and swapped into some decent clothes, and hit the town!

We went to the old standby, "Old Mexico", one of Marianna's hotspots on a Saturday night. Good grub!

Surprisingly, no shennanigans ensued back at the motel, mostly because I promptly fell asleep after watching some TV... Glen's a night owl, who knew.

4/5/2009 pontoon boat

We got to Cave Adventurers at opening time, along with Stacia, who we were treating with a pontoon boat rental, and Mat/Dale, who would be tagging along with us in Mat's dingy, powered by Dale's macho motor.

We loaded up the boat, and set out, first to check out Shangri-La, which was unfortunately still messed up.

Glen and Stacia on the boat



We got to twin, tied off, and proceeded to get ready. Dale, Mat and Stacia went first, and Glen and I followed. I promptly managed to do what I thought was impossible, wadding up a Larry Green reel into a useless pile of string. I swapped to one of the other two reels I brought, and we went in... we did two dives here, checking out both of the chimneys one dive at a time, nice and easy, sticking to 6ths. The bream were hanging out in the entrance, which was a cool sight.

continued...

lol that was funny josh, looking forward to reading more

Gator hole

Next, we headed over to Gator Hole.

last HDR, sorry if I'm hurting your eyes!


We had the same configuration, Mat, Stacia and Dale would do the cave diving, while Glen and myself checked out the shallow long section of this location. We did three conservative dives, burning all total about 600 psi over three dives... one dive that was about 1/2 way back in the shallow deadend section, another that went to the end, and a 3rd dive, which we tried to do as a live-test of a no-vis exit... unfortunately, there was some cramping involved, and you know what, it's actually pretty hard to stir up silt in a dead passage enough to go from clear to zero viz!! We have a great time.

Mat showing his uber-boat-mounting skill... since Glen and I had cameras, he managed to do it right, figures!




That was it for Glen and myself... Stacia hung around with Mat and Dale, who took over the pontoon boat.


All in all, a GREAT weekend, enjoyed it guys, next time I will bring cookies!

Oh, and one last note, Glen tested out the 24 watt Dive rite light... WOWSAH, I *will* be getting one of those!


Full gallery of pics can be found at: Image Gallery | 20090404-millpond-JB | 1 of 48 | IMG_0753.JPG

Don't tell me Mat finally got to dive Gator Hole!?!?!?

Good report. Im jealous, I was in a 57* 5' viz quarry instead. Better than mowing the lawn though!

Great report Glenn.

It was great putting some faces on several screen names. Bugman, Glenn, CMU, Shagman and many others. Rita and I had four great days of diving and it was awesome making new dive friends along the way.

Glenn, great job on the images. I'm just glad you guys got in the water before we did so you could get some. Lol.

Dive safe,

Ken

bigken462 and bamamedic2.0, good to meet you both, as well as Ken Paramore who seems like a cool guy!

And yes, Rob, Mat got to dive Gator Hole... I guess 3rd time is the charm!

Ask Mat about his 71.2's sometime...

Also a shout out to my fellow Alabamian, Kevin Carlisle... good to meet you bud!