Cave Trip 4-24 thru 4-26 Dive Reports

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SuPrBuGmAn

Contributor
Messages
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Location
Tallahassee, FL
# of dives
500 - 999
DogHouseDiver swung by my house Thursday night and we loaded up his trailer and the back of his hatchback for a weekend of diving. We cruised over to Pensacola and crashed at the "Dog House". DHD would be taking a cavern class this weekend and his buddy Paul would be joining him for it, he lives in Pensacola which would make our Friday start a little easier as we'd be a little further East than our homes in AL. Great place to crash too, it has a dive locker where wet gear can be hanged to drip and dry. Can't beat the fire pit, pool, and bar too! We cranked the internet up and headed over to Perrone's Vimeo page to watch a couple cave diving video's before calling it a night.

Friday 4-24-9, Jackson Blue

Friday morning came early and Paul cooked up some eggs, ham, and there was fresh bread on hand for breakfast. We loaded up the trailer with more gear, and started setting up tanks for the upcoming classes.

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Then Paul got a call, they had a broken 'copter that needed to be fixed so he would have to work. A little calling around and it was decided that we would continue on and with a little luck, Paul would meet up with DGD later that night and catch up on Saturday. So we got a bit of a late start and eventually made it over to Cave Adventurers and met up with BGillespie while we filled up some tanks. Then, off to Jackson Blue our three person team went.

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Flow seemed to be significant and a very strong boil was showing. The water was down close to a foot from the last time I was there and the basin was crystal clear. We geared up and got our gear to the water to start our dive. The three of us did a very basic dive at first so DogHouseDiver could get readjusted to his gear and continue getting accustomed to the new setup. Once he signaled and waved us on, BGillespie and I headed in for a cave dive.

BGill led the dive through the cavern and down the chimney and tied off to the goldline and I helped light up the jump he tied into, called the Goodman Circuit. He led in as we fought the flow, which was still very evident in the sidepassage. It had been a little while since I've been in this very nice looking passage and the silt mounds, clay banks, and low bedding plane formations along the outskirts were very ejoyable. Once the passage started up towards the cavern area again, we came across something unexpected. There was a large, 2.5-3', grass carp laying on the bottom. I thought it was dead, but apparently it had enough life to whip its tale a few times at BGillespie. It wouldn't be alive for long, I'm sure the cave crawfish population will enjoy the free meal. It must have gotten lost when the water levels were higher and the water visibility dropped(very milky). We made our way up the passage to where it comes up the top of the back of the cavern and drops vertically down a fissure crack and loops back on itself. The Goodman circuit is alot of fun! Once back at the mainline, I jumped off to the Young's Siphon line and led to its EOL where it goes under a tight duck under, then pinches off at a restriction. There's also a small opening that allows you to see the goldine in the cavern. We turned there and headed back to the goldline. We had originally planned another jump, if gas allowed, but we cancelled that and made our exit with very minimal deco(2 min on O2). Had a max depth of 95' for 64 minutes of run time. Great dive!

We headed over to Cave Adventurers to get some quick fills and hoped to pick up a new Nomad rig for Paul(but it hadn't gotten setup yet). Gordon had to leave shop to mail out some packages, but DogHouseDivers got his fills atleast first. I thought my tanks were filled as well, but I was mistaken :p

We made it over to Wakulla Dive Center for 6:30PM where DogHouseDiver would be going over paperwork, lectures on cavern diving, and doing a pool session. There was one other diver there and another was missing still. BGillespie filled up and we wished DHD luck and headed out.

BGillespie and I checked another sink on the way to Tallahassee and found the water levels much lower than what we had seen on previous visits. The water also looked fairly clear, so we decided we'd be diving there on Saturday. I made a call to Perrone Ford and he met us up at a restraunt in Tallahassee called Po-Boys and the three of us had a great meal catching up and joking around. I didn't have my hopes up for a good Po-Boy in Florida, but I was suprised in a good way :) Crashed at BGillespie's that night and prepared for another relatively early start in the morning.

More to come.
 
Saturday, 4-25-9 bunch of Wakulla County stuff, including a work day at Indian Springs, then Spring-SpringFest

Saturday morning came early and I flipped on the TV with the weather channel giving me the good news that we had nothing but sunshine in the near future. BGillespie and I gathered what little gear that wasn't already packed away and loaded it into his car(Echo 1). We went ahead and hooked our regulators up so we wouldn't have to do it in the heat later, and I found my tanks weren't filled as I had thought - but still plenty for a good dive(2100/2400psi, diving sidemount tanks). Anyway, our first stop would be at Indian Springs, where we'd be participating in a workday.

Indian Springs is located on YMCA property, where a summer camp is held. They allow scuba divers to dive the spring from their property if they are qualified and go with a guide. In turn, scuba divers help out on work days at the camp. Todays workday was primarily to get a large, heavy swim platform in the water and on several large floats, to keep it bouyant.

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The platform was picked up and placed on logs, which allowed us to roll it into the water. At the water, we were able to push the platform directly onto two of the large floats. Then once further in, we lifted the platform enough to push the remaining floats into place. The platform was heavy, but we had a decent plan to accomplish this effeciently and finished much quicker than anticipated.

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...because we were so effecient, they gave us another task. We put up some chicken wire on the inside of a blue cabin(to keep the kids hands from going further) and put some screen over the outside(to keep the bugs out). We got a good bit of that done before we had worked our time and headed out.

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We stopped by Guy Revell after the workday. I needed to get a new picture or three of the sinkhole after the WCDC put in a new set of steps to make accessing the water much easier. We checked on visibility as well, the water was clear but tannic. This site can often be tannic on top and then clear up at depth, so our surface observation isn't the best indication of conditions.

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More to come.
 
Once we headed out of Guy Revell, we headed out to another sink, a little further south in Wakulla County where we had intended on diving. The water levels were a bit higher than the previous night, but visibility looked promising and we started gearing up. The sinkhole is located at the bottom of a somewhat steep depression, so several trips were made to get all our gear down(including deco bottles). BGillespie setup a rope to aid in climbing up and down.

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Surface visibility was a bit funky, but clear at 15-20' or so. There was alot of long filamentous algae growing in OW. BGillespie led the dive, and quickly found our descent line. After a bit of shuffling around, we tied off our deco bottles to the line and headed into a dark void. The sink doesn't look all that large from the surface, but apparently opens up significantly UW. The sides are not visibile and the sun inks out to a barely visible glow by the time we are swimming off a sideline(rather than down). After a bit of swimming into seemingly nothingness, a ceiling appears letting us know we're indeed in an overhead. The water is tannic, but visibility is easily 10' with very little particulate in the water. We hit a "T" almost immediately and hang left down whats called the turtle passage. Going right leads to a pit that drops down 200'+. The turtle passage clears up the further we go in, still tannic, but with areas of up to 20'+ visibility. Eventually, we encounter a pocket of blue water on the bottom of the passage with 30-40' of visibility. The blue water sat right under the tannic red water without any mixing layer, giving you very defined seperate layers, talk about interesting. There was goethite on the walls with several very interesting formations. We even spotted a jump on one side. Eventually, we hit another "T" and hung left under a duck under and a small winding passage with craggly formations. This was all in tannic water, then the tunnel opens into the top of a VERY large room called the Crystal Room. This room had a very contrasting, very clear blue water throughout and we followed the line down and around a circuit which navigates the room. Some awesome formations here, including columns and another jump(peppermint jump). The contrasting features and water conditions were truly enjoyable and we started our exit up and out of the cave. Isopods swam out everywhere and the cave truly had some of the largest cave crawfish I've ever seen. It was a great dive and we had minimal decompression. I had a max depth of 116' for a dive lasting 72 minutes(including 5 min on O2). Gearing down and getting everythign back up to the car wasn't too bad despite the hoards of mosquito's draining us. We stopped at another site, just down the road on the way out to take a look.

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We hit El Jalisco's on the way out. I was starving and nothing beats some Mexican after a bit of cave diving.

Afterwards, we headed West, for Spring-SpringFest at Vortex Springs. I setup a tent in between LIVES4SHARKS and Parysa's tent and started catching up with everyone on hand. Spring-SpringFest and Vortoberfests are always some of my favorite events of the year and I truly enjoy hanging out with everyone. There was alot of catching up, shinanigans, karaoke, campfires, smores, trashtalk, dive stories, etc. Oh, and the food was FANTASTIC! Gotta thank Shane and Andrea and the rest of the Vortex crew for making these events go as smoothly as they do. Also gotta thank Johnny Mac for the karaoke shinanigans!

Sunday, 4-26-9, Jackson Blue Spring

Sunday morning came early, it appeared as if it were a harder earned early for some than others(LOL). I broke the tent down and we talked a bit with some of the other campers that were already awake. cmufieldhockey brought forth Crispy Cremes, which hit the spot! SpearOne bought some tanks off DeniseGG, and I swapped out my HP130s for SpearOnes new LP95s. LP95s seem to trim out better on my rig and the HP130s give SpearOne even more gas than the LP95s would have given him, so it worked out. I swapped valves out and got some fills and we headed off to Jackson Blue after checking in at Cave Adventurers first.

Suprisingly, the water was up a foot or more from Friday. We had no rain, so figured they were monkeying around with the dam downstream to cause the waterlevels to fluxuate so much. The boil seemed down, probably due to the added hydrostatic pressure of the water. BGillespie and I hit the water and I led down the cavern and chimney, then tied off to the goldline and over to a jump on the left I call downstream chickenhead(I've since found out its called the Squirrel Passage). We made slow work in this passage until BGill couldn't make any more headway in a backmounted rig, so we turned, and started negotiating a zero visibility exit back to the goldline. It was fun and we were back on the goldline in no time, with evidence of our adventure clouding out of the passage and remenants on our gear(LOL). We headed up the goldline and made it about halfway between the 2nd breakdown and 1st "T" before the dive was called. Our exit was relaxing as we drifted back out at a fairly quick pace with the flow. I had a max depth of 98'(water was up) and a dive time of 53 minutes which included a single minute of decompression on O2.

Had a great weekend of diving, and despite only getting a dive in a day, we got ALOT accomplished and checked conditions on several dive sites. BGillespie and I headed back to Vortex to meet back up with cmufieldhockey, UTDiverMatt, and PensacolaNewbie and the five of us hit Sally's for some great grub! At that point, I piled a ton of gear in with cmufieldhockey and we hit the interstate to the AL/FL line where I caught a ride with another buddy of mine back to the house. It was a great weekend and it was AWESOME seeing everyone again! Very much looking forward to Vortoberfest and my next weekend of cave dives!
 
Yeah those things are tough, looking forward to piling some dive gear down there sometime soon. This weekend's gonna be great and I think BGillespie is gonna check conditions at P&G to see if those are viable options for Sunday(possibly?).
 
Sweet...would love to get back there. When will he let you know? If that dive is a possibility, I will bring a heavier duty cart to carry tanks through the woods.

Yeah those things are tough, looking forward to piling some dive gear down there sometime soon. This weekend's gonna be great and I think BGillespie is gonna check conditions at P&G to see if those are viable options for Sunday(possibly?).
 
I dunno, sometime this week. If I find its good to go, I'll see if I can fit my cart into the Shag-wagon. We can all use it if we end up there.
 
I am bringing the van, so I will have plenty of room too. So, I will bring one just in case.

I dunno, sometime this week. If I find its good to go, I'll see if I can fit my cart into the Shag-wagon. We can all use it if we end up there.
 
Damn, man! You need to compile your photos and trip reports into a book!
 
I still like the idea of getting a coffee table book done by the end of the year, featuring different springs/sinks of the area.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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