Vortex and "Stasia's Cave" Dive Reports 7-10-9

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SuPrBuGmAn

Contributor
Messages
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Location
Tallahassee, FL
# of dives
500 - 999
I met up with Spd_135 and his son Micah at the Loxley exit Saturday morning around 8:45. We loaded up his truck and started our trek east on I-10. The plan was to get a couple dives in a Vortex then maybe check out a new site afterwards. Vortex wasn't really all that crowded and the outside temperatures were actually pretty comfortable, especially in the shade with the breeze blowing. We BS'd with Shane a bit and filled some tanks. Spd and I would be do a cave dive and Micah was going to meet us in the spring basin 45 minutes after we make our descent into the water. Micah and Spd would continue on for an OW dive.

Vortex Springs

The water felt great and there were only a few classes in the basin. Visibility in OW was easy 40'. Once we hit the cavern, it opened up to the typical crystal clear conditions we expect. After taking the right at the end of the cavern, we tucked a couple O2 bottles into a cubbyhole that the flow has carved into the cave wall, and I led into the flow. We made it to the gate in no time and I unlocked and opened the gate to let Spd through, then locked the gate open after shutting the door. I jumped into the lead again and we zipped through the first couple restrictions and didn't really have much trouble in the long low restriction either, albeit the flow was still very noticable. We reached the big room on the other side and I clipped off a cookie and we zipped down the Champagne Bottleneck and went another 60' or so before the dive was turned. The exit was much quicker with the flow gently pushing us out. I locked the gate back up and we checked on the little side tunnel with the non-gated grate out real quick before picking up our deco bottles and beginning our ascent out of the cavern. I had a total of 20 minutes of deco on O2, spread out over 2 stop depths. Max depth of 148' for a total run time of 71 minutes.

Talked with Eduardo a bit while getting my tanks refilled. By the time Spd and Micah were back, I had geared down and my tanks were ready to go. Spd_135 had originally wanted to check out Morrison, but it was surely flooded with the past week's rainfall(backed up by river level charts online). I had known about a sinkhole, that was landaccessible, for some time and had never checked it out. Last week, cmufieldhockey had dived the site and it peaked my interest quite a bit, so we opted to go have a look. She had beat me to the site, so claimed it under her name - LOL.

We stopped at one of the gas stations at the Ponce De Leon exit and grabbed some snacks to tide us over until after the dives were finished(and we'd eat, properly). I promptly spilled nearly an entire bag of beef jerky on the floorboard... not to let perfectly good beef jerky go to waste, we ate it anyway. It took us longer than I expected to get to our sites and we made a quick stop at another location to take a photo, we'll explore it later(no time this trip), but here's the picture.

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Stasia's Cave

After meandering down a labrynth of dirt roads, some marked, some notably not, we managed to find our location. There's a nice little picnic table and parking onsite, with primitive camping available not far away. Its only 100' or so from the parking to the sinkhole itself, so its easy getting gear to the water. Damned thing looked FUNKY from the surface, but thats not a suprising characteristic, and it doesn't necessarily reflect bottom conditions.

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We tied off to a tree on the surface and Spd_135 led the way down. We left the milky green crap on the surface after about 15' of depth and came into clear, cool(the surface was quite warm) spring water with 30-40' of visibility. Limestone ledges dropped down a depression along with lots of fallen trees and other breakdown and debri. You could find fossilized tubeworms in the walls. Flow was quite evident from several vents, the largest not being incredibly big, but with a ton of sand rolling out. Once the flow hit OW, it was slowly sucked back through the cracks of the debri pile, where a downstream vent/cave is hidden under a mass of trees and breakdown. Is there cave there? Alot of stuff would have to be lifted out to find out...

Spd tried his hand at the upstream passage but couldn't quite make it through. So I took the lead and gave it a whirl. I couldn't quite make it through with my tanks in place, so I backed out, dumped my wing completely, supermanned a tank out in front of me and dug into the sand while fighting the flow. Entry was definately doable at that point and with Spd's Halcyon primary, I attempted to tie into the existing line. Being the stroke, sidemount diver that I am; the Halycon's self destruct sensor registered me... and promptly took a dump and exploded into pieces. I clipped off the handle to the existing line and tried to stow the reel's spool. The flow took it and shot it back out at Spd... I would have thrown it at him anyway - LOL. Spd followed my lead and supermanned a tank through while pulling into the cave. After we had everything sorted back out, we were finally ready to do our cave dive! Great looking cave and plenty big once your inside. The limestone is sharp, but holds some awesome formations and even some fossils. We reach a bit of a junction room, with atleast one more vent and a mainline, broken and blowing in the flow. The flow itself came mostly from a duck under at the floor. We looked around the different features of the room for a bit then I tied in a spool to the line and took a peak down by the duckunder. The other end of the line was visible beyond the duckunder and the cave seemed to open back up. I hit thirds(we blew through gas at the entrance like air was going out of style) and decided not to negotiate the restriction to repair the line, and thumbed the dive. Getting back through the restriction into OW was quick and comparitively easy, I wrapped the remanants of the Halcyon reel and its line on the way out. Now that we know more about the site and its entry, I'm confident we can have a longer dive next time with ease. I've very much looking forward to getting back out there. I had a max depth of 74' for a total dive time of 42 minutes. I had sand everywhere, so once I geared down, I made use of the roap swing and hit the water to clear out some of the sand off me. Can't beat a new site thats land accessible and free. Great dive!

I don't think I could have talked Spd_135 into even driving over to Stasia's Cave, until I mentioned the fact that we'd have to pass Dee's Restraunt. Instantly, he was interested, so thats where we stopped for dinner. Once again had a friggin awesome meal over there - that place really does serve up some excellent grub!
 
What a great day it was indeed. Post the pics I sent. I am not smart enough to do that myself.
 
Here are some of the pics off Mark's camera.

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Thanks for the report guys. Wish I could have met you guys today. Just got back from a wedding in Louisiana. I am ready to dive so let's get something planned.

Bugman, what is the deal with the yellow tanks...were you diving Alum. 80's today? What is the fossil in the rock you have the picture of?? Hard to tell from the picture. Stasia's cave sounds cool...except for the superman entrance. Glad to hear Dee's is still great...do they still have those $5 shirts???
 
They still had Tshirts, I guess the price is still the same.

Not positive on what the fossil belonged to, maybe a dugong?

The yellow tanks are my steel 72s :)

I'm up for some dives, when you wanna go? :D

Stasia's cave is really cool, once you get more comfortable in the sidemount rig(including removing and redoffing tanks), and you rig up some smaller tanks(AL80s would work), it'll be a cool site to show you!
 
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The yellow tanks are my steel 72s :)

Oh yeah, hadn't seen them in so long I forgot what they were.

I'm up for some dives, when you wanna go? :D

NOW! :D I should be able to go somewhere the end of next week. Let me know if you have any places in mind.

and you rig up some smaller tanks(AL80s would work), it'll be a cool site to show you!
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I want to get my 80's rigged so I could use them on small dives. I have got to get some DIN valves for them before I can do that. How much weight do you have to put on your cam bands when you dive ALum. 80's?
 
I was using 2# weights, but some people recommend 3. With 2#s, I never had an issue of the tanks being overall negative, but they were still butt light(which is still an issue with my LP72s).

Water levels are high right now, but there are still a few places we could hit. Course, there's still everything on the Mill Pond as well. I guess it depends on how much time you have, if you want to do some stuff with a boat, and how easy you want the access to be :)
 
MMMMMMM. Dee's. I may have quit diving if it wasn't for Dee's.
 

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ROFLMAO....great report!
 
Oh wonderful, thanks for taking a look at that cave for me. Are the bottom 4 underwater pictures of my cave? I'm hoping to have the time to get out there not this week but next week. There's something about moving that's not letting me to ALL the diving I want to do.
 

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