Thanksgiving Cave Dive

Thanksgiving weekend presents one of the best annual opportunities for a weekend in cave country. It keeps you away from spending all your money at Black Friday, and gives you several solid days to dive. The only downside can be traffic, but if you are careful and avoid the interstate, you can bypass most of it.

This Thanksgiving we were anchored around Peacock, where I managed to get in a fun dive with Netdoc and Mseleneous.

The weather was perfect for drysuit diving, just warm enough to make you sweat the tiniest bit, and the springs were fairly empty. Water up at the third step, and flowing slightly from P1 to P3. Netdoc chose to show off his WetWear wetsuit, mocking the rest of us in our bulky drysuits!

Mseleneous lead the way in to the Olsen line, showing off her new Santi suit which matched her HOG fins, and I quickly realized that she is super comfortable in the water after her classes with Jim Wyatt. And no, I'm not just talking about what most people think is important, like great trim, but something far more important--she was having a blast! She explored every nook and cranny, enjoying herself like I've never seen anyone!

Stop? Not us! We've got some gas to breathe!

We had to pause and see the deer bones, but we were just getting started on a nice long dive.

We turned the dive at Olsen, after taking a look at the surface we'd abandoned, and would return to soon. Sinkholes are my favorite type of window!

The Olsen line has some beautiful formations, but I can't call it the best tunnel at Peacock. There's just too many beautiful tunnels at Peacock, every single one has something cool in it.




We surfaced just in time for a nice relaxing lunch, with lots of leftovers from our Thanksgiving weekend.

Great post! I was lucky enough to do P1 to Olsen with katepnatl, Ben M and Mark Messersmith, a couple of years ago when I did a flying trip to Florida. It just about changed my opinion that there was no gorgeous cave diving in Florida!

Peacock in a shorty.... Burrr......


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DiveMaster_Tom:

Peacock in a shorty.... Burrr......

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Unfortunately, my Elena won't let me dive caves in just a bathing suit anymore. When you're built like a manatee, you get to dive like one.

I really enjoyed this dive on many levels. First, JahJah and I have dove this system before. I find him to be a patient caver and good buddy. He's always finding something good to say about everybody and obviously doesn't feel that he has to prove anything. Second, his pictures are always mah-ve-lous. Think Billy Crystal as you say mah-ve-lous. I don't think we could have turned off our dive lights in favor of just using his flashes, but it's close! ^.^ Thirdly, Mike is meticulous in how he sets up his kit even though he makes it look easy. I can't remember him having any sort of gear failure, though I'm certain it happens to him. Finally, it was very obvious that Elena was having a blast. She swims a bit fast for me (doesn't everybody?) but she never left me behind.

Mike, it's great to see those pics. Obviously, my tank bands need to come up a good bit, the back straps need to come down a half inch or so and I want to change where the top of my tanks clip off. I am having a problem hooking into my butt plate due to a combination of arthritis as well as the positioning of the lower tank clip. I wonder how or if that will affect my overall trim.