Cave country Nov 26 or 27

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

adder70

Contributor
Messages
576
Reaction score
0
Location
Marietta, GA
I will be visiting family in Gainesville for Thanksgiving, and I would love to get in a few dives on one day. I am up for most any spring dive, or even a drift down paradise if anyone has a john boat or dinghy. We could go to KP hole state park and enter for $2 a person.

The alternative is Ginnie or Manatee for OW or any of several parks for Cavern. I am certified Intro, but I have only had 3 dives in the last year, so a cave dive would be the height of stupidity.
 
I was considering a weekend of spring diving that weekend, camping somewhere and heading out each day. I would have just finished my intro training by then, but would be happy to do cavern for a bit too. Jviehe was also looking for buddies through this "winter" season.
 
I would be up for a mini-intro dive, maybe on the second dive. (Mini-intro: beyond cavern but still pretty close to the entrance. Maybe tie off and cruise just a little bit more. Also would be OK with diving after dark or before light.) I would have to see how I felt after dive 1.

The ideal for me is Ginnie as soon as open (8, IIRC) and 2-3 dives, getting out at around 1. I still need to show up for family get togethers. (Besides, the leftovers are awesome! :D) I have never really seen much in Devil's Eye, and I would love to get a good look in there.
 
To tell you the truth, i am not sure there is much cavern at Ginnie, i would like to explore Peacock some more and get over to OG too one day. There are a few places i would like to go to in time, however i might like to have someone along who at least knows the layout rather than deciding on the fly as it were, i have no problem with slowly exploring as allowed if there is no other diver around to give a description etc. Of course i favour hitting the state parks as they are cheap/free compared to Ginnie, but maybe a day of high cost is not so bad.

Not sure how we are going to get in more than 2 dives in a morning, but will give it a go i guess, N2 loading permitting. I know of a couple of others who are interested in doing some of these dives too. I guess we should put together a more formal plan within the next week or two. :wink:
 
The main spring at Ginnie contains two medium sized caverns, you can see the direct sunlight from any placement in the first room and just about everywhere from the second room(ballroom). There are thick line running in the ballroom to keep people going the correct direction and both caverns are supposedly safe for OW divers. During the megadive, there were several cavern/cavers running lines around the basin and into the caverns, I'm guessing they were just training or drilling. There really isn't any other caverns to speak of at Ginnie though.. Huge cave system running from Devils Ear out all over the place and even a shorter cave running from the Ear to a room and then to the Eye. I couldn't tell you details, I have no experience with the caves other than dropping down to their openings and looking back up at the surface :) I did buy this cool T 'shirt' with the cave system mapped out over it though :D
 
SuPrBuGmAn:
The main spring at Ginnie contains two medium sized caverns, you can see the direct sunlight from any placement in the first room and just about everywhere from the second room(ballroom).
I can show you lots of places where you cant see the daylight directly or a little glow of it in the ballroom, but that is another story :wink: I have dove the ballroom probably a dozen times and would only consider it a training area, somewhere to relax and the like (i understand the danger in there as a cavern though). The caverns i was talking of was the small amount out of the eye and ear - there is some penetration possible for cavern and obviously a lot more for intro divers (which i have yet to see or do), but would like to some day, maybe that thanksgiving weekend.

Bugman - we may meet at the next Ginnie get together in April, but i couldnt make the one last weekend, which was a shame, particularly given the turnout i heard about.
 
simbrooks:
To tell you the truth, i am not sure there is much cavern at Ginnie, i would like to explore Peacock some more and get over to OG too one day. Of course i favour hitting the state parks as they are cheap/free compared to Ginnie, but maybe a day of high cost is not so bad.

Not sure how we are going to get in more than 2 dives in a morning, but will give it a go i guess, N2 loading permitting. I know of a couple of others who are interested in doing some of these dives too. I guess we should put together a more formal plan within the next week or two. :wink:

Normally I favor the state parks too, but this is a short time situation. THe extra travel time to Peacock would mean at least an hour lost before getting back to G'ville.

The thing with Ginnie is that the depths are usually not much (unless you go into the caves) so you can just switch tanks and hop right back in. It may be different with the water level so high now, though. Besides, I am more of a fish watcher, so OG, with very few fish, isn't so exciting for me. Manatee isn't bad, and getting there at opening time would help with making the diver limit for the day. It's also closer to Orlando. Hmm...

I need to check driving times from Gainesville.
 
I understand the travel time deal - that is why i am thinking of camping somewhere in the area rather than driving back and forth to Orlando :wink: I am not spending my time and gas money on a 2-3 hour trek each way per day, rather use that for sleeping, even if i am the only one camping any of those nights. Also i am finishing my intro training on that thursday, so in the area.

Not sure how much fish life there is in many of the springs, a few catfish and the like, but certainly for fish watching i would go to Blue Spring (Orange City), Alexander Spring, Rainbow River, maybe even King's Bay over any of the main cave diving springs. I have heard that the formations in some of these caverns are something to be seen. As for depths, whilst they are still up, it might only be 5ft over what it normally is. I will be diving doubles that whole weekend, so on 1/6's (most likely less used on the way out) i would still have over 2000psi in the pair before going back in again whilst you change out tanks!

From past experience at a few springs and other saltier operations over holiday periods, the business seems quite slack compared to a normal weekend - i have even heard it from the owners/operators that this is normally the case, people seem to be doing the family thing. So the diver limit say at Manatee might not be an issue (however only 8 cave divers are allowed in Catfish at one time within that 35 divers/day limit). I would suggest Manatee as a second day type of place due to you getting back your sealegs as it were - its deep, its dark and so is not as nice as the devils system, also there isnt much cavern to play with, so it might not be a good place to get the feeling back on the first dive.

Other thread on thanksgiving at least gives an idea of what kind of things we were thinking of in that thread.
 
simbrooks:
I have dove the ballroom probably a dozen times and would only consider it a training area, somewhere to relax and the like

You threw me off with your previous comment.

simbrooks:
To tell you the truth, i am not sure there is much cavern at Ginnie

I misunderstood, should've known you'd been there since you're located pretty close - my mistake.

simbrooks:
Bugman - we may meet at the next Ginnie get together in April, but i couldnt make the one last weekend, which was a shame, particularly given the turnout i heard about.

We had alot of fun last weekend and we're planning to hit up the next Megadive @ Ginnie because of that. Actually, we plan on hitting up the area more often, its far, but not entirely too far(5-6 hours, not including the hour we lose changing time zones). I'd say its worth a quarterly trip :) definately too close to consider it a once-a-year-trip!

...and whats the OG?(probably a stupid question)
 
Its 2.5 hours for me each way, so definately a long day trip or a weekend trip! I didnt mean to be flippant about going to Ginnie loads or about the ballroom, but most people i know have done that dive quite a bit, still good for practice though. I guess a lot (myself included to a degree) overlook the ballroom even though it is a cavern (sometimes a cave - around certain corners, at night etc), favouring to call the devils system the main cavern/cave draw of Ginnie. However with regard to the upcoming scheduled trips, i would be happy to do a cavern dive in the ballroom to get warmed up and gentle penetrate the eye/ear for a second dive prior to a refill at cave excursions on one of those days over thanksgiving.

It looks like Ken has set the standard for doing a semi-annual trip somewhere, whether it is Ginnie or not every time who knows, of course there is room for other trips, like Crystal River next month and anything down south the rest of the year.

OG - Orange Grove, part of the Peacock Springs SP area around Luraville, cavern or cave only. Still havent been to that part of PSSP! I didnt know the abbreviation before others mentioned it as a cavern/cave option, although i had read about it in Deloach's book. If you dont dive it, why would you need to know the name of the place?

BTW, was sorry to hear about your camera.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/
https://xf2.scubaboard.com/community/forums/cave-diving.45/

Back
Top Bottom