SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Tuesday on 12-28-04, Mikey Paul and I headed out to Vortex to meet up with Darcy(darcy), Bill(SeaYoda), and Liza(eanxgirl) at 8AM. We got to Vortex and arranged to get 3 canoes and headed out to a boat launch in order for us to canoe up to Cypress Springs for some dives. Mikey and I paired up and Darcy and Liza paired up while Bill paddled solo in his canoe. Our river directions were somewhat vague and we ended up going up the creek, back tracking, doubling back a few times and exploring quite a few of the branches working off Holmes Creek. Eventually we found our way to a spring.
None of us had ever been to Cypress so we didn't know whether or not we were at the correct spring or not - it was flooded with tannick water so we couldn't see bottom but there was an obvious boil upwelling near the center of the basin. We dove through the tannick water with about 6"-1' of visibility until we hit bottom which sloped down to a small fissure ~25' issuing clear water. It ended up being Becton Springs. Since the visibility was severly limited we packed back into our canoes and headed out with some directions(?) from some local fishermen who sounded like Boomhower(King of the Hill). We didn't understand much coming from the fishermen, but we gathered enough to figure out that we were heading in the correct direction. The flood water was cold, I would say 60ºF at the most.
We pushed on further through the current, which is usually 2 knots but the creek is pretty flooded and we imagine the current was moving quicker than normal. After another hour or so of searching up Holmes Creek we found a fork and took a left and found ourselves in clearer water with a spring basin, one large boil, and another smaller boil. It was about 3:45PM by this time so we were in a bit of a hurry to gear up and get in the water for as much dive time as possible while leaving us enough time to get back up to the boat launch with daylight. The spring was still flooded with tannick water in areas, but it had cleared in other areas to a degree(5-15' and cloudy). The area around the fissures was really clear and the cavern had perfect visibility. Cypress's cavern isn't as big as Morrison and after about 50' it narrows in height significantly(we stopped here) but supposedly the cavern continues down to 70'. The water temps were in the mid-high 60ºsF, which was noticably warmer than the brown waters at Becton. We could see the end and if we were down there we could have easily seen direct sunlight from the cavern opening. We saw bream, bass, and freshwater eels in and around Cypress Springs. It looks to be an incredibly fun dive during normal conditions when its not flooded - we had fun even though we were losing sunlight behind the trees and dove in flooded conditions. The canoe ride back was easy and fairly relaxing(which is good because we were all good and sore).
Everyone seemed to have a good time despite the fact that we didn't get too much dive time in. We did learn our way up and down Holmes Creek and shouldn't have much of a problem getting to the Springs next time around. We dropped everything off at Vortex and went our seperate ways around 7:30PM(we made the day count!). You can find pics here http://www.suprbugman.com/gallery/album45
The next day, 12-29-04, Josh Timmons and I woke up at 6:30AM, geared up, gassed up, and headed towards Vortex to meet up with Darcy at 9AM to dive the spring onsite. The weather just like the day before was perfect, mid 60ºF outside temperatures and alot of sun. It made for a comfortable transition between surface temps and water temps. Vortex had added something like 400 new coi into the waters so there were plenty of fish and the poop suspended in the water showed! We did all the normal stuff at Vortex, swam through the training caves, played around in the little cavern, and messed with the schools of bream and carp. We even found a few turtles to harrass a bit. As always it was a fun set of dives, it was Darcy's first time at the site and she seemed to have a blast. We checked out Morrison, and as we suspected, it was heavily flooded with tannick water. We have pics from the 2 Vortex dives and one above water shot of Morrison at http://www.suprbugman.com/gallery/album46
The last two days of diving were alotta fun I hope everyone is having a great holiday season!
None of us had ever been to Cypress so we didn't know whether or not we were at the correct spring or not - it was flooded with tannick water so we couldn't see bottom but there was an obvious boil upwelling near the center of the basin. We dove through the tannick water with about 6"-1' of visibility until we hit bottom which sloped down to a small fissure ~25' issuing clear water. It ended up being Becton Springs. Since the visibility was severly limited we packed back into our canoes and headed out with some directions(?) from some local fishermen who sounded like Boomhower(King of the Hill). We didn't understand much coming from the fishermen, but we gathered enough to figure out that we were heading in the correct direction. The flood water was cold, I would say 60ºF at the most.
We pushed on further through the current, which is usually 2 knots but the creek is pretty flooded and we imagine the current was moving quicker than normal. After another hour or so of searching up Holmes Creek we found a fork and took a left and found ourselves in clearer water with a spring basin, one large boil, and another smaller boil. It was about 3:45PM by this time so we were in a bit of a hurry to gear up and get in the water for as much dive time as possible while leaving us enough time to get back up to the boat launch with daylight. The spring was still flooded with tannick water in areas, but it had cleared in other areas to a degree(5-15' and cloudy). The area around the fissures was really clear and the cavern had perfect visibility. Cypress's cavern isn't as big as Morrison and after about 50' it narrows in height significantly(we stopped here) but supposedly the cavern continues down to 70'. The water temps were in the mid-high 60ºsF, which was noticably warmer than the brown waters at Becton. We could see the end and if we were down there we could have easily seen direct sunlight from the cavern opening. We saw bream, bass, and freshwater eels in and around Cypress Springs. It looks to be an incredibly fun dive during normal conditions when its not flooded - we had fun even though we were losing sunlight behind the trees and dove in flooded conditions. The canoe ride back was easy and fairly relaxing(which is good because we were all good and sore).
Everyone seemed to have a good time despite the fact that we didn't get too much dive time in. We did learn our way up and down Holmes Creek and shouldn't have much of a problem getting to the Springs next time around. We dropped everything off at Vortex and went our seperate ways around 7:30PM(we made the day count!). You can find pics here http://www.suprbugman.com/gallery/album45
The next day, 12-29-04, Josh Timmons and I woke up at 6:30AM, geared up, gassed up, and headed towards Vortex to meet up with Darcy at 9AM to dive the spring onsite. The weather just like the day before was perfect, mid 60ºF outside temperatures and alot of sun. It made for a comfortable transition between surface temps and water temps. Vortex had added something like 400 new coi into the waters so there were plenty of fish and the poop suspended in the water showed! We did all the normal stuff at Vortex, swam through the training caves, played around in the little cavern, and messed with the schools of bream and carp. We even found a few turtles to harrass a bit. As always it was a fun set of dives, it was Darcy's first time at the site and she seemed to have a blast. We checked out Morrison, and as we suspected, it was heavily flooded with tannick water. We have pics from the 2 Vortex dives and one above water shot of Morrison at http://www.suprbugman.com/gallery/album46
The last two days of diving were alotta fun I hope everyone is having a great holiday season!