ucfdiver
Contributor
Thought I would catch up posting about our Florida adventures. If you're thinking about cave diving right now, you couldn't ask for better conditions all over. It's the best I've seen it in the couple of years I've been certified! 
Anyways, I've been not posting because I've been busy diving, but hopefully someone finds these interesting...and it should motivate some of the others to post what they've been up to, EVERYONE has been diving their butts off here because of conditions!
First recent weekend was going to 5 Hole, an extensive cave system at Suwannee River State Park. A few of us had been asked to help make a video to show the park staff what a beautiful system they're protecting. Since this site is permit only, it's very pristine, but lines aren't kept up to date as well as park caves. We were only able to get usable video for the first 400-500ft of the system due to lines being ripped out from recent flooding. Marchand and JahJahWarrior went back the following weekend to fix that. Conditions are amazing for this site right now, so we'll be back VERY soon!
Here's the start of our video-
[vimeo]17276518[/vimeo]
The following weekend we decided to attend REACT, a yearly event where divers can meet up and get great deals sponsored by Cave Excursions and Dive Rite. This is an excellent time of year to buy/sell/trade gear or meet a new dive buddy. I met the dive buddy who has heavily mentored me through full cave and DPV here 3 years ago, it's really worth going it if you're a cave diver. We typically take the free boat ride to Telford, but since I have my own boat now, I thought it unfair to take a spot someone else might want, so we headed to a nearby sink. This sink is known to have 5-10ft viz these days, but recently has been reaching viz close to 50ft in some areas! No excuse for not diving it now! We had dove it a few times recently, and finally felt ready to video it. Unfortunately, its so large that even with 50ft viz, it was hard to get a wall to wall view of it, so we didn't get any good video. I have an idea on how to fix that next time. :cool2:
Now for a weekend of disappointment, but you have to look at these things as a positive, we eliminated several sites which were false leads. It all started with our first spring, the bad luck that is. I have been watching this one for months waiting to do a proper survey of it. About 5 years ago (maybe less), a buddy of mine was renting a house in this neighborhood and decided to check out the spring after work one day. To his surprise, it went, with no line. The next few weeks he pushed it back to about 3600ft, where exploration has been halted due to very poor conditions. About 4 months ago, my buddy Kevin (who did the exploration) took me into the spring to show me around, about p1000, which only entailed 2 navigational decisions, but the visibility is so bad for the cave's size that I rarely saw more than the floor, a single wall, or the ceiling at once. Hoping for better conditions, we went to Ft White and hopped in. Marchand had never been, so I decided to take him, and attempt to resurvey the first section of the cave, since the original survey data has been lost. After a short swim in, viz was less than 5ft in some areas, which with a loose line was just too risky. We turned the dive and will wait for better conditions.
Frustrated that our big plans failed, we headed back to Cave Excursions East to get fills for Sunday, but decided to check out a site that I've never seen anywhere close to divable first. It was featured in Jill/Wes' "The Waters Journey" DVD, and I'd heard dive reports about it. It wasn't great viz, but enough to do do a recon dive!
We walked the area, knowing that sinks often come in multiples, but had no luck. A few dramatic FL views however!
So we filled sidemount tanks and anxiously waited for the next day, as we were losing daylight fast. Jeff packed his rope and we were off! There's a trail that divers can walk down here, but it's so steep that we decided to drop the tanks off a ledge rather than risk a fall.
Unfortunately, after about 15 minutes of looking around in this muck hole, we realized that if there was a cave, it's no longer there (or maybe we just couldn't' find it). Frustrated, we went back to get tank fills so they would be ready to dive, crossing paths with a friend at the fill station. Our friend had been mentioning this sink in Newberry that had crystal clear water, but was "hard to get into, but REALLY clear". Well, never wanting to shy away from a challenge, we packed up and headed towards Newberry!
Upon arrival, here's what we were greeted with
Thinking that something this difficult might still be virgin, the entry only excited us more. We quickly rigged up a harness and were off!
After dropping down, I had a somewhat scary view
but it was made up for with a beautiful one right in front of me!
Armed with only a flashlight and mask, the place looked like power cave! Unfortunately, 2 friends (Marchand and JahJahWarrior) went this last weekend and verified that it only goes about 100ft in any direction. Looks like they had fun trying tho!
Missing "easy" cave dives, I asked my buddy Allen to meet up at Ginnie one night, where we got a few really neat photos, just messing around in the front of the cave.
Tired of caves that don't go anywhere, I emailed a professor of mine and planned a trip to Tallahassee, home of power cave diving :cool2:. We left early Friday, arriving at one that Litehedded, PFCAJ, and Superbugman had all recommended I check out. Conditions have been amazing around Tally, but not this site. Unfortunately, everyone told me that you can't judge the cave by the surface pool, so we had to dive it to find out it was tannic. This cave is one that I would suggest talking to someone who's dove it before you go. There's 3 lines from OW going into the cave, I didn't see 1 of them, but 2 go to the same spot, then almost immediately the gold line begins at a T. Not finding clear water at gold, we weight straight, where we were greeted with a 4 way T. We went left/right and didn't find anything clear, so we turned the dive and headed to a cave that's as reliable as Ginnie.
I've posted the video here before, but thought it would be a good reference. This is one of my favorite caves, its no deco, easy to get to (with landowner permission of course), always clear, etc. My buddy had never been, so rather than risk diving something that wouldn't be stunning...since after all I just had him dive a mud hole after a 2 hour drive, I decided to go here. Basin was oddly blue, more so than I've ever seen it, I'm really not sure why. Viz inside the cave was down from it's usual (which puts Ginnie to shame) and "only" about 50ft. We had a fabulous dive.
[vimeo]14915761[/vimeo]
Not wanting to stop our trip too soon, we headed towards Marianna and Cave Adventurers the next day and split a boat with some friends of mine. Our first destination was Jackson Blue. The flow here was like Peacock, ZERO. :shocked2:. We made it to the Banana Room in about 38 minutes on the motors, even stopping along the way to mark all the T's, plus swimming the scooter over the clay areas, which slowed us down. The floor is clay, ceiling is low, and line is run on the ceiling in several areas near the back, so we were liberal getting off the trigger. At 4200 we swam a bit further before cruising back to the cavern with only 6 minutes of deco! Deco wasn't long at all, because due to the low flow, there were literally HUNDREDS of fish swimming around in the cavern, the prettiest I've ever seen it!
Anyways, I've been not posting because I've been busy diving, but hopefully someone finds these interesting...and it should motivate some of the others to post what they've been up to, EVERYONE has been diving their butts off here because of conditions!First recent weekend was going to 5 Hole, an extensive cave system at Suwannee River State Park. A few of us had been asked to help make a video to show the park staff what a beautiful system they're protecting. Since this site is permit only, it's very pristine, but lines aren't kept up to date as well as park caves. We were only able to get usable video for the first 400-500ft of the system due to lines being ripped out from recent flooding. Marchand and JahJahWarrior went back the following weekend to fix that. Conditions are amazing for this site right now, so we'll be back VERY soon!
Here's the start of our video-
[vimeo]17276518[/vimeo]
The following weekend we decided to attend REACT, a yearly event where divers can meet up and get great deals sponsored by Cave Excursions and Dive Rite. This is an excellent time of year to buy/sell/trade gear or meet a new dive buddy. I met the dive buddy who has heavily mentored me through full cave and DPV here 3 years ago, it's really worth going it if you're a cave diver. We typically take the free boat ride to Telford, but since I have my own boat now, I thought it unfair to take a spot someone else might want, so we headed to a nearby sink. This sink is known to have 5-10ft viz these days, but recently has been reaching viz close to 50ft in some areas! No excuse for not diving it now! We had dove it a few times recently, and finally felt ready to video it. Unfortunately, its so large that even with 50ft viz, it was hard to get a wall to wall view of it, so we didn't get any good video. I have an idea on how to fix that next time. :cool2:
Now for a weekend of disappointment, but you have to look at these things as a positive, we eliminated several sites which were false leads. It all started with our first spring, the bad luck that is. I have been watching this one for months waiting to do a proper survey of it. About 5 years ago (maybe less), a buddy of mine was renting a house in this neighborhood and decided to check out the spring after work one day. To his surprise, it went, with no line. The next few weeks he pushed it back to about 3600ft, where exploration has been halted due to very poor conditions. About 4 months ago, my buddy Kevin (who did the exploration) took me into the spring to show me around, about p1000, which only entailed 2 navigational decisions, but the visibility is so bad for the cave's size that I rarely saw more than the floor, a single wall, or the ceiling at once. Hoping for better conditions, we went to Ft White and hopped in. Marchand had never been, so I decided to take him, and attempt to resurvey the first section of the cave, since the original survey data has been lost. After a short swim in, viz was less than 5ft in some areas, which with a loose line was just too risky. We turned the dive and will wait for better conditions.
Frustrated that our big plans failed, we headed back to Cave Excursions East to get fills for Sunday, but decided to check out a site that I've never seen anywhere close to divable first. It was featured in Jill/Wes' "The Waters Journey" DVD, and I'd heard dive reports about it. It wasn't great viz, but enough to do do a recon dive!
We walked the area, knowing that sinks often come in multiples, but had no luck. A few dramatic FL views however!
So we filled sidemount tanks and anxiously waited for the next day, as we were losing daylight fast. Jeff packed his rope and we were off! There's a trail that divers can walk down here, but it's so steep that we decided to drop the tanks off a ledge rather than risk a fall.
Unfortunately, after about 15 minutes of looking around in this muck hole, we realized that if there was a cave, it's no longer there (or maybe we just couldn't' find it). Frustrated, we went back to get tank fills so they would be ready to dive, crossing paths with a friend at the fill station. Our friend had been mentioning this sink in Newberry that had crystal clear water, but was "hard to get into, but REALLY clear". Well, never wanting to shy away from a challenge, we packed up and headed towards Newberry!
Upon arrival, here's what we were greeted with
Thinking that something this difficult might still be virgin, the entry only excited us more. We quickly rigged up a harness and were off!
After dropping down, I had a somewhat scary view
but it was made up for with a beautiful one right in front of me!
Armed with only a flashlight and mask, the place looked like power cave! Unfortunately, 2 friends (Marchand and JahJahWarrior) went this last weekend and verified that it only goes about 100ft in any direction. Looks like they had fun trying tho!
Missing "easy" cave dives, I asked my buddy Allen to meet up at Ginnie one night, where we got a few really neat photos, just messing around in the front of the cave.
Tired of caves that don't go anywhere, I emailed a professor of mine and planned a trip to Tallahassee, home of power cave diving :cool2:. We left early Friday, arriving at one that Litehedded, PFCAJ, and Superbugman had all recommended I check out. Conditions have been amazing around Tally, but not this site. Unfortunately, everyone told me that you can't judge the cave by the surface pool, so we had to dive it to find out it was tannic. This cave is one that I would suggest talking to someone who's dove it before you go. There's 3 lines from OW going into the cave, I didn't see 1 of them, but 2 go to the same spot, then almost immediately the gold line begins at a T. Not finding clear water at gold, we weight straight, where we were greeted with a 4 way T. We went left/right and didn't find anything clear, so we turned the dive and headed to a cave that's as reliable as Ginnie.
I've posted the video here before, but thought it would be a good reference. This is one of my favorite caves, its no deco, easy to get to (with landowner permission of course), always clear, etc. My buddy had never been, so rather than risk diving something that wouldn't be stunning...since after all I just had him dive a mud hole after a 2 hour drive, I decided to go here
. Basin was oddly blue, more so than I've ever seen it, I'm really not sure why. Viz inside the cave was down from it's usual (which puts Ginnie to shame) and "only" about 50ft. We had a fabulous dive.
[vimeo]14915761[/vimeo]
Not wanting to stop our trip too soon, we headed towards Marianna and Cave Adventurers the next day and split a boat with some friends of mine. Our first destination was Jackson Blue. The flow here was like Peacock, ZERO. :shocked2:. We made it to the Banana Room in about 38 minutes on the motors, even stopping along the way to mark all the T's, plus swimming the scooter over the clay areas, which slowed us down. The floor is clay, ceiling is low, and line is run on the ceiling in several areas near the back, so we were liberal getting off the trigger. At 4200 we swam a bit further before cruising back to the cavern with only 6 minutes of deco! Deco wasn't long at all, because due to the low flow, there were literally HUNDREDS of fish swimming around in the cavern, the prettiest I've ever seen it!
