I headed up to cave country yesterday morning at 5:30 am to get to the Dive Outpost (www.diveoutpost.com) at 8am to meet up with my dive buddies. After they woke up and got some breakfast in them we were headed the 2.2 miles to Peacock Springs State Park (www.peacocksprings.com). There is a $5 fee for divers in state parks on Florida, but you can buy an annual recreational pass for $43.00 and its good for every state park in Florida!
We geared and up and since there were 4 of us we decided to split into 2 teams of 2. The first team ran the reel. We were diving Orange Grove Sink. Since they were both full cave they were planning a further penetration and maybe a jump off the mainline just before Challenge Sink.
I was the leader of my team and placed a clothes pin on the other teams line so in case they came out before us they would know that we were still in there. If we came out first we would remove the pin, so they would know it was ok for them to take out their reel. Everything was going well, but about 500' back in the system I started to feel alittle sickly and decided it call the dive. I gave the thumbs up and my buddy began to exit the cave with me following. At about 400' it happened, I felt the need to throw up! There was some heaving but I didn't feed the fish. Not fun to be 400' back in a cave and having the dry heaves. My buddy was exiting alittle quickly so I signaled for him to slow down and we decided it best that I exit first. We removed the clothes pin as we passed the reel and surfaced after a safety stop. I actually felt 110% better now and after alittle surface interval decided to go again. The other team was still on their dive so we dropped the clothes pin on the line again with me in the lead. This was such a great dive! We made it 800' back and when I later looked on a map we were just about to the jump that the other team had made. We were just getting to this really cool part in the cave were the line makes a zig-zag around some sharp 90º turns and then the cave opens up and I reached my turn pressure. I was bummed. I can see how a trained cave diver would be tempted to go past there turn pressure to just a little more, but then if there was an emergency there wouldn't be enough air in reserve to get both a diver and his buddy out safely. But I didn't fall to temptation and I called the dive, my buddy was just about at his turn pressure too. We pulled the clothes pin on the way out and debriefed at the surface.
The other team finally finished there dive and surfaced. They decided to go for lunch and air fills and do another dive after lunch. Me and my buddy did another in-water surface interval and decided on another dive. There were some areas along the main line that we had passed before we wanted to check out, so we planned a nice slow, take it all in dive. My buddy ran the reel (since the other team removed it after their dive) and off we went. Orange Grove is such a nice dive. I know you guys are wondering why we did 3 back to back dives in the same cave, but you notice different things everytime. We made it back about 500' again and headed out. We were just about to where we tied off to the mainline and then it hit me, damn cramp in my left calf! I wasn't in a location where I could stretch it out myself, there is a huge silt mound where the mainline starts. I reached back and tried to rub my calf, sreaming in my reg the whole time, trying not to silt (which I didn't
). My buddy saw what was happening and he came to my rescue, massaging my calf until I gave him the ok. I could have just faked the cramp to get massaged by my handsome dive buddy, but it was real and very painful. My calf is still sore this morning. Guess I need to eat more bananas prior to lots of diving. My buddy reeled in our line and I was in front of him taking up any slack in the line until he reeled it tight. At out secondary tie off I had noticed at the beginning of the dive that he had done it backwards, so when we got to the tie off and he untied it, I took the reel from him and did the tie off the correct way, he understood what he had done wrong, gave me the ok, and I passed the reel back to him and we continued to the primary tie off and our safety stop.
There was a cavern class doing line drills in the ow when we were doing our safety stop. Gee they were bad. I don't think I ever sucked that much. They were very interesting to watch. Not DIR at all. Lots of dandling things, I even saw one guy that didn't have his light head clipped off, drag it behind him until it caught between some rocks, he kept trying to swim forward, pulling at it, until he finally turned around and saw it was stuck. That's a costly error I wouldn't want to make. Thise things aren't cheap!
So here is a run down on the dives. Max depth is 65' and that's just in the cavern area really, avg depth about 43'. Three dives (500', 800', and 500') Wow that's 3600' I swam yesterday! Both me and my buddy were DIR and even though it was out first dives together I was very comfortable in the water with him. No communication problems, gear configured the same, great buddy! Also I never felt sick the again that day,just that one time during the first dive (and no I have no bun in the oven). I didn't do the dive in the afternoon, I felt 3 cave dives in one day was enough for me, so my buddy went with the other 2 divers for a quick dive in Peacock 1 before the park closed at sunset.
We geared and up and since there were 4 of us we decided to split into 2 teams of 2. The first team ran the reel. We were diving Orange Grove Sink. Since they were both full cave they were planning a further penetration and maybe a jump off the mainline just before Challenge Sink.
I was the leader of my team and placed a clothes pin on the other teams line so in case they came out before us they would know that we were still in there. If we came out first we would remove the pin, so they would know it was ok for them to take out their reel. Everything was going well, but about 500' back in the system I started to feel alittle sickly and decided it call the dive. I gave the thumbs up and my buddy began to exit the cave with me following. At about 400' it happened, I felt the need to throw up! There was some heaving but I didn't feed the fish. Not fun to be 400' back in a cave and having the dry heaves. My buddy was exiting alittle quickly so I signaled for him to slow down and we decided it best that I exit first. We removed the clothes pin as we passed the reel and surfaced after a safety stop. I actually felt 110% better now and after alittle surface interval decided to go again. The other team was still on their dive so we dropped the clothes pin on the line again with me in the lead. This was such a great dive! We made it 800' back and when I later looked on a map we were just about to the jump that the other team had made. We were just getting to this really cool part in the cave were the line makes a zig-zag around some sharp 90º turns and then the cave opens up and I reached my turn pressure. I was bummed. I can see how a trained cave diver would be tempted to go past there turn pressure to just a little more, but then if there was an emergency there wouldn't be enough air in reserve to get both a diver and his buddy out safely. But I didn't fall to temptation and I called the dive, my buddy was just about at his turn pressure too. We pulled the clothes pin on the way out and debriefed at the surface.
The other team finally finished there dive and surfaced. They decided to go for lunch and air fills and do another dive after lunch. Me and my buddy did another in-water surface interval and decided on another dive. There were some areas along the main line that we had passed before we wanted to check out, so we planned a nice slow, take it all in dive. My buddy ran the reel (since the other team removed it after their dive) and off we went. Orange Grove is such a nice dive. I know you guys are wondering why we did 3 back to back dives in the same cave, but you notice different things everytime. We made it back about 500' again and headed out. We were just about to where we tied off to the mainline and then it hit me, damn cramp in my left calf! I wasn't in a location where I could stretch it out myself, there is a huge silt mound where the mainline starts. I reached back and tried to rub my calf, sreaming in my reg the whole time, trying not to silt (which I didn't
). My buddy saw what was happening and he came to my rescue, massaging my calf until I gave him the ok. I could have just faked the cramp to get massaged by my handsome dive buddy, but it was real and very painful. My calf is still sore this morning. Guess I need to eat more bananas prior to lots of diving. My buddy reeled in our line and I was in front of him taking up any slack in the line until he reeled it tight. At out secondary tie off I had noticed at the beginning of the dive that he had done it backwards, so when we got to the tie off and he untied it, I took the reel from him and did the tie off the correct way, he understood what he had done wrong, gave me the ok, and I passed the reel back to him and we continued to the primary tie off and our safety stop. There was a cavern class doing line drills in the ow when we were doing our safety stop. Gee they were bad. I don't think I ever sucked that much. They were very interesting to watch. Not DIR at all. Lots of dandling things, I even saw one guy that didn't have his light head clipped off, drag it behind him until it caught between some rocks, he kept trying to swim forward, pulling at it, until he finally turned around and saw it was stuck. That's a costly error I wouldn't want to make. Thise things aren't cheap!
So here is a run down on the dives. Max depth is 65' and that's just in the cavern area really, avg depth about 43'. Three dives (500', 800', and 500') Wow that's 3600' I swam yesterday! Both me and my buddy were DIR and even though it was out first dives together I was very comfortable in the water with him. No communication problems, gear configured the same, great buddy! Also I never felt sick the again that day,just that one time during the first dive (and no I have no bun in the oven). I didn't do the dive in the afternoon, I felt 3 cave dives in one day was enough for me, so my buddy went with the other 2 divers for a quick dive in Peacock 1 before the park closed at sunset.
