SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Jackson Blue 10-4-8
Saturday morning came early as I met up with GLENFWB at the Wilcox exit, just west of the AL/FL border. We loaded up Glen's truck and started on our way to Marianna, FL for some cavern diving. Couldn't ask for better weather, it was a cool morning with a forecasted high in the mid-80sF. There was even a breeze and skies were clear. Awesome.
After checking in at the Sheriff's Dept and hitting up Edd's for some fills, we hit up the park and started gearing up. There were only two other teams there, so we basically had the cavern to ourselves.
Glen led the first dive, reeling in from the left side of the cavern, down the middle of the breakdown and into the goldline. At this point we headed to the back of the lightzone and looked around for a bit. After that, we headed back towards the cavern a bit and I jumped off the mainline and ran another primary up to the cavern zone, effectively making a cavern circuit around the breakdown section of Jackson Blue. We circled the cavern a few times before thumbing the dive and heading out, leaving the lines in place for our next dive. I had a max depth of 52' for a dive lasting 44 minutes.
A Dr. Pepper and a ham sandwich(thanks Mrs GLENFWB!) later, we were back in the water. Our dive profile was very similar to the original dive, albeit we pulled lines after several laps around the circuit rather than laying them down. A little shinanigans coming out the cavern and we did our safety stops without incident and headed out after a dive of 39 minutes with a max depth of 52'.
We headed out to Wakulla, after checking out from the Sheriff's Dept, for a Wakulla County Dive Club meeting. It was a great meeting with Donn Kearns doing a wonderfull presentation on early cave diving, complete with old(and new) literature and old gear. Ate dinner at El Jalisco with several other club members and BGillespie was serenaded by a mariochi band member - Bwah!
Wakulla County stuff 10-5-8
Morning came and GLENFWB and I met up with jspivey at Gregg Stanton's shop for some fills before heading out from some more diving. We left out and headed to some private land adjascent to a tract of sinks that all connect in tunnel stretching from Leon Co and through Wakulla Co(and likely expelling into the Gulf). After some initial gear carrying(and me bitching about not having a cart), we were met by BGillespie who'd be working as surface support(his sinus's were acting up). The weather was great and temperatures were comfortable, but the mosquito's were out in force! The three of us entered in at Promise Sink, water was green, but clear. This was a big improvement over the last few months since Fay and other storms had dropped considerable amounts of rain in the area.
Once in the water, we planned a great cavern dive for Glen, in which jspivey and I would eventually bring him back to our entry and continue on for a cave dive. I lead the dive with Glen 2nd, and jspivey bringing up the tail. Our team headed downstream from Promise into a large open cavern down to where the line ducks under and into a room at 100' of depth. We scooted around a bit and checked out the formations along the cavern wall before heading back into OW. We spotted a large aligator snapping turtle and followed it for a bit, then headed into the cavern zone connecting Promise and Go Between Sinks. Cavern traverses don't occur often! In Go Between's OW basin there's a large limestone arch bisecting the entire site, with the upstream cavern just beyond. Once Glen and I explored the upstream Go Between cavern, we called the dive and I followed him back to OW in Promise Sink before jspivey and I continued upstream from Go Between's cavern zone.
Jspivey led the dive from Go Between to Fern Sink, this is one of the longer stretches of cave between the many sink holes we'd be traversing during our cave dive. I spotted an eel as well as several cave crawfish and catfish.
Might be Fern Sink, might be Fish Hole Sink - dunno, LOL
Once at Fern, I took the lead and we continued upstream through several other awesome sinks including Cream, some cave adjascent to Woods, and finally into Trench Sink. At Trench, we turned the dive and jspivey led out for a bit.
Jspivey and I made our exit back to Promise without any major hiccups and we rewarded with the views of passing near and underneath several caverns with bright glowing green water as the sun shined into them. Truly a beautiful sight!
It took us a couple trips to get all the gear back up to the vehicles and we were bombarded by teradactyles(mosquitos) again. We were never bothered by other swimmers or anyone else at the park, suprising since the weather was so perfect! BGillespie packed two large garbage bags full of trash from around the area and it was all loaded into the truck. Jspivey headed back home while the remaining three of us hit up El Jaliscos once again. Fortunately for Ben, he wasn't molested this time around - LOL!
Saturday morning came early as I met up with GLENFWB at the Wilcox exit, just west of the AL/FL border. We loaded up Glen's truck and started on our way to Marianna, FL for some cavern diving. Couldn't ask for better weather, it was a cool morning with a forecasted high in the mid-80sF. There was even a breeze and skies were clear. Awesome.
After checking in at the Sheriff's Dept and hitting up Edd's for some fills, we hit up the park and started gearing up. There were only two other teams there, so we basically had the cavern to ourselves.
Glen led the first dive, reeling in from the left side of the cavern, down the middle of the breakdown and into the goldline. At this point we headed to the back of the lightzone and looked around for a bit. After that, we headed back towards the cavern a bit and I jumped off the mainline and ran another primary up to the cavern zone, effectively making a cavern circuit around the breakdown section of Jackson Blue. We circled the cavern a few times before thumbing the dive and heading out, leaving the lines in place for our next dive. I had a max depth of 52' for a dive lasting 44 minutes.
A Dr. Pepper and a ham sandwich(thanks Mrs GLENFWB!) later, we were back in the water. Our dive profile was very similar to the original dive, albeit we pulled lines after several laps around the circuit rather than laying them down. A little shinanigans coming out the cavern and we did our safety stops without incident and headed out after a dive of 39 minutes with a max depth of 52'.
We headed out to Wakulla, after checking out from the Sheriff's Dept, for a Wakulla County Dive Club meeting. It was a great meeting with Donn Kearns doing a wonderfull presentation on early cave diving, complete with old(and new) literature and old gear. Ate dinner at El Jalisco with several other club members and BGillespie was serenaded by a mariochi band member - Bwah!
Wakulla County stuff 10-5-8
Morning came and GLENFWB and I met up with jspivey at Gregg Stanton's shop for some fills before heading out from some more diving. We left out and headed to some private land adjascent to a tract of sinks that all connect in tunnel stretching from Leon Co and through Wakulla Co(and likely expelling into the Gulf). After some initial gear carrying(and me bitching about not having a cart), we were met by BGillespie who'd be working as surface support(his sinus's were acting up). The weather was great and temperatures were comfortable, but the mosquito's were out in force! The three of us entered in at Promise Sink, water was green, but clear. This was a big improvement over the last few months since Fay and other storms had dropped considerable amounts of rain in the area.
Once in the water, we planned a great cavern dive for Glen, in which jspivey and I would eventually bring him back to our entry and continue on for a cave dive. I lead the dive with Glen 2nd, and jspivey bringing up the tail. Our team headed downstream from Promise into a large open cavern down to where the line ducks under and into a room at 100' of depth. We scooted around a bit and checked out the formations along the cavern wall before heading back into OW. We spotted a large aligator snapping turtle and followed it for a bit, then headed into the cavern zone connecting Promise and Go Between Sinks. Cavern traverses don't occur often! In Go Between's OW basin there's a large limestone arch bisecting the entire site, with the upstream cavern just beyond. Once Glen and I explored the upstream Go Between cavern, we called the dive and I followed him back to OW in Promise Sink before jspivey and I continued upstream from Go Between's cavern zone.
Jspivey led the dive from Go Between to Fern Sink, this is one of the longer stretches of cave between the many sink holes we'd be traversing during our cave dive. I spotted an eel as well as several cave crawfish and catfish.
Might be Fern Sink, might be Fish Hole Sink - dunno, LOL
Once at Fern, I took the lead and we continued upstream through several other awesome sinks including Cream, some cave adjascent to Woods, and finally into Trench Sink. At Trench, we turned the dive and jspivey led out for a bit.
Jspivey and I made our exit back to Promise without any major hiccups and we rewarded with the views of passing near and underneath several caverns with bright glowing green water as the sun shined into them. Truly a beautiful sight!
It took us a couple trips to get all the gear back up to the vehicles and we were bombarded by teradactyles(mosquitos) again. We were never bothered by other swimmers or anyone else at the park, suprising since the weather was so perfect! BGillespie packed two large garbage bags full of trash from around the area and it was all loaded into the truck. Jspivey headed back home while the remaining three of us hit up El Jaliscos once again. Fortunately for Ben, he wasn't molested this time around - LOL!
