wjefferis
Contributor
I made it out early to Marianna on Superbowl Sunday to meet up with Robert Neto Chipola Divers - Home to get in some cavern dives on the Mill Pond. Robert allowed me to join along with his cavern class he was teaching and get in some diving. One of his students brought along his son who was intro to cave so we buddied up for the day while Robert taught his students.
We loaded up on one of Edd's pontoon boats and started out towards Twin Cave. We had a total of six plus gear on one of the smaller pontoon boats and unfortunately we weighted down the front a bit heavy. While enjoying the ride out, suddenly the front of the pontoon plunged straight down into the water swamping the entire front of the boat. I have to give Robert his props as he was able to do some quick maneuvering while we all headed to the back of the boat and luckily the front came back up out of the water. I have to say that I am starting to think that I am a jinx as both times I have been on one of Edd's boats something wild happens, or maybe it's just the captain
. On a side note I do believe that Robert is now offering a PADI shallow water wreck diver certification if you are interested .
Robert dropped my buddy and I off at Twin to enjoy a dive while he brought his students over to Shangri-La to practice running some line. We geared up quickly and splashed into the water which was quite a bit warmer than the air temps that morning. Once over the large opening to Twin, I was happy to see that all of the hydrilla that was covering the entrance on my last visit in October had all died off and the entrance was very clear. Visibility in the cavern zone was 30 feet. During the dive I dropped down the gold line and shined my light down the main passage that heads off to the right. From the looks of it the visibility was 20 feet. Although since I didn't enter into the cave zone I am unclear it it clears just a ways down or not. Ended up doing a 45 minute dive in the cavern and was happy that I didn't silt up the place at all.
After a little wait, Robert returned with his students to do their dives at Twin. My buddy and I decided to take the boat over to Shangri-La and putz around a bit. I took my camera in a took some pictures and enjoyed our 30 minute dive. Once finished we picked up Robert and his students and headed back to Edd's for fills and lunch.
Once everyone had eaten their fill and got loaded back up we headed over to JB for our third dive of the day. The flow was the definately up from my last dives there a few weeks back. In fact it was the strongest flow I have ever experienced in JB since I have started diving there in October. You can still swim against the flow, but I found myself needing to dump my air in my BC at times and grab and pull myself to get into the main cavern area. I ended up having a great dive and with all of us in the cavern things were really lit up. I tried to take a picture with my camera and nothing happened. I just figured that my camera had froze up, but once I got home I opened my housing and water poured out
. I had gotten a little bit of water in my housing last time I was at JB so I had bought a new o-ring for the housing figuring that would fix the problem. This wasn't the case however, as the water must have leaked in through one of the several buttons that my housing has which fried my camera. I took out the SD card from the camera and I will try and see if I can get my Shangri-La pictures from it in the next couple of days. So I guess I must bid farewell to my trusty sealife camera which brought me much joy:signofcross:. Athough, I have been eyeing a Canon G11 camera for a while now and it looks like I now have a good reason to get it :cool2:.
Thanks to Robert for allowing me to join his class and get in some fun dives and an interesting boat ride. :cool3:
I also wanted to congratulate JBM and the rest of Robert's students for earning their cavern certifications today, good job. :wave:
We loaded up on one of Edd's pontoon boats and started out towards Twin Cave. We had a total of six plus gear on one of the smaller pontoon boats and unfortunately we weighted down the front a bit heavy. While enjoying the ride out, suddenly the front of the pontoon plunged straight down into the water swamping the entire front of the boat. I have to give Robert his props as he was able to do some quick maneuvering while we all headed to the back of the boat and luckily the front came back up out of the water. I have to say that I am starting to think that I am a jinx as both times I have been on one of Edd's boats something wild happens, or maybe it's just the captain
. On a side note I do believe that Robert is now offering a PADI shallow water wreck diver certification if you are interested .Robert dropped my buddy and I off at Twin to enjoy a dive while he brought his students over to Shangri-La to practice running some line. We geared up quickly and splashed into the water which was quite a bit warmer than the air temps that morning. Once over the large opening to Twin, I was happy to see that all of the hydrilla that was covering the entrance on my last visit in October had all died off and the entrance was very clear. Visibility in the cavern zone was 30 feet. During the dive I dropped down the gold line and shined my light down the main passage that heads off to the right. From the looks of it the visibility was 20 feet. Although since I didn't enter into the cave zone I am unclear it it clears just a ways down or not. Ended up doing a 45 minute dive in the cavern and was happy that I didn't silt up the place at all.
After a little wait, Robert returned with his students to do their dives at Twin. My buddy and I decided to take the boat over to Shangri-La and putz around a bit. I took my camera in a took some pictures and enjoyed our 30 minute dive. Once finished we picked up Robert and his students and headed back to Edd's for fills and lunch.
Once everyone had eaten their fill and got loaded back up we headed over to JB for our third dive of the day. The flow was the definately up from my last dives there a few weeks back. In fact it was the strongest flow I have ever experienced in JB since I have started diving there in October. You can still swim against the flow, but I found myself needing to dump my air in my BC at times and grab and pull myself to get into the main cavern area. I ended up having a great dive and with all of us in the cavern things were really lit up. I tried to take a picture with my camera and nothing happened. I just figured that my camera had froze up, but once I got home I opened my housing and water poured out
. I had gotten a little bit of water in my housing last time I was at JB so I had bought a new o-ring for the housing figuring that would fix the problem. This wasn't the case however, as the water must have leaked in through one of the several buttons that my housing has which fried my camera. I took out the SD card from the camera and I will try and see if I can get my Shangri-La pictures from it in the next couple of days. So I guess I must bid farewell to my trusty sealife camera which brought me much joy:signofcross:. Athough, I have been eyeing a Canon G11 camera for a while now and it looks like I now have a good reason to get it :cool2:.Thanks to Robert for allowing me to join his class and get in some fun dives and an interesting boat ride. :cool3:
I also wanted to congratulate JBM and the rest of Robert's students for earning their cavern certifications today, good job. :wave:
