SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
I knew Saturday's dives were gonna be awesome, my beer gave me inspiration the night before. Thank you Magic Hat for the kick in the pants to be awesome with the caves.
Saturday came around and after a good breakfast, I made my way to BGillespie's place to meet with him and cwick for a 10AM meet time. The sun was already warming us up, easily in the 50s I'd guess. The highs forecast for the day were going to get close to 70F, so we still had plenty room for improvement! A huge change from the last few weeks. We headed over to a sinkhole in Wakulla County with Ben M meeting us shortly afterwards. OFG and J were already in the water, tossing some silt stakes down for the goldline we planned to lay out. The water was as low as I've ever seen it, infact it was over a foot lower than the water guage we put out to monitor the waters. It was clear and blue too, who woulda thought? This is pretty uncommon for a site that most commonly resembles a mud puddle. Its also not an indicator for cave conditions, but we hoped for the best regardless and started getting gear down the depression to the water.
The idea was to split into two teams. One team runs the gold line in and the other team would reel the old existing line back up. While gearing up, cwick ran into a hose problem that kept us out of the water a little while longer. Team Ben continued on and started running the line down one of the main passages of the cave(BGillespie had previously put 300' of goldline in on an earlier dive). Once some of our gear was swapped around cwick and I hit the water, dropped our O2 at the 20' deco loop, and kept dropping to around the 70' range before turning at the dumbell. Visibility was never any less than 15' and extended more at points, there was a green tinge in the water from some minor tannic intrusion. There were pockets of blue water along the ceiling with limitless visibility, slightly warmer too I think. It was nice hovering at the top of the cave(which is very large) and seeing everything. Eventually, we crossed paths with Team Ben, who were now reeling the old line back up(since we were running a bit late). cwick and I headed down a side passage to the left which goes through a small, dark tunnel and opens into the ceiling of a huge room where the line continues around in a circuit. Visibility wasn't crystal clear in the room, but until the spring water flips, I just don't expect it to... Its friggin awesome in there when it is though, looking forward to the next flip. After the circuit, we started heading back. We fixed up the line in a few areas, but overall it was run really well. We did tie a weight to it in one area to bring it down off the ceiling. Ambient light was visible back at the reaper sign, which is pretty crazy in itself for this site. Back in OW, you can see the deco bottles hanging 50' above and the trees above them. Pretty amazing, I've never see the basin so clear. After about 6 minutes of deco on 100%, we surfaced with a divetime of 68 minutes and a max depth of 114'. Great dive in one of my favorite Wakulla caves.
After a bit of packing up, we headed over to another area sink to find it very tannic, despite the water levels being really low there as well. Yet another sink, about 200 yards away, which was much smaller... and clear and blue. We decided that after finding some food, we'd come back for a dive. Hammonknockers was calling, and that BBQ rocks.
After stuffing our faces, we headed back to our little blue sinkhole. Ben M and I decided we'd do the honors of checking out this silty little hole in the ground. After climbing down into the mud and laying some gear out, we finished up getting the rest of our setups ready. I tied off onto a tree on the surface and we slid over a downed tree and into a dropoff. It narrowed down into a smallish chimney until hitting a low bedding plane. I slid down the bedding plane and into a little cave before dropping down a hole into a large room. After a little shinanigans with the line, we finally managed to bring visibility in the restriction, that made our entrance, drop to a point where we were OK'ing by touch. Again we dropped back into the room, with organic debri following us after our debauchery in the entrance. The line tied off to the ceiling and dropped down in an upside down V heading deeper into the chasm. We followed one line with visibility in the 30'+ range until we hit around 70', where a line connects the two down lines. Apparently this was rigged up as a deco trapeze for 50%. Also at this depth, we hit tannic water that dropped visibility into the 3' range and temperatures down to atleast 64F and we didn't stick around long enough to see if it got colder. I called the dive, after one hour plus dive, diving wet, I wasn't up for any uber cold, so we headed back up. Ben had to unplug our entrance, as all the organic debri we managed to dislodge fell into our exit. Fun! The room we were in was huge though, and could hold some leads, probably worth exploring in the future. The bottom also apparently drops to the 180' range, so we wouldnt have hit it even if we hadn't hit that tannic water lense. Our dive was less than 20 minutes long with a max depth of 77'. I think the site has potential, but it may require more depth than I'm willing to make. It'd be nice to try it again when its a bit warmer too.
We had maybe 8 people at the WCDC meeting, but it was good. We talked alot about the caves in the area. There's ALOT of clear water in Florida right now, despite all the recent rains and the constant internet bitching. It was good, we're gonna do the April meeting at Madison Blue Springs with the NFSA's social.
Momo's hit the spot that night, pizza slices as big as my head? I don't know anyone with a head that big, or as oddly shaped... It was friggin good though!
Ben M gets full credit on the last two pictures
Saturday came around and after a good breakfast, I made my way to BGillespie's place to meet with him and cwick for a 10AM meet time. The sun was already warming us up, easily in the 50s I'd guess. The highs forecast for the day were going to get close to 70F, so we still had plenty room for improvement! A huge change from the last few weeks. We headed over to a sinkhole in Wakulla County with Ben M meeting us shortly afterwards. OFG and J were already in the water, tossing some silt stakes down for the goldline we planned to lay out. The water was as low as I've ever seen it, infact it was over a foot lower than the water guage we put out to monitor the waters. It was clear and blue too, who woulda thought? This is pretty uncommon for a site that most commonly resembles a mud puddle. Its also not an indicator for cave conditions, but we hoped for the best regardless and started getting gear down the depression to the water.
The idea was to split into two teams. One team runs the gold line in and the other team would reel the old existing line back up. While gearing up, cwick ran into a hose problem that kept us out of the water a little while longer. Team Ben continued on and started running the line down one of the main passages of the cave(BGillespie had previously put 300' of goldline in on an earlier dive). Once some of our gear was swapped around cwick and I hit the water, dropped our O2 at the 20' deco loop, and kept dropping to around the 70' range before turning at the dumbell. Visibility was never any less than 15' and extended more at points, there was a green tinge in the water from some minor tannic intrusion. There were pockets of blue water along the ceiling with limitless visibility, slightly warmer too I think. It was nice hovering at the top of the cave(which is very large) and seeing everything. Eventually, we crossed paths with Team Ben, who were now reeling the old line back up(since we were running a bit late). cwick and I headed down a side passage to the left which goes through a small, dark tunnel and opens into the ceiling of a huge room where the line continues around in a circuit. Visibility wasn't crystal clear in the room, but until the spring water flips, I just don't expect it to... Its friggin awesome in there when it is though, looking forward to the next flip. After the circuit, we started heading back. We fixed up the line in a few areas, but overall it was run really well. We did tie a weight to it in one area to bring it down off the ceiling. Ambient light was visible back at the reaper sign, which is pretty crazy in itself for this site. Back in OW, you can see the deco bottles hanging 50' above and the trees above them. Pretty amazing, I've never see the basin so clear. After about 6 minutes of deco on 100%, we surfaced with a divetime of 68 minutes and a max depth of 114'. Great dive in one of my favorite Wakulla caves.
After a bit of packing up, we headed over to another area sink to find it very tannic, despite the water levels being really low there as well. Yet another sink, about 200 yards away, which was much smaller... and clear and blue. We decided that after finding some food, we'd come back for a dive. Hammonknockers was calling, and that BBQ rocks.
After stuffing our faces, we headed back to our little blue sinkhole. Ben M and I decided we'd do the honors of checking out this silty little hole in the ground. After climbing down into the mud and laying some gear out, we finished up getting the rest of our setups ready. I tied off onto a tree on the surface and we slid over a downed tree and into a dropoff. It narrowed down into a smallish chimney until hitting a low bedding plane. I slid down the bedding plane and into a little cave before dropping down a hole into a large room. After a little shinanigans with the line, we finally managed to bring visibility in the restriction, that made our entrance, drop to a point where we were OK'ing by touch. Again we dropped back into the room, with organic debri following us after our debauchery in the entrance. The line tied off to the ceiling and dropped down in an upside down V heading deeper into the chasm. We followed one line with visibility in the 30'+ range until we hit around 70', where a line connects the two down lines. Apparently this was rigged up as a deco trapeze for 50%. Also at this depth, we hit tannic water that dropped visibility into the 3' range and temperatures down to atleast 64F and we didn't stick around long enough to see if it got colder. I called the dive, after one hour plus dive, diving wet, I wasn't up for any uber cold, so we headed back up. Ben had to unplug our entrance, as all the organic debri we managed to dislodge fell into our exit. Fun! The room we were in was huge though, and could hold some leads, probably worth exploring in the future. The bottom also apparently drops to the 180' range, so we wouldnt have hit it even if we hadn't hit that tannic water lense. Our dive was less than 20 minutes long with a max depth of 77'. I think the site has potential, but it may require more depth than I'm willing to make. It'd be nice to try it again when its a bit warmer too.
We had maybe 8 people at the WCDC meeting, but it was good. We talked alot about the caves in the area. There's ALOT of clear water in Florida right now, despite all the recent rains and the constant internet bitching. It was good, we're gonna do the April meeting at Madison Blue Springs with the NFSA's social.
Momo's hit the spot that night, pizza slices as big as my head? I don't know anyone with a head that big, or as oddly shaped... It was friggin good though!
Ben M gets full credit on the last two pictures
