Aviatrr
Contributor
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the conference on Sat....but made it up to cave country for some diving Sun through Wed for my Full cave.
Sunday, only one dive, we just did a quick jaunt down the peanut tunnel about 1200'..
Monday we made 3 dives.....first was at a pretty much forgotten hole in the middle of the forest, which is part of the Lafayette Blue system. I was told it is about 3,000-4,000ft upstream of the head spring. We entered a fairly large sink with a small entrance to the system on one edge. The line began just a few feet inside the entrance, and we proceeded about 200' in until we got to a 4 way intersection. We made a right turn(what we thought was upstream, turned out to be a side tunnel) and proceeded in the vicinity of 800-1000' in. The tunnel was pristine - there was even still silt hanging off the line. It was apparent it had not been dove in quite a while, as we were told before entering. The tunnel was fairly large, about 20' wide by 8' high at most points, with some spots as low as 3-4' high and 8' wide. The floor was covered in an extremely thick silt, and would obviously totally blow the vis with just one careless fin kick(of which, unfortunately, there were a couple). We were in two 2 man teams, and I spent a good deal of my time exiting the system on the line in 2-3' vis. I was first in, last out - so the vis was incredible for me on the way in..
We only got to do one dive there, so I didn't get to explore upstream or downstream, but I'm told they are extremely large passages. The second dive of the day was at Olsen. We went in upstream, made the jump to the Peanut line, and proceeded to thirds. We were planning on jumping to the Crossover tunnel, but didn't make it that far before we turned. The original plan was to set the jumps at the Peanut restriction and the Crossover tunnel, to later complete the circuit from downstream Olsen to the Crossover to the Peanut line to upstream Olsen. We marked our furthest penetration, and left our jump spool to complete the circuit on Tues. Two members of our 4 new to diving doubles (this was their 3rd dive on doubles), so the air consumption was fairly high initially until they got used to them - which was suprisingly quick. Our 3rd dive was at Peacock III. We went to the main line, took the first jump to the right, then the next jump to the right. I have no idea what any of the passages are called - it was my first time in III.
Tues we started out with a traverse from Olsen to Peacock I via the Peanut tunnel. Not really expecting to make it the entire way, I was quite suprised when we passed the breakdown room well before thirds. We exited Peacock I basically right at thirds. The next dive of the day was the circuit from Olsen downstream, Crossover tunnel, Peanut line, to Olsen upstream. Last dive was some lost line drills at downstream Cow.
Wed we headed for Ginnie to do a high flow system. We entered the eye, then we were headed for the white room, but unfortunately one member of our team reached thirds just as we got to the point we were going to tie off our primary reel to the Bone line to go the last 150' into the white room. On the way out, we ended up doing air sharing drills through the exit via the eye. That was the final dive of our Full Cave training, so the next dive was to be a fun grad dive. Our instructor was having some problems equalizing, so it was just the three of us for our fun grad dive. We headed up the main line to the Hill 400 jump, then headed up that line. Overall, about an 1100' penetration. Exited via the eye to pull the reel we placed on the first dive, and did our deco(a bit over 20 minutes) in the eye.
Overall, 4 days of great diving and a few new sites to add to my list of 'must visit again'..
Mike
Sunday, only one dive, we just did a quick jaunt down the peanut tunnel about 1200'..
Monday we made 3 dives.....first was at a pretty much forgotten hole in the middle of the forest, which is part of the Lafayette Blue system. I was told it is about 3,000-4,000ft upstream of the head spring. We entered a fairly large sink with a small entrance to the system on one edge. The line began just a few feet inside the entrance, and we proceeded about 200' in until we got to a 4 way intersection. We made a right turn(what we thought was upstream, turned out to be a side tunnel) and proceeded in the vicinity of 800-1000' in. The tunnel was pristine - there was even still silt hanging off the line. It was apparent it had not been dove in quite a while, as we were told before entering. The tunnel was fairly large, about 20' wide by 8' high at most points, with some spots as low as 3-4' high and 8' wide. The floor was covered in an extremely thick silt, and would obviously totally blow the vis with just one careless fin kick(of which, unfortunately, there were a couple). We were in two 2 man teams, and I spent a good deal of my time exiting the system on the line in 2-3' vis. I was first in, last out - so the vis was incredible for me on the way in..
We only got to do one dive there, so I didn't get to explore upstream or downstream, but I'm told they are extremely large passages. The second dive of the day was at Olsen. We went in upstream, made the jump to the Peanut line, and proceeded to thirds. We were planning on jumping to the Crossover tunnel, but didn't make it that far before we turned. The original plan was to set the jumps at the Peanut restriction and the Crossover tunnel, to later complete the circuit from downstream Olsen to the Crossover to the Peanut line to upstream Olsen. We marked our furthest penetration, and left our jump spool to complete the circuit on Tues. Two members of our 4 new to diving doubles (this was their 3rd dive on doubles), so the air consumption was fairly high initially until they got used to them - which was suprisingly quick. Our 3rd dive was at Peacock III. We went to the main line, took the first jump to the right, then the next jump to the right. I have no idea what any of the passages are called - it was my first time in III.Tues we started out with a traverse from Olsen to Peacock I via the Peanut tunnel. Not really expecting to make it the entire way, I was quite suprised when we passed the breakdown room well before thirds. We exited Peacock I basically right at thirds. The next dive of the day was the circuit from Olsen downstream, Crossover tunnel, Peanut line, to Olsen upstream. Last dive was some lost line drills at downstream Cow.
Wed we headed for Ginnie to do a high flow system. We entered the eye, then we were headed for the white room, but unfortunately one member of our team reached thirds just as we got to the point we were going to tie off our primary reel to the Bone line to go the last 150' into the white room. On the way out, we ended up doing air sharing drills through the exit via the eye. That was the final dive of our Full Cave training, so the next dive was to be a fun grad dive. Our instructor was having some problems equalizing, so it was just the three of us for our fun grad dive. We headed up the main line to the Hill 400 jump, then headed up that line. Overall, about an 1100' penetration. Exited via the eye to pull the reel we placed on the first dive, and did our deco(a bit over 20 minutes) in the eye.
Overall, 4 days of great diving and a few new sites to add to my list of 'must visit again'..
Mike
