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From Kent "Dr Deco" Hirsch . . .
Hello divers,both real and vicarious. I know how boring it is to read dive reports from the same old people diving the same old places. Well, here's another dive report from the same old guy diving the same old caves.
I'm finally back diving with my bud, Mike (Tony) Nast. Now I'm still waterlogged from Mexico, but Mike is chomping at the bit to slither underground. So we take an early flight Friday to be able to get a dive in Friday night at Cow Springs. The site is really flooded after sustained rains in Florida. It took Mike 7 minutes just to find the cave entrance, as the basin is dark green with algae and the usual landmarks are submerged.
Mike is in standard double 95 back mount. I decided to sidemount this trip. I borrowed two 125 lp steel tanks from Bill Rennicker's Cave Excursion shop. Lugging those babies was made a little easier as I could put them in the water one at a time before attaching them to my harness. Sidemounting 125's filled to 3800psi means never having to be the one to turn the dive.
The high water level has made the cave walls dark with tannic deposits. Even the cave line was stained dark brown. About 1000 ft in, I took a right turn and after another 100 ft I came to the end of the line. That seemed strange, because this cave goes in for 3000+ ft. I turned around to Mike, who was giving the thumbs up signal and was ready to exit. I then noticed the problem- we had jumped into a side tunnel without realizing it. The line and the rocks were the same color and we just passed the markers without seeing them. Lucky for us the tunnel ended before we got too far in and tragically confused.
Saturday morning we headed down to Ginnie Springs for some bigger tunnels and to check out the local scene. True to form, the locals were out en masse- drinking, tubing, camping, and generally raising hell. We got the usual eyeful of bikinis, tattoos, and six pack abs. As one diver so eloquently put it "the smell of beer was in the air".
Ginnie has high flow and it averages 100 ft depth. We decided to use aluminum 80's as stage bottles- we use a little less than half the stage bottle first, tie it to the line, then start using our back gas. This way we can penetrate further in to compensate for the high air consumption caused by strong current and sustained depth. We did three dives in Ginnie. Way back the cave walls become pitch black. You can't find the ceiling or walls the way the blackness absorbs all light. This trip we poked around looking for short cuts and side tunnels. One tunnel was good for me in sidemount, but Mike was blocked out. Another tunnel was longer than expected and we ran out of line before we reached the end of the tunnel, so we'll investigate there next trip with a bigger reel. After each dive our deco obligation grew so that by the third dive our computers were telling us to hang for over 75 minutes of deco. With 100% O2, the deco time was accelerated to only 30 minutes. We spent the time harassing the freshwater flounder and some huge crayfish. I also caught a baby snapping turtle.
Sunday we started out in Little River Springs. The Suwanee River was up so high that the cave was difficult to locate. Down we went again with stage bottles. We got in a fair distance before turning it on thirds. During deco, we watched the tea colored river water swirling overhead as it mixed with the clear cave water. Kind of cool to see the red and blue waters mixing. After a questionable feast at Nell's "all you dare to eat" cafe, we traveled an hour north to Madison Blue Springs. This was our first trip to this system, as it had been closed to the public for a few years. Talk about flow! After leaving the basin to penetrate the cave we were practically blown out of the water. We had to pull ourselves along the bottom rock to rock. We had to grab big boulders, because small rocks wouldn't hold against the current! Nevertheless, this is an interesting cave. We didn't get to see too much, though, because we were huffing and puffing against the flow. We'll have to return in the spring when the flow abates. The main line in Madison is well hidden. Thanks to some other divers who entered before us, we could follow their line to the tie off. I don't think we would have found the line ourselves.
Number three dive on Sunday was in Telford. This cave is fun because the tunnel changes every 100 yds. First its a low bedding plane where you need to crawl, then its a vertical fissure, next its a breakdown pile where you scramble over boulders, then its a silt covered bedding plane , jet black with white porous limestone crags hanging down. With a maximum depth of only 75 ft, we did a 91 minute dive without deco penalty.
Monday morning we finished our trip with a visit to Peacock Springs State Park, a beautiful wooded park with three different cave entrance points. We dove Orange Grove Sink to Challenge Sink. Mike hit thirds here, but since my 120's still had air, I investigated a new tunnel for several hundred ft. I'm glad I did, as this little traveled cave had some pristine features and very little diver damage.
For the weekend we did 8 dives in 6 different systems. Our total bottom time was 816 minutes with deco required on the first 4 dives. That combined with the 1200 minutes from Mexico gave me 2000 minutes of bottom time in two weeks. I think the mask imprint on my face is permanent (as is the big grin).
From Tom "Zipper" Pritchard . . .
I prefer doing it with someone else, but I must confess, I've done it alone. I had never done it with three others before, but Gerhard Maree, Paul "Speedy Bernhard, Jess Zellers and I decided to get it on last night at Willow. Jess showed us how it should be done, but "Speedy" (of all people) and I had trouble finishing. By this time, Jess and Gerhard had begun to get it on; they had the same problem. Jess finally decided to watch while the three of us did all sorts of undescribable things to that latex. After half an hour of sweating and cursing, the three of us finished. Damn those plastic wrist rings are a bitch to install on new wrist seals. And then we went diving.
From Bob Hannah . . .
Ralph and Bob went back to Dutch. It was a beautiful day. We did two long swims from the Peninsula to the area of the South East Cove. But the highlight of the day was simply meeting and talking to other divers.
One Diver had become certified recently so that she could dive with her daughter. Her Daughter was home on leave from West Point. They were with a group diving at Dutch.
Another group were from Sterling, Va. Daniel Eddinger is the owner. Their Web Site is www.silverdivers.com. Naturally we invited his group to come dive with Smokeys, provided them with our Web Page.
Included in the group were Mr. and Mrs Newton. He has just accepted an early retirement. They bought a camper and are going to dive everywhere, especially Fla.
It was a feel good day. We will tell you about the sunken road we found, about 50 feet deeper than the road at Bainbridge, when we go back to explore it in detail in another report.
From Wild Bill . .
Class Act Dive Report - 8/30/03
Congratulation to the Newly certified Specialty Dry Suit Divers
Cindi R Sites, Patrick T Lever, Charles S McClung, Charles S McClung Jr.
Special Thanks To Jim Brown, Dive Master In charge, Chris Mayo, Dive Master In training (DIT), Nate Brommer, Dive Master In training (DIT)
We started our day in the Caribbean of Lancaster “Wabank”, The day could not have been any better for dry suit diving, Cool morning Temperatures, Clear Cool water (vis at about 25 to 30) .
Started our check out dive 1 on the platform all in attendance, including none other than Paul Bernhardt (Speedy) as we call him , he completed his advanced open water course with Cindi and Patrick Last month He Just had to tag along with us to see what all this hoopla was about this dry suit stuff ȁ Keeping Warm and Dry Paul “ Or was it that he just loves diving so much ? I have to hand it to Paul , He has been diving ever week and ever Thursday night since he completed his open water certification May 25 of this year , Way to Go Paul .
After the platform work we headed to the fish pens and open water navigation back by Mr. Chris Mayo who brought the group back to the dock, nice navigation Chris, Dive Two to the Platform and some top-see-turvey work with the peak Performance stuff. And weight carrying. Great buoyancy work on the platform and the trip to the fish pens by all in attendance .
What a perfect day all did a fantastic job in completing the course and the (DIT) help was nothing but the best.
Get Out And Dive - LIVE THE ADVENTURE!!!
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