Devil’s – Maple Leaf

Breathing Gas– 32% Backgas / 100% Deco
Max Depth
Avg Depth
Visibility– 150+ft
Water Temp– 72F
Dive Time:

Notes:
Left Telford, got a quick fill from Extreme Exposure, and headed to Ginnie to meet Gibby and Jeff.  Jeff had a hose leak, so he had to sit out the dive.  Gibby and myself continued on, but the main goal of this dive was to play with 30w HID video lights that a friend loaned us and get some cool video.  I haven’t had a chance to put it together, but when I do, I’ll post it on here.

Telford Springs

Breathing Gas
Max Depth
Avg Depth
Visibility– 50ft on the way in, 15-20ft on the way out.
Water Temp– 72F
Dive Time:

Notes:
Received a free boat ride up the  Suwannee River from Cave Excursions West during their REACT party, which is a great place to get cheap gear, a free meal, and meet several cave divers!  I lead the dive, and Stacey followed.  The guys at Cave Excursions had already placed a primary reel for everyone to use during the party, as well as placed the gap reels in the two nearby sinks where the gold-line breaks.  I’m not exactly sure where we ended up, but it’s very easy to describe, as Telford is one of the most changing caves that I’ve seen!  One thing is for sure, you can tell that Telford isn’t dove often, as it’s VERY silty, and exiting is always done with less visibility than entering.  This time it wasn’t as bad as last year.  We also got to make it quite a bit further in than last year, maybe an extra year of experience helps here :-P!  We made it to an area where the cave gets very black, with rock that branches off quite a bit, similar to the double lines area of Ginnie, except far darker.  Shortly after that, the cave got very low, with pristine white columns from the ceiling all over the place, similar to the Olsen (Pothole) line in Peacock, aside form the height, and there were also several more formations.  From talking to other cave divers, it sounds like we nearly made the first T.  I certainly would take a stage to Telford this time, as the cave changes so much, and it’s so shallow, you really could use more time to enjoy it!

Suwannee RiverS

Troy Springs

Whitney hadn’t been to Troy Springs so we decided to go there since she had the weekend off and I wanted to go diving.  We decided to play with the scooter, and she had some new gear to play with, so Troy Springs was a great place.  One thing that surprised me was that the catfish which used to enjoy hiding under the cavern zone when I came here several years ago were no longer there.  The cave is still pumping as usual, showing off as we look into it frustrated by the fact that it’s all too delicate to explore, with breakdown everywhere.  Steps have also been added, a nice addition for public access, but certainly takes away from the nature of the pristine spring that I was used to seeing.

Devil’s – To the Heinkle and then Hill400

Breathing Gas– 32% Backgas / 100% Deco
Max Depth– 106ft
Avg Depth– 85ft
Visibility– 150+ft
Water Temp– 72F
Dive Time:

Notes:
Met up with Jeff Marchand after he got off work and finally got to take the new Gavin Standard into a cave after spending several hours with it in open water.  We had decided to go somewhere that was very open, and the mainline section of Ginnie fit the bill, with the added bonus that we had already swam this entire area of cave, most of it multiple times, so we had a solid idea on how much gas is needed to swim out from that far back.  The first thing I noticed is how fast the cave comes at you on a scooter.  It’s VERY task loading keeping up with a buddy, the scooter and the line….and also enjoy the cave.  Getting through the lips on the throttle scared me, so I decided to swim it…WOW does the flow really catch a scooter in this area of the cave, and with the safety bottle on the other side of me, getting through the lips was no fun!  Once through the lips, we established communication again and got back on the throttle.  I found myself constantly on and off the throttle, as I’m paranoid of getting too high and hitting cave.  We made it to the Heinkle in about 27 minutes, and turned the dive there, not wanting to stretch gas for the first cave/dpv dive.  On exit, we stopped at Hill400 since we had built up reserves, recalculated our gas math, and tied in a spool.  The cruise down Hill400 went quickly, and we were at the p1000ft arrow before we knew it.  Since Whitney was waiting on the surface, we decided to turn here before deco got too long and left her bored out of her mind.  Deco was < 10 minutes, which was awesome seeing as how we had just covered 3700ft of Ginnie, a dive that would have required about 40 minutes had we been swimming!