Dive Log

Here is where I’ll log most all of my dives.

Ginnie Springs – Scooter to the White Room & Wonder Tunnel (yes, I’m that lazy)

James Garrett

Met with Jeff around 9pm after I got off work and had to fight Orlando traffic.  Once we got signed in it was off to the Devil’s pavilion to get geared up.  As soon as we got in the water Jeff’s UV26 had the prop spin off because the clutch had cracked.  Since we knew this dive was easy to do within overall 1/3rds, I just towed him to the Wonder Tunnel/White Room to save time and energy.  Took some video on this dive since I haven’t been doing that for the blog recently.

Swimming from the Bone Line to the White Room

Heading towards the White Room in Ginnie Springs from James Garrett on Vimeo.

Barrel Roll Practice-

Scootering fun near the park bench from James Garrett on Vimeo.

Manatee Springs State Park – p1900 beyond Friedmans Sink

James Garrett

Breathing Gas– 32% Backgas / 100% Deco
Max Depth–
Avg Depth–
Visibility– 25-30ft
Water Temp– 72F
Dive Time:

Notes:

Met up with Brian Richardson at Extreme Exposure in High Springs around 8am since he needed some Halcyon stuff, and then headed towards Cave Excursions East to get fills.  Talked with Rich about our dive plan, and was given the advice to just scooter through the buoyancy changes that we would encounter in this cave.

Upon arriving at Manatee Springs State Park, we were told by a park visitor that there’s now a courtesy cart that divers may use to carry their gear (it’s a long hike from the parking lot to Catfish Sink).  This is a REALLY nice upgrade since I had dove there last. With 2 stages, deco, and a scooter each, it would have taken several trips with the dolly.  The air was cool, which made the walks back and forth much easier than it typically is during the summer months.

Once in the water, I ran the primary, as you have to go a ways here before reaching gold line. Brian had offered before hand to “tidy up” the line behind me.  Since we had so much crap on us, and the flow really is bothersome at this site, teamwork is the best way to get a primary into this system.

The flow was up, and visibility was down.  This cave is so dark, with this poor of visibility I felt as if I were scootering and blindly following a line in hope that the cave would clear up somewhere and I could actually start to see something.  Because it was cloudy, we couldn’t even see light come through at Sue Sink or Friedmans.  About 1900ft beyond Friedmans, my 21w HID decided to fail!  I swapped to my Halcyon Scout and began the near 4000ft journey back home.  Having trouble keeping my eye on the line due to the particulate reflecting Brian’s light in my face, I had Brian go to his Scout as well, amazing how fast things escalate!

In the end, we exited via Catfish with an uneventful deco.  While packing up, we did get a pleasant surprise, 5 deer decided to visit us in the parking lot!

Devil’s – Hill 400

James Garrett

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

Notes:
After diving with Brian in the AM, I had a surface interval and then met Ryan and Sam to do a quick run down Hill400.  This was Sam’s first time off mainline Ginnie, so we covered the dive plan and were in the water.  Sam ran the primary, and had an interesting time due to the fact that the NACD conference visitors had left 5 primaries already in the system, which left very few good tie off spots.  The two of them would lead, and I would scooter along behind them, as I’m still trying to gain scooter hours.  I had a stage bottle that I would breathe, and reserved all of my back gas to ensure that I had enough gas to swim out sharing gas, since scootering out wasn’t an option with only 1 scooter between the 3 of us.

Ginnie Springs -- Devils Ear to Hill 400

Devil’s – To Mainland…or not….

James Garrett

Breathing Gas– 32% Backgas / 100% Deco
Max Depth– 101ft
Avg Depth– 85ft
Visibility– 150+ft
Water Temp– 72F
Dive Time:

Notes:
Met with Brian to do a dive to Mainland.  The plan was to double stage on the scooter ride there, dropping the first stage at stage bottle rock (about p1800), and then breathe the second stage all the way to Mainland.  From there we would use limited backgas to see whatever we could, and then head back.  Unfortunately I got a little ambitious, and jumped about 10ft too early into a low, silty, and probably better off side mount passage.  One thing I learned, make the OTHER guy lead in a siphon, a single errant fin kick blitzed the viz, and we were both left on the line for the exit. Once we returned to mainline, viz was about 10-15ft, but still enough to get on the scooters and try to speed up the exit.  Viz cleared around the Insulation Rooms, and by the time we were getting to the Maple Leaf, no evidence of our error was left (whew! I thought we were going to read about ourselves on CDF or TDS!).

Devil’s – To the Scraper

James Garrett

Breathing Gas– 32% Backgas / 100% Deco
Max Depth– 104ft
Avg Depth–
Visibility– 150+ft
Water Temp– 72F
Dive Time:

Notes:
Met with Jeff after he got off work at Ginnie and headed to the Devil’s area to gear up.  The plan was a simple scooter mainline dive here, nothing fancy.  We would scooter until it became too small, drop the scooters and start swimming.   We hit our turn pressure around the scraper, all in all a pretty uneventful dive.

Devil’s – To the Insulation Room

James Garrett

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

Notes:
Met up with AJ and Stacey late in the afternoon.  Stacey is quite frankly much better on a scooter than either of us are right now, so we had asked her to give us pointers, and guide us in the right direction to become more proficient on DPV’s.  Since she takes weekly water samples in the Insulation Rooms, we would tag along during this dive.  AJ and I lead during the dive so that Stacey could observe us.  Getting into Devil’s Ear just isn’t fun yet, I’m doing better, but still need work.  We made it to the Insulation Rooms, which was a new experience, as the jump line here is tied off to the ceiling, and scooters are great at floating as well as catching flow at the same time, so once again, as with any new thing in diving, very task loading.  While it’s not the easiest place to run a reel with a safety/stage, please don’t just throw your scooter or stage bottles in the clay where you jump off mainline, the damage is very evident from people doing that at this particular location. Anyways, back to my story….we got the scooters clipped off and headed down the passage, stopping for each of us to cookie the T and then following Stacey to the area where she takes her weekly samples.  On exit, AJ and I had decided to alternate towing each other, which Stacey said we did well.  However, we do need to work on OOA drills, as the additional task loading of the scooter made for a way to eventful drill.  Once again, deco was minimal (I’m starting to love the Gavin for that!).

Devil’s – Maple Leaf

James Garrett

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

James Garrett

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

James Garrett

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

James Garrett

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!