Florida Springs

Jackson Blue – 5/29/10

James Garrett

After our morning adventure, we went back to Cave Adventurers for tank fills and to check into Jackson Blue.  A group of Texas A&M cavern divers were there packing up, but due to the rain, the park was fairly empty, a pleasant surprise!  We each placed our stage bottle, deco bottle, and scooter in the water and then proceeded to gear up.  Our plan was to take mainline past Court’s Squeeze, Hall of the Mountain King, Mystery Shaft, and then the Sweet Passage.  We turned around p3200ft at the 3rd “T”.

Click here for a map overlay of our dive.

Bozel Spring – 5/29/10

James Garrett

After waking up early the morning after our 5 hour drive from Orlando, we arrived at Cave Adventurers around 8am to get tank fills.  We were going to meet Matt Bull and Kevin Carlisle at Florida Caverns State Park since they only have 6 canoes, and we wanted to ensure we could get one with it being memorial day weekend.  We arrived at the park, where it’s $5 per vehicle to enter, and $15 for 1/2 day canoe rental.  The spring is located on your left after a little over 1 mile of upriver paddling, which was a semi difficult canoe trip compared to what I’ve experienced on the Wekiva and Ichetucknee Rivers.

Upon arriving at the spring, Matt showed us that we can enter at the main spring, swim to a karst window, surface in a pool, and then swim over about 50ft to an easy back mount entry to avoid beating the crap out of the cave and trespassing.  Tips like this are why it’s always a good idea to go with someone local if you can manage it.  We swam to just about the second T before turning the dive  to avoid having  much deco since we were on back gas (limited space in the canoe).  I’ve attached the dive profile to the gallery just for reference.  This dive is best done with 21/35 or 25/25 to limit o2 exposure and narcosis, as it reaches depths of 120ft quickly.  The cave has incredible white walls which have been preserved by the long canoe trip that it takes to access the cave and relatively few divers who come there.  I was told that the white walls are due to the fact that this spring almost never floods, which was good to know for when everything else is flooded.  Another nice feature of this cave is it’s large size.  After a restricted entry way, the cave seems to open up, and stay big enough for an easy back mount trip (larger than most of Peacock) at least until the second T, and I hear it keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Photos courtesy of Matt Bull.

Little River…Wakulla award at last…

James Garrett

Well, those of you that know me, know that I absolutely hate Little River.  About once a year, someone fools me into thinking maybe another dive will make it better…It never does.  Today was no exception.  The Orlando Magic played at 5pm, so we were in a hurry to get back to watch the game, and our cave scouting earlier in the day fell through.  We swam just beyond the FL room to about p1200ft.  My drysuit had a huge flood, so it’s going to Steve Gambles place on the way out of town tomorrow.  The one really cool thing about this dive is that it marks my 100th hour underwater since full cave, so I’m up to receive my Wakulla award!

Breathing Gas– 32% Backgas / 100% Deco
Max Depth– 108ft
Avg Depth– 100ft
Visibility– 20ft or so..
Water Temp– 72F
Dive Time: 63min

Devil’s – River Intrusion and Insulation Rooms

James Garrett

Met with Stacey after I got out of church to get a few photos for her graduate school presentation.  She has been doing research measuring pollutants in the Devil’s system for over 3 years, and is finally getting ready to present it!  The dive plan was to scooter to the insulation rooms, grab a few photos, then scooter back to the river intrusion rooms, take photos, and then exit.

Peacock Springs – Watersource Tunnel

James Garrett

Today Stacey and I went to the Watersource tunnel in Peacock Springs since it was just recently reopened due to flooding.  I had assumed that this would provide clear water, however I didn’t think about the fact that this tunnel is almost always nasty, and was even worse after the flooding!

Breathing Gas– 32% Backgas
Max Depth–
Avg Depth–
Visibility– 20ft Peanut Tunnel, 40ft Watersource tunnel
Water Temp– 68F
Dive Time: 71min

Devils – Sweet Surprise

James Garrett

Breathing Gas– 32% Backgas / 100% Deco
Max Depth– 104ft
Avg Depth– 85ft
Visibility– 75ft
Water Temp– 72F
Dive Time: 72min

Notes:
Met up with Stacey at Cave Excursions East to get fills and then headed off to Ginnie to do a quick dive before the super bowl.  Our original plan was to hit mainland, but another team was already in there, so we cut it back a bit and just went to Sweet Surprise.  According to Forrest Wilson here, Sweet Surprise got it’s name because Dale Sweet discovered it, even after it had been missed by other explorers.

To get there, simply scooter in on a stage until about p2100 and then look for a tunnel that looks like it “goes”.  The jump line is cut pretty far back here.  We made it back to the first T, which is the turtle tunnel and takes you to Mainland.  Due to recent rains and flooding, viability was poor for the Devils system.

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.