Cave Diving

Starting the day out on the river

James Garrett

After Phillip arrived at my parents house around 9am, we headed over to Amigo’s Dive Center and got our LP85’s filled.  With a heat index of over 100 degrees, gearing up wasn’t going to be any fun at all.  Makes me wish I lived up north this time of year!  After arriving at the Royal Springs boat ramp, I started inflating the boat and put it in the water.  After getting all our gear loaded, we headed approximately 1/4 mile downstream and found clear water off to our left, what we were looking for!

We pulled the boat over and were greeted by two brand new “No Trespassing” signs nailed to a log.  We geared up on the river side of those, and swam under the land bridge, then up the stream into the cave.  The cave is a series of 3 inline sinks, all with “Ginnie Clear” water.  This cave really is a gem, so close to everything, yet undamaged.  We swam about 1000ft with an average depth less than 15ft, and crossed 3 sinks along the way.

Little Hart Springs – Mainline Cave Dive

James Garrett

Today I met up with Jerry Murphy at Cave Excursions East and headed to Hart Springs. The cost is currently $2 for a guide, and $20 for the diver being guided.  You can find more information on the guide system and current access policies here.

The descent reminds you a lot of Devil’s Ear, except smaller and higher flow, but a water house style fissure crack all the same. Once at the bottom, the cave levels out just past 20ft deep and cuts towards the bridge in my photo I’ll post below. The tunnel is reasonably large, but not humongous. You can’t stretch your feet just yet, and it’s still ferocious flow that made me miss the comparatively weak flow experienced at Ginnie and JB. For about 400ft, it’s a challenge to find handholds that are solid enough that you won’t break the cave, so be careful. Fortunately having a guide who’s been there often, I could just follow his lead.

I’m starting a new paragraph because after 400ft the cave changes. You get beyond “Big Hart” and the flow tremendously decreases while the cave opens up. From here on out, you’re going to run a 70ft profile and the cave “squirrel tracks” become substantially less noticeable. One interesting aspect of Hart is that there’s several side tunnels that appear almost as big as the main line part of the tunnel. Most caves in the area have one large tunnel and smaller offshoots. Also, if you carefully watch the floor, you’ll notice lots and lots of extremely interesting formations just sitting on the ground in the clay.

Around 1000ft of penetration, you’ll encounter double arrows, which means you’re half way to “Black Lagoon”, which will remain a guided system. From here until you pass under the lagoon, you’ll notice the sides of the cave have lots of shelves and cracks in the ceiling that make you wonder how many small offshoots can one cave have?

About 200ft short of Black Lagoon, I hit my turn pressure, and we let the flow carry us some 1800ft back to the entrance, with a rare fin kick thrown in to steer our bodies. Opon grabbing our deco bottles, we were greeted with that annoying entrance again, but unlike Devil’s Ear, mother nature forgot to install a deco log at 20ft!

Wilson Springs – Almost a river cave…

James Garrett

After getting to bed late and then having to get up early, I drag myself out of bed, throw the gear in the car, and head to subway for a breakfast sandwich.  Kevin meets me there, and then we head over to the spring.  Kevin had rented a house near this place, and knew several land owners, so gaining access wasn’t as difficult as one would imagine.

A few weeks back, the surface visibility wasn’t stellar, and to be honest, it really hasn’t improved much since then, even with other low flow systems that are near the river (like Peacock Springs) now clearing.  Even with poor viz, we decided to get into the system and at least do a familiarization dive.

The line was still run out into open water, so no primary was needed, although we did bring a primary just in case any lines were in need of repair.  The first 400ft of this cave doesn’t have knotted line in it, however the lines after that are knotted.  Fortunately we didn’t come across any broken line, however the line was buried and had gone limp in several places, so we tied a knot to take up the slack, or tied off again when we could.

Our total dive time was under 1hr, with the majority of it spent at 100ft.  We got about 800-1000ft into the system I would guess, taking the right side of each T.  At the first T, the left side is smaller and shorter than the right, but they both meet up again at the second T, where we continued on into the cave.

Here’s a few videos, and then a gallery-
(we both have 21w HID’s in this one, for perspective)

Kevin Leading The Way from James Garrett on Vimeo.

Neat formation in some random spring in FL. from James Garrett on Vimeo.

**B***** Slough – 5/31/10

James Garrett

Went with Allen and Dr Craiger around Wakulla Springs Road and found this Gem on the roadside (ok, I didn’t find it, but I would get my throat cut if I posted the exact location heh).  This is a site where you have to park on the public right of way, and walk up the slough to the spring vent.  I would advise that you attach a weight to a string and throw it into the cave when you first get there, as the basin will get mucky and quickly turn to zero viz, which will cause you to spend 10-15 minutes just finding the cave entry.  This cave has to be the most beautiful system I’ve ever seen, as it’s protected by an alligator 90% of the time.

Twin Caves – 5/30/10

James Garrett

After an interesting dive at Hole in the Wall, we had all of our back gas left, so we decided to do a swim dive over at Twin Caves.  Unfortunately a few people on scooters had blitzed the viz in the subway tunnel, so we’d have to deal with <15ft of viz in some places until we could drop down to the right side of the T, where we had been told there was clear viz until the double arrows.  This is my least favorite dive on the Mill Pond due to how little the first 900ft of the cave change, but it’s still a neat little dive to do if you want to kill time.

Hole In The Wall – 5/30/10

James Garrett

Another early morning to Cave Adventurers, as this morning we had rented a boat.  We got there around 8am, got our stuff loaded, and then our buddy Allen met us there shortly after.  We planned to hit up all 3 Mill Pond caves, but Hole in the Wall is my favorite, so it would have to be first!

Phillip ran the reel ahead of time, as it would be a pain to deal with when we each had scooters.  Since Hole in the Wall is a no flow cave, the plan was to use 2 stages as travel gas, reserve back gas, and tow a scooter “just in case”.  Once I get more DPV experience, I’m sure I’ll not be that conservative, but for now more gas and more scooters are never a bad thing.  Scootering this cave is an experience that just cannot be described, you’re cruising through crystal clear water with huge dome ceilings that are as white as can be, with the exception of a few iron colored ceiling formations.  If you can’t make it to the Mill Pond, you owe it to yourself to at least purchase Liquid Productions Mill Pond Experience DVD.

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.