Meritts Mill Pond

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- Horseshoe Circuit

James Garrett

Dive Time– 68 Minutes.
In Water– 2:25pm
Out Water– 3:33pm
Breathing Gas– 32%
Max Depth– 90ft
Visibility– 150ft+
Water Temp– 68(F.)

Notes:
Training dive for NACD Apprentice with Jeff Bauer.  Did the simple horseshoe circuit. Installed the jump reel on the close side first, and then went further on the gold line until the far side, when we tied in, and made the circuit back to the gold line.  Pulled the reel, and went back up the gold line, just far enough to pull the other jump reel.  Jeff commented that I had a fin slip and stir up the bottom.  He also killed my light, and had me switch from my primary to a backup.  I forgot to swap position from the back of the team to the middle.  Fortunatly Ryan and Brian were on top of it, and both noticed my light dissapear, so we had excellent team communication.  After turning the dive, we did a lost line drill in the breakdown room (I’ll post video of that later).