Cave Country
North Central Florida is known as "Cave Country" because of the number of georgeous springs, rivers and lakes with cavern and cave systems. From my house I have probably fifteen or more sites within a ninety minute drive. Sweet.
Dive Logs
06/06/08
Dive one of the day. Plan was to go to the Siphon Tunnel taking Hill 400 to get there. I was going to lead. We would turn on 3rds or when we got to the point where we had turned last time. Only this time, I would be in front. I had swapped out the second stage on my primary regulator and the first and second stage on my second. I asked Gary to pay particular attention during the bubble check. Everything was good and we set off. Dropped our O2 bottles in the cavern of the Eye and first checking for lights of exiting divers we set off. The section to the main cave seemed easier than normal. Not sure why. I was a little ahead of Gary arriving in the main tunnel. I waited while he came out and gave a big "Ok" sign around the main line which he returned. With that I started down the tunnel. About three quarters of the way to the Lips I felt that my breathing was off. Maybe my pace was too fast. So I consciously tried to slow my pace a bit. Through the Lips and around to the Cornflakes the feeling had subsided but hadn't gone away. I decided to concentrate more on buoyancy, handhold or just the beauty of the cave. I felt better after not thinking about it. We progressed to the Double Lines jump, I tied in the reel and ran it down and under a rock on the floor to keep it out of the way of other divers and across to the line we would be following. I was expecting our jump to be the first we came to. We had discussed that there had been a single line arrow but that it may have been removed. I cam to a set of double arrows and was ready to tie in. Gary came up and waved me on. This was the jump to the double lines. Moving on down a couple hundred feet we came to the single line arrow. This area was kind of low and silty. I tied on to the arrow, turned and made my way across the cave to where I thought the Siphon line was tied in. Yep. There it was on the upper right. I tied in, turned and gave Gary the "Ok" and watched as he started across. I was bummed that I had indeed stirred up some silt but it was fairly negligible. We proceeded down the Siphon Tunnel. I tried to get a good idea of the level of flow that we would be swimming agianst on the way back. Always significant. I was several hundred pounds from my turn pressure when we made the jump. Gary and I are always very close and I assumed he was the near the same pressure. I hit my turn pressure just as I passed a line arrow that indicated 1600'. The tunnel was certainly closing in and taking on a different look. Here it was open enough to execute an easy turn. I helicoptered and gave Gary the turn signal. He was already doing the same. The exit was relaxed. Gary spied a line going off the Siphon Tunnel that we had not seen on this trip or any before. He peered down the tunnel and and pointed out the line to me. The arrow was red and white and the line was yellowed with age. Something to check out in the future. We picked up our reels and headed out. Deco was deco, some fourteen minutes of it. I was Ok in my 7 mil semi dry Polar wetsuit with merino wool lining. Gary on the other hand seemed kind of cold in his multiple layers of standard wetsuit. At least he had a pee valve.
The Light Killer Dive. - 06/06/08
Gary and I were again going to go through the Catacombs on the way in. Exiting the Catacombs we would take the main line to the Expressway, the Expressway to the Big Room, the Big Room to the Bone Line back to the main line. We'd pick up our reel and exit through the Catacombs. I like the Catacombs. It just seems interesting in there. It is fairly small tunnel and the walls are white which gives a good effect with the brightness of our lights and the reflection off the white cave. Starting the dive we took a different tunnel through the Catacombs, exploring some nooks and crannys along the way. There were a couple of what appeard to be swim throughs that I wanted to check on the way out. I found a hand hold on the cave wall and held on against the flow while Gary tied in to the main line. Proceeding with the dive plan we headed to the Expressway jump. The last time we executed this dive (May 16, 2008) Gary's light died at that point. We arrived at the Expressway, made a visual jump and headed to the big room. Mid way I noticed my light flicker ever so subtly. Less a flicker and more a change in color, from crisp blue to blue flecked with red then back. At first I thought there may have been debris falling in front of my light but that wasn't it. I'd have to keep an eye on it. It would be hard not to. Several minutes later more of the same. Only this time the light did not return to the full brightness I was accustomed to. At the Big Room my light was at about 75% or less of full brightness. By the time we hit the Bone Line it was completely dead. I deployed a backup and Gary waved me to the front of the line. The rest of the exit was unremarkable except that once again we exited the Catacombs with one of us on backup lights.
Incidentally, another team was exiting while we were doing the Mud Tunnel jump. One of the members was wearing just a shortie! I'm thinking to myself "Ten minutes for S drills, gear check and dive plan, Ten minutes to here minimum, ten minutes out...." Jeasus! I would be a popsicle!
The weekend before we were at Peacock Springs State Park up in Luraville. That was the Friday after Thanksgiving. My regular partner and I did about a ninety minute dive in Orange Grove, up the distance tunnel, followed by another ninety minute dive in Peacock II up to whatchamacallit sink. I'm starting to like this system more and more. Peacock II seemed almost cathedral like.
