Tom Falardeau
April 2nd, 2007, 08:55 PM
Today we headed for Little River, hoping to do two dives in the system and explore the low side tunnels JimC helpfully pointed out to me before we left Ottawa. Thinking that we would have the site to ourselves and other dive teams, we were stunned to see the place rapidly fill up with children and many apparently un- or under-employed adults. And here I thought Spring Break for the County was over after one week! I guess plenty of people have spare time on their hands in deepest darkest North Florida :shock:
A helpful gentleman from another dive team let us study his map of Little River, apparently one of the best, drawn up by Wes Skiles, but the side tunnels Jim described weren't on it.
We went into the system as team number three (could have been more, but our primary reel was the third one to tie into the gold line), in full sidemount regalia, including helmets, dropped our deco bottles and headed down to the main gallery at about 90ft depth. Once we saw the first Mud Tunnel jump, we started to keep an eye on the left side of the main gallery, for the unmarked jump to the Catacombs. Lo and behold, we found it, pretty much where Jim told us it would be. What followed was a fun twenty minutes or so going through low, silty passages paralleling the gold line. Just as I reached thirds on both my sidetanks, we found the jump back to the gold line. Turning the dive, we retraced our steps through the Catacombs back to our original jump.
As has become our habit, on the return journey to the surface in a flow system, we stopped to explore other likely side tunnels - one in the chimney where the main tunnel goes up abruptly and turns back on itself - and one just past the chimney at the 60ft depth mark. The latter proved to be another set of low, silty side tunnels, and having recalculated thirds, I headed in doing two jumps before turning the dive. The return to the cavern zone and the deco stop proved uneventful. Total dive time: 63 minutes.
However, upon exiting the cave, I was narrowly hit by a rock the size of my head tossed in by one of the charming little brats using the spring as a swimming hole (gotta wonder what kind of an IQ his parents have :wink: ), followed by a somewhat larger brat who just narrowly avoided slamming into me. That pretty much put paid to our plan to do two dives at Little River that day. Why can the local house apes not be in school, where they belong, this time of year????
By the time we got back to our truck, the parking lot was full of vehicles, none of them divers. I guess it was time to find another site. We almost flipped a coin for a return to explore some skanky side tunnel in Pea**** III or some playing around in Devil's. The latter won out when Marie decided she wanted lunch at GTO in Fort White - home of the best sandwich you've ever eaten.
We spent the afternoon amusing ourselves in Devil's by doing the Wormhole, which as we were told, was large enough for backmounters, although silty (I'm guessing backmounters need really good buoyancy control and finning skills to avoid silting it out). In sidemount, the tunnel was very comfy indeed. We popped out at the base of Hill 400, completing the circuit. A quick look into the July Springs tunnel, with a search for the end of the Fuzzy Bunny line (a very tight tunnel we've been told will be explored on our sidemount class/mentorship in November - think removing your tanks to get through :shock: ). During the return trip, we came on a Basic Cave class pulling their primary reel using backup lights. Being the ever helpful cave divers, we doused our own lights not to disturb the class - going up the Eye tunnel with no lights was fun. Total dive time: 71 minutes.
All in all, another good day. Tomorrow we'll go back to Little River in the morning before the local house apes show up for their "brain a diver" semi-finals. Harper Tunnel, here we come.
A helpful gentleman from another dive team let us study his map of Little River, apparently one of the best, drawn up by Wes Skiles, but the side tunnels Jim described weren't on it.
We went into the system as team number three (could have been more, but our primary reel was the third one to tie into the gold line), in full sidemount regalia, including helmets, dropped our deco bottles and headed down to the main gallery at about 90ft depth. Once we saw the first Mud Tunnel jump, we started to keep an eye on the left side of the main gallery, for the unmarked jump to the Catacombs. Lo and behold, we found it, pretty much where Jim told us it would be. What followed was a fun twenty minutes or so going through low, silty passages paralleling the gold line. Just as I reached thirds on both my sidetanks, we found the jump back to the gold line. Turning the dive, we retraced our steps through the Catacombs back to our original jump.
As has become our habit, on the return journey to the surface in a flow system, we stopped to explore other likely side tunnels - one in the chimney where the main tunnel goes up abruptly and turns back on itself - and one just past the chimney at the 60ft depth mark. The latter proved to be another set of low, silty side tunnels, and having recalculated thirds, I headed in doing two jumps before turning the dive. The return to the cavern zone and the deco stop proved uneventful. Total dive time: 63 minutes.
However, upon exiting the cave, I was narrowly hit by a rock the size of my head tossed in by one of the charming little brats using the spring as a swimming hole (gotta wonder what kind of an IQ his parents have :wink: ), followed by a somewhat larger brat who just narrowly avoided slamming into me. That pretty much put paid to our plan to do two dives at Little River that day. Why can the local house apes not be in school, where they belong, this time of year????
By the time we got back to our truck, the parking lot was full of vehicles, none of them divers. I guess it was time to find another site. We almost flipped a coin for a return to explore some skanky side tunnel in Pea**** III or some playing around in Devil's. The latter won out when Marie decided she wanted lunch at GTO in Fort White - home of the best sandwich you've ever eaten.
We spent the afternoon amusing ourselves in Devil's by doing the Wormhole, which as we were told, was large enough for backmounters, although silty (I'm guessing backmounters need really good buoyancy control and finning skills to avoid silting it out). In sidemount, the tunnel was very comfy indeed. We popped out at the base of Hill 400, completing the circuit. A quick look into the July Springs tunnel, with a search for the end of the Fuzzy Bunny line (a very tight tunnel we've been told will be explored on our sidemount class/mentorship in November - think removing your tanks to get through :shock: ). During the return trip, we came on a Basic Cave class pulling their primary reel using backup lights. Being the ever helpful cave divers, we doused our own lights not to disturb the class - going up the Eye tunnel with no lights was fun. Total dive time: 71 minutes.
All in all, another good day. Tomorrow we'll go back to Little River in the morning before the local house apes show up for their "brain a diver" semi-finals. Harper Tunnel, here we come.