Neil
February 3rd, 2008, 11:19 AM
I went to Florida cave country for a week and stayed in High Springs. There was a good deal on direct airfare Ottawa to Orlando for $313 so I took advantage of that and rented a Jeep. The Jeep liberty was really nice to drive especially on the sand/dirt roads in cave country, but it used a lot of gas. I stayed at the Cadillac Motel and I think they've cleaned it up a bit, because the room didn't smell like mildew and seemed very clean, and even if the room looked a bit in disrepair, everything worked fine.
I rented gear at Amigos dive shop near Fort White. They let you fill your own tanks if you want, which is nice, and they rent sidemount gear, and the people there are friendly.
http://thescubaforum.com/photoplog/images/9/1_truck.jpg
My goal was to see the sidemount tunnels near the entrances to Ginnie Springs, Little River and Telford Springs, and I got to do all that while limiting penetration to 1/6 of LP85's. I did 13 dives and saw new stuff on each dive.
The land around Telford has no tresspassing signs now, so you have to get in from the boat ramp which is about 300m down the Suwannee River from the spring. Supposedly there could be alligators in the water, but I wasn't eaten by any, but it was kind of scary and cold to wade those 300ft. There are fallen trees in the water which make it difficult to wade, and in a few spots you have to swim against the current. I got to see the side tunnels between the spring and the 2 sinks. And there's a spot about 400ft past the second sink where there is a tall vertical crevices, and it forms a Y shape, with the gold line going along two sections of the Y. I investigated the other leg of the Y which was pretty tight, and apparently no one goes in there often, because dirt rained down pretty hard from the ceiling and silted everything out. Good thing I was the only one in the cave that day :D Im not sure if it keeps going past the end of the crevice or not...
At Little river there are all sorts of lined sidemount tunnels before the chimney and I got to see those. Also there are some tunnels that start to the right of the gold line after you go past the first jump to the mud tunnel. I got to see all those lines, which was the area that made me want to learn sidemount in the first place. That was challenging but not so tight as to be scary. Then up near the entrance, on the left as you go in, about 20ft deep there is an unlined sidemount tunnel... it's quite small and impossible to turn around in without silting everything up. That was kind of scary, being in zero vis for a while in a tunnel that small.
At Ginnie Springs I got to see the lips bypass and keyhole bypass. The flow there is a real pain, just from 3 dives in one day there, I ended up with sore fingers for the rest of the trip. Also its not that challenging since there is sand everywhere instead of silt. You don't really have to be careful to avoid silting... just to avoid hitting your head when swimming along the ceiling to avoid flow.
It was fun but after spending 6 months diving sidemount to prepare for that, I'm not sure what to do next. The sidemount tunnels are basically starting to look all the same. And I saw some more advanced sidemount tunnels that basically require digging you way through sand or silt, and I'm not interested in doing that. Maybe I'll return to backmount now, and save SM for the odd place that you can't backmount to. I'm not sure. :confused:
I rented gear at Amigos dive shop near Fort White. They let you fill your own tanks if you want, which is nice, and they rent sidemount gear, and the people there are friendly.
http://thescubaforum.com/photoplog/images/9/1_truck.jpg
My goal was to see the sidemount tunnels near the entrances to Ginnie Springs, Little River and Telford Springs, and I got to do all that while limiting penetration to 1/6 of LP85's. I did 13 dives and saw new stuff on each dive.
The land around Telford has no tresspassing signs now, so you have to get in from the boat ramp which is about 300m down the Suwannee River from the spring. Supposedly there could be alligators in the water, but I wasn't eaten by any, but it was kind of scary and cold to wade those 300ft. There are fallen trees in the water which make it difficult to wade, and in a few spots you have to swim against the current. I got to see the side tunnels between the spring and the 2 sinks. And there's a spot about 400ft past the second sink where there is a tall vertical crevices, and it forms a Y shape, with the gold line going along two sections of the Y. I investigated the other leg of the Y which was pretty tight, and apparently no one goes in there often, because dirt rained down pretty hard from the ceiling and silted everything out. Good thing I was the only one in the cave that day :D Im not sure if it keeps going past the end of the crevice or not...
At Little river there are all sorts of lined sidemount tunnels before the chimney and I got to see those. Also there are some tunnels that start to the right of the gold line after you go past the first jump to the mud tunnel. I got to see all those lines, which was the area that made me want to learn sidemount in the first place. That was challenging but not so tight as to be scary. Then up near the entrance, on the left as you go in, about 20ft deep there is an unlined sidemount tunnel... it's quite small and impossible to turn around in without silting everything up. That was kind of scary, being in zero vis for a while in a tunnel that small.
At Ginnie Springs I got to see the lips bypass and keyhole bypass. The flow there is a real pain, just from 3 dives in one day there, I ended up with sore fingers for the rest of the trip. Also its not that challenging since there is sand everywhere instead of silt. You don't really have to be careful to avoid silting... just to avoid hitting your head when swimming along the ceiling to avoid flow.
It was fun but after spending 6 months diving sidemount to prepare for that, I'm not sure what to do next. The sidemount tunnels are basically starting to look all the same. And I saw some more advanced sidemount tunnels that basically require digging you way through sand or silt, and I'm not interested in doing that. Maybe I'll return to backmount now, and save SM for the odd place that you can't backmount to. I'm not sure. :confused: