This happened on the 9th of July, 2006:
We swam up the resurgence from the beach and poked around there for a few minutes until I found what I thought was it. I found a little cave entrance with no line in it. Unfortunately it squeezed down to tight for my buddy to move his backmount though and I only went 10-20 feet further. Then it got a bit to tight and silty for my first Ontario cave dive so I turned and went back out. I suspect it would keep pinching down and wall out shortly. I only ran about 50 feet of line out in that one.
We backed out, surfaced and talked and dropped down and found the perm line. We did a nice conservative dive about 400 feet and turned it. Didn't want to go to far because we had no idea what to expect heading back. Dark tanic water and silt, but the HIDs did a good job and we saw lots of nice green and white limestone, cracks and tight bedding planes running off everywhere. Not much percolation and we managed to stay out of the mud for the most part. 11 foot max for 32 minutes. We were moving slow.. lots to see.
After a brief lunch interlude we went back in. We went about 500-600 feet and the cave slanted of to the side into a bedding plane that pinched down to tight for by buddy. I went on a bit further. 12 feet for 38 minutes.
At this point I knew I was in love and by the shit eating grin on my buddies face I knew he was done for. We started down a side passage from the resurgence as a syphon dive but it got too small for my buddy very quickly. He backed out and I went about 100 feet passed the sidemount restriction. That is some sexy cave in there. Vis opened right up to about 20 feet and due to the shape of the tunnel it was easy to keep the silt down to nothing after the sidemount squeeze.
Monday 11 February 2013
Canadian Cave Diving at its Finest
My scheduling was erratic with family and kid commitments. BUT I did stick my my stuff in the car since I was going to be at my cottage Lake (~30 minutes from the cave) most of the weekend.
So at the crack of dawn I snuk off while everyone was in bed. I gear up using a 3mm wetsuit this time, as with river temperatures breaking 85F the water is just too warm to pass up the opportunity to dive in a nice light wetsuit.
First dive of the day, find out where side siphon comes out. So, in I head and notice right away my trim is a bit hosed in the 3mm. Nothing I can't deal with, but I'll have to shuffle some stuff around next time. I pop though the restriction passed the pile of branches and the line turns from 1/2inch poly to #24 cave line. The tunnel opens right up and pow, I'm in great vis and cruzing down the cave. 100 feet or so of an absolutely fantastic vertical crack the line dips down under a ledge heading right a bit. I drop down under the line and assume sidemount positioning for the coming bedding plane. This is where the line is run along the cave roof and you swim directly under it. The vis opens up and I wonder whats going on. I start to see some blue in the water as my HID slices down the passage. Then I feel it - there is a spring venting ice cold water into the cave. BRRRRR thats cold. I can see about 40 feet up the bedding plane angles upward into a black wall of tanic river water.
Up and down, plunging into the freezing spring and back into the warm tanic I continue a few hundred feet and the line suddenly goes straight to 8 feet up and doubles back on it self then back down. Crossing from one bedding plane to another. Shortly after it does this again, but going down this time. Crossing back into the original bedding plane and shifting directing north into the river. The cave then opens up into a backmountable passage for a few hundred feet in a vertical crack. The line dives down under a ledge and shifting sideways. Doing belly crawl in the mud with my helmet knocking against the roof every time I look up. Thats when it happened - flicker once.. blackness.
Yep, primary light gone. Nothing, nada, zero light in a bell crawl restriction. Hand on the line my first thought is that I'm probably going to have to replace a $150 bulb or ballast. Second thought is I should get some light. To bad I can't reach my backup lights. Ok, self now what? Well, Jim - lets get the fuck out of dodge. Behind you is 700-800 feet of cave, about 1/2 silted out. In fount of you is about 100-150 feet of unknown to the exit you've never proofed. Your have enough gas to crawl around down here for about 3 hours. But.. you still can't see, you can't turn around and you can't reach your backups.
Well, out come the touch eyeballs. Feels like it opens up a bit.. thats good. So I slither though the mushy bottom fully understanding just how fragile that 10 year old #24 cave line is. Then the dull, faint beem of my trusty - never let me down - Tec 40 slices a couple of inches though the silty tanic gloom. Descition time, lots of gas - lets go for it. 5 minutes later, most of it 24-18inch bedding plane the sweet red glow of the exit materializes in the darkness. I push a few twigs out of the road, grind my way out of the exit and the bright sun is beating down on my head.
So at the crack of dawn I snuk off while everyone was in bed. I gear up using a 3mm wetsuit this time, as with river temperatures breaking 85F the water is just too warm to pass up the opportunity to dive in a nice light wetsuit.
First dive of the day, find out where side siphon comes out. So, in I head and notice right away my trim is a bit hosed in the 3mm. Nothing I can't deal with, but I'll have to shuffle some stuff around next time. I pop though the restriction passed the pile of branches and the line turns from 1/2inch poly to #24 cave line. The tunnel opens right up and pow, I'm in great vis and cruzing down the cave. 100 feet or so of an absolutely fantastic vertical crack the line dips down under a ledge heading right a bit. I drop down under the line and assume sidemount positioning for the coming bedding plane. This is where the line is run along the cave roof and you swim directly under it. The vis opens up and I wonder whats going on. I start to see some blue in the water as my HID slices down the passage. Then I feel it - there is a spring venting ice cold water into the cave. BRRRRR thats cold. I can see about 40 feet up the bedding plane angles upward into a black wall of tanic river water.
Up and down, plunging into the freezing spring and back into the warm tanic I continue a few hundred feet and the line suddenly goes straight to 8 feet up and doubles back on it self then back down. Crossing from one bedding plane to another. Shortly after it does this again, but going down this time. Crossing back into the original bedding plane and shifting directing north into the river. The cave then opens up into a backmountable passage for a few hundred feet in a vertical crack. The line dives down under a ledge and shifting sideways. Doing belly crawl in the mud with my helmet knocking against the roof every time I look up. Thats when it happened - flicker once.. blackness.
Yep, primary light gone. Nothing, nada, zero light in a bell crawl restriction. Hand on the line my first thought is that I'm probably going to have to replace a $150 bulb or ballast. Second thought is I should get some light. To bad I can't reach my backup lights. Ok, self now what? Well, Jim - lets get the fuck out of dodge. Behind you is 700-800 feet of cave, about 1/2 silted out. In fount of you is about 100-150 feet of unknown to the exit you've never proofed. Your have enough gas to crawl around down here for about 3 hours. But.. you still can't see, you can't turn around and you can't reach your backups.
Well, out come the touch eyeballs. Feels like it opens up a bit.. thats good. So I slither though the mushy bottom fully understanding just how fragile that 10 year old #24 cave line is. Then the dull, faint beem of my trusty - never let me down - Tec 40 slices a couple of inches though the silty tanic gloom. Descition time, lots of gas - lets go for it. 5 minutes later, most of it 24-18inch bedding plane the sweet red glow of the exit materializes in the darkness. I push a few twigs out of the road, grind my way out of the exit and the bright sun is beating down on my head.
Clothespin Chronicals - The First
An apt and stern warning greets the unprepared as I pass out of the daylight zone, about 10 feet inside the cave. Having claimed the one and only cave diving death in Canada to date the sign is a good addition, despite the remoteness of the site. The sign should be amended beyond this simple warning, as even my C-Card collection in my wallet sitting in the glove box of the silver Ford Escort parked a few hundred feet away is not adequate preparation to dive here. Reflecting on the warning as I took the shot brought that one home. The only real way to prepare for this cave is to dive it, very conservatively with an open mind to new techniques and an ability to think your way out of problems. Hope I have those!
I leisurely swim up the first sump passed the concrete block demarking an almost 90 degree turn to the right I find my alterations to my sidemount 130's seem to be working. My frog kick is unrestricted and I am only a touch head heavy. Unfortunately my 'dillo is struggling to keep me neutral with the 3800 psi fill in the wetsuit. I'll have to ditch the jet fins *sob* next time and try some lighter fins. Oh well, on with the dive.
Right at the first T, I drop one of my 4 clothespins on the oversized line. I prefer cookies, but they will not fit on the line. Contemplating drilling some custom ones for the job the logistics of carrying 6 different sized cookies for a cave like seems overkill when a simple clothespin does the trick. a few minutes pass and I stop to marvel at some knobs of what I suspect is dolomite covered in freshwater sponge and geogerthite (sp?)
A few more minutes of nice cave and a red glow tells me I am nearing the first karst window. Woah, pay attention Jim, that is a T there you almost swam over. Dropping another clothespin to mark my exit I pop up in the window. Nice weed and stick choked pond of river water. Back down I go, locating my clothespin and I take the line around to the other side of the window, where it T's again. Fortunately a cookie fits on this line, so I drop that instead of yet another of my now seemingly short supply of pins.
Off I go into a bedding plane that has a very nice rock bottom. No silt! yay! This might be tight on backmount.. but it would be close. You'd definatly have to move carefully though here so you don't wreck the place. A few minutes later I run into... yet another T
Yes, its over exposed.. you try taking shots in here with just an internal flash which penetrates about 12 inches!
So, another clothespin later I am headed off to the right. The cave goes and stays big at about 4 feet high as a second bedding plane intersects this one. This is a neat feature as the form a table in the middle of the cave which you can go on, under or beside. Of course the line (put in by sidemounters) runs under the table of rock for about 30 feet which would form a massive line trap for anyone on backmounts. Sure enough right around the corner is yet another T. One end leads up into the red haze of a karst window and the other heads right toward the calling darkness. Dropping my last pin on the T I head into the darkness.
And bump right into an oversized metal line arrow pointing to the window. Neat. About 30 feet further I find a double arrow. Wow a jump. Thats a first. :) I tried to take a picture of this fascinating item but since they were more than 4 inches apart I couldn't get both into the picture and have my flash hit them with enough light to get more than a vague blur. Giving up on this I keep going. I didn't need a pin, which is good since I didn't have any left. Suddenly the floor disappears as a second tunnel comes up from the depths creating a very nice spot in which I spent a few minutes floating around. Something to check out later. Continuing on the cave gets big.
Like drive a bus down it big.
Like 60 feet wide big.
Like all I can see is a line and blackness in every direction big.
Then I hit another T. Well, time to turn it.. I need more clothespins!
Systems check at this time. 2700 in the left can, 2900 in the right can. Close enough to thirds for a nice leisurely run out with a few peeks down side passages. Run time 77 minutes, max depth 11 feet.
On the way out, I run a reel out in the drive-a-bus-down-it passage and try to find some walls to look at. Takes some time, but the whole thing is a lens shaped tunnel, pinching down on the sides and big in the middle. I also stuck a spool in at the jump to locate it. After a few minutes of searching its a silty little rat hole sidemount tunnel. I didn't even bother hooking into the line because just looking at it sideways turned the whole drive=-a-bus-down-it passage into a silty cloud. Yes, I blew out a 30 foot wide, 20 foot tall passage in under a 1/4 of a second by looking at this one. I spool up in zero vis, pull off my stuff and head out. I have a few inches of vis back when I hit the window and T.
The exit out is uneventful but fantastic.
128 minutes, 11 foot max depth.
3600 Feet
Thats how many linear feet away from my entrance to the cave I was last night. 3600 feet, give or take a hundred. Thats a long swim, even at 10 feet depth. Unfortunately my camera decided to go on the fritz so I got zero shots this time around.
The day started with a call to my buddy who complained about having to teach some numpty class. In one sentence he vindicated my complete abortion from "going pro". Humm cave diving or teaching a dry nitrox class? Poor guy. Oh well, not like I have never gone solo. I also made enquiries with my other cave buddies but had no success. Seems everyone is to busy to go cave diving... ether that or I am so far gone to the bad dark side that no one will dive with me anymore. :)
Anyway, stuff goes in car, car goes to cave with a quick stop at the Landowner's father in law's place just down the road to say "Hi". We chatted for a bit and then I tossed the bottles in the water, threw on my 3mm wetsuit and jumped in. A few couple of minutes of lazy kicking down the run and I am in my warm, dark happy place zipping into the darkness.
A quick stop at the warning sign to brush off the small amount of newly accumulated dirt, crud and debris I notice a rather large stick drifting passed. In fact, attached to that stick is a rather small tree. Yes, a tree, small.. but a tree. I guess I never mentioned the tree at sink #2 bypass. Well, I will.. since I am going by it. Well, about 300 feet down stream from Sink #2 is a tree. And I am not talking no small tree, I am talking about one big mofo tree. This thing would be worth over a grand on the black market since I believe its oak. But lets be honest, who has ever heard of a TREE cave diving! It sure as shit didn't grow there, or get put there. I don't know how it negotiated the tight spots, but there it is. Wedged into the cave a few hundred feet from where it went in.
I bet it tried to do a syphon dive from Sink #2 and got stuck.
Which brings me to Zip. Zip is a small mouth bass. Zip used to live in Sink #2. Zip was a happy fish. Zip decided he wanted to explore the world and went cave diving with me. I first notices zip a few feet passed Sink #2 when he shot out from beside me, brushed my hand, attacked and ate some innocent transparent/white troglodyte. He darted off again out of view and I thought nothing more of him. Then a minute or three later while I am in Sink #3 bypass there he is again. This time I accidentally hit him with my hand. See, Zip the Smallmouth was my new buddy.
He followed be all the way to Sink #7. Darting in and out of my light to eat some tasty morsel. Mostly he hung out under, beside, above.. you get the picture. Basically he had no awareness and a complete disregard for good team diving skills and was just about the worst, yet most interesting buddy I have ever dove with.
So, back to the dive. I throw a pin down on the line and head into the drive-a-buss-down-=it cave after Sink #3 bypass T's into the mainline. Now I am more comfortable in the cave I am off the line more and see some more of the cave. Various crevices and crannies I missed earlier. A short swim later I take a left at the T where I ran out of clothespins during the Clothespin Chronicles. The cave quickly goes cool, pinching down into a nice bed of silt then opening up into a diagonal bedding plane turned room. It does this again and again, then diving right and crossing to a new set of slanting connected bedding planes. Hundreds of feet of this, opening up and ducking down makes for some spectacular cave as you pass under the tinny hole that is Sink #6 and head toward Sink #7 where I turn after a long 70 minute swim. Still well above thirds on double 100's after 3600 feet of penetration. This cave is BIG.
Let me repeat that.. This cave is HUGE.
Edit: I forgot the stats: 107 minutes, 13 foot max depth.
Ok, so I got one picture in.. its an awful self portrait, but here it is. It should give the DIRites a nice conniption... but at least I have my helmet on for when the bus rides over me.
The day started with a call to my buddy who complained about having to teach some numpty class. In one sentence he vindicated my complete abortion from "going pro". Humm cave diving or teaching a dry nitrox class? Poor guy. Oh well, not like I have never gone solo. I also made enquiries with my other cave buddies but had no success. Seems everyone is to busy to go cave diving... ether that or I am so far gone to the bad dark side that no one will dive with me anymore. :)
Anyway, stuff goes in car, car goes to cave with a quick stop at the Landowner's father in law's place just down the road to say "Hi". We chatted for a bit and then I tossed the bottles in the water, threw on my 3mm wetsuit and jumped in. A few couple of minutes of lazy kicking down the run and I am in my warm, dark happy place zipping into the darkness.
A quick stop at the warning sign to brush off the small amount of newly accumulated dirt, crud and debris I notice a rather large stick drifting passed. In fact, attached to that stick is a rather small tree. Yes, a tree, small.. but a tree. I guess I never mentioned the tree at sink #2 bypass. Well, I will.. since I am going by it. Well, about 300 feet down stream from Sink #2 is a tree. And I am not talking no small tree, I am talking about one big mofo tree. This thing would be worth over a grand on the black market since I believe its oak. But lets be honest, who has ever heard of a TREE cave diving! It sure as shit didn't grow there, or get put there. I don't know how it negotiated the tight spots, but there it is. Wedged into the cave a few hundred feet from where it went in.
I bet it tried to do a syphon dive from Sink #2 and got stuck.
Which brings me to Zip. Zip is a small mouth bass. Zip used to live in Sink #2. Zip was a happy fish. Zip decided he wanted to explore the world and went cave diving with me. I first notices zip a few feet passed Sink #2 when he shot out from beside me, brushed my hand, attacked and ate some innocent transparent/white troglodyte. He darted off again out of view and I thought nothing more of him. Then a minute or three later while I am in Sink #3 bypass there he is again. This time I accidentally hit him with my hand. See, Zip the Smallmouth was my new buddy.
He followed be all the way to Sink #7. Darting in and out of my light to eat some tasty morsel. Mostly he hung out under, beside, above.. you get the picture. Basically he had no awareness and a complete disregard for good team diving skills and was just about the worst, yet most interesting buddy I have ever dove with.
So, back to the dive. I throw a pin down on the line and head into the drive-a-buss-down-=it cave after Sink #3 bypass T's into the mainline. Now I am more comfortable in the cave I am off the line more and see some more of the cave. Various crevices and crannies I missed earlier. A short swim later I take a left at the T where I ran out of clothespins during the Clothespin Chronicles. The cave quickly goes cool, pinching down into a nice bed of silt then opening up into a diagonal bedding plane turned room. It does this again and again, then diving right and crossing to a new set of slanting connected bedding planes. Hundreds of feet of this, opening up and ducking down makes for some spectacular cave as you pass under the tinny hole that is Sink #6 and head toward Sink #7 where I turn after a long 70 minute swim. Still well above thirds on double 100's after 3600 feet of penetration. This cave is BIG.
Let me repeat that.. This cave is HUGE.
Edit: I forgot the stats: 107 minutes, 13 foot max depth.
Ok, so I got one picture in.. its an awful self portrait, but here it is. It should give the DIRites a nice conniption... but at least I have my helmet on for when the bus rides over me.
Break in the Line
I woke up today dancing.
I was gone cave diving today.. and it had been far to long. But today was extra special because not only was I cave diving, but I was going to share the cave with some friends and cave divers. Punctual ones at that, as the door bell rang as almost precisely 9am.
Gear loaded in the truck, wife and child kissed and we were off. Excitement was thick in the cab of the truck as we buzzed down the highway listening to oldies on the satalite radio. I'm going to have to do something about the music selection next time, but honestly it was just nice to have some company for a change. We chattered about the cave over the muzzzaaacc anyway, so my ears didn't suffer to much torture.
So we arrive and I give the site briefing twice. Yes, twice, apparently one of the soon to be cave diving people decided making water was more important! The nerve - but I'll let it slide this time. We gear up and I warn them a few more times about potential line traps. I gloat a bit more about sidemounting and ask them to dive with a constant awareness for conservation. The cave is full of decoration and backmount gets tight in places. They do there buddy checks, I do a head to toe and were are off swimming down the resurgence.
Latest modifications to "the rig" are working perfectly. Trim is bang on, swimming is easy.. love'n it. Just in time to notice that the water temperature has dropped off 10 degrees. Needless to say, my 3mm isn't quite adequate for a 2+hour run time in 71F water. But I am hear, and my 7mm and dry suit are in my garage at home.. so off we go.
I get my two newbs onto the line and start in trying not to get to far in fount of them. As good little team divers, they attempt to maintain contact while moving though the cave. I warned them that this will be difficult and they find it such, but make steady progress. Looken good for there first one in Canada. Onward we go!
I pause at Sink #2 for them. Our planned departure point as it gets tight and small and fragile passed #2. For there first dive, this should be far enough. We all trade OK's and give them a jaunty salute and head deeper. Planned route is same as last time, except further and with a "working" camera. Not wasting much time on the way in I fly though the big cave passed Sink #3 and take a left at the T into the stunning ups, downs, lefts and right and duck unders and duck overs.
Easy breath, hold it, press, hold, wait, wait, wait, fump, flash, exhale. Next. Click click click, I have 1gb card, I'm going to use it! I am still in complete awe of this cave. It changes topology a number of times and is pristine in some many ways. Stratified clay and silt banks which I am not going near. Sponge covered walls and chert. Fragile lime stone flakes all over the floor. Its untouched and I want to leave it that way.
Sponge covered knob of chert.
Sponge covered shelf along the wall.
Cave running down into a sidemount restriction.
Wall heading into a duck under.
Down into another sidemount restriction.
About 600 feet after my last dive the line turns into a big ball of spaghetti with a nice frayed end. 4000 feet in there is a break in the line. Oh well, I still have plenty of gas so next time around I'm just going to have to fix it!
There is this neat thing that happens occasionally when your diving in a system with other people. You see, you run into them. I was swimming back toward Sink #2 and I saw a red glow in the distance. Much to close to be the sink, then another red glow appears. Looks like someone went exploring! I slide off the line into the tighter side of the passage and wave to them as I slide passed, moving quickly now. Almost shivering from the stupid 3mm.
P.S. Both of the divers new to this system are now investigating sidemount and becoming able to independently handle failures.
I was gone cave diving today.. and it had been far to long. But today was extra special because not only was I cave diving, but I was going to share the cave with some friends and cave divers. Punctual ones at that, as the door bell rang as almost precisely 9am.
Gear loaded in the truck, wife and child kissed and we were off. Excitement was thick in the cab of the truck as we buzzed down the highway listening to oldies on the satalite radio. I'm going to have to do something about the music selection next time, but honestly it was just nice to have some company for a change. We chattered about the cave over the muzzzaaacc anyway, so my ears didn't suffer to much torture.
So we arrive and I give the site briefing twice. Yes, twice, apparently one of the soon to be cave diving people decided making water was more important! The nerve - but I'll let it slide this time. We gear up and I warn them a few more times about potential line traps. I gloat a bit more about sidemounting and ask them to dive with a constant awareness for conservation. The cave is full of decoration and backmount gets tight in places. They do there buddy checks, I do a head to toe and were are off swimming down the resurgence.
Latest modifications to "the rig" are working perfectly. Trim is bang on, swimming is easy.. love'n it. Just in time to notice that the water temperature has dropped off 10 degrees. Needless to say, my 3mm isn't quite adequate for a 2+hour run time in 71F water. But I am hear, and my 7mm and dry suit are in my garage at home.. so off we go.
I get my two newbs onto the line and start in trying not to get to far in fount of them. As good little team divers, they attempt to maintain contact while moving though the cave. I warned them that this will be difficult and they find it such, but make steady progress. Looken good for there first one in Canada. Onward we go!
I pause at Sink #2 for them. Our planned departure point as it gets tight and small and fragile passed #2. For there first dive, this should be far enough. We all trade OK's and give them a jaunty salute and head deeper. Planned route is same as last time, except further and with a "working" camera. Not wasting much time on the way in I fly though the big cave passed Sink #3 and take a left at the T into the stunning ups, downs, lefts and right and duck unders and duck overs.
Easy breath, hold it, press, hold, wait, wait, wait, fump, flash, exhale. Next. Click click click, I have 1gb card, I'm going to use it! I am still in complete awe of this cave. It changes topology a number of times and is pristine in some many ways. Stratified clay and silt banks which I am not going near. Sponge covered walls and chert. Fragile lime stone flakes all over the floor. Its untouched and I want to leave it that way.
Sponge covered knob of chert.
Sponge covered shelf along the wall.
Cave running down into a sidemount restriction.
Wall heading into a duck under.
Down into another sidemount restriction.
About 600 feet after my last dive the line turns into a big ball of spaghetti with a nice frayed end. 4000 feet in there is a break in the line. Oh well, I still have plenty of gas so next time around I'm just going to have to fix it!
There is this neat thing that happens occasionally when your diving in a system with other people. You see, you run into them. I was swimming back toward Sink #2 and I saw a red glow in the distance. Much to close to be the sink, then another red glow appears. Looks like someone went exploring! I slide off the line into the tighter side of the passage and wave to them as I slide passed, moving quickly now. Almost shivering from the stupid 3mm.
P.S. Both of the divers new to this system are now investigating sidemount and becoming able to independently handle failures.
Rent a Boat
Long story short, we ended up renting a boat and heading out to the island caves. I won't bore you with details, political intrigue and other nonsense, because if you're reading this - your hear to hear about cave diving.
So, onward we went. Please excuse the complete garbage quality of the pictures. My new camera will have a housing on Monday (evening) so my next weekend of cave diving will have significantly improved image quality.
Boat loaded. Note all the fuzzy sidemount tanks! Yes, I have corrupted all my cave buddies with talk of crappy vis cave. Lulled them into thinking its actually fun to dive in these things. Convinced them that DIR style backmount is not where its at for this stuff. Lo and behold, presto changeo there are 3 more sidemounters wearing helmets for out betters to mock.
Here is one now! Note the fashionable white helmet. Camera blurred to protect his identity. Yeah right, camera blurred because its on closeup mode and this stupid housing won't let me change it.
And his buddy, in equal blur.
Note the franken rig. I'm happy with my dillo, but these abominations seem to work, even if they look quite odd. Made out of a backplate, wing and some other assorted ideas stolen from just about everywhere. But whatever floats your... ass in the case of sidemount.
My pseudo buddy managed to extricate himself from any surface shots with his fancy-boy red helmet on, but little did he know, at least until the flash went off, that he was being stalked though the cave. Lurking above him, pressed against the roof I dropped out of the black tea water and *click*
Take note boys and girls. This helmet is CE certified for your safety. Don't try this at home.
So enough mocking my peers, as fun as it is. As King Helmet it was my solemn duty to go have a good dive. A good dive in new-to-me cave. So off I went, swoosh. After about 300 feet of rather plain power cave I came to my first T. Power cave being big cave you could drive a buss down. Now power cave is great in Florida - its fantastic in Florida. But you see, in Florida you can actually SEE the walls. Here you can ether see the line and silt or you can see the rock walls/roof.. but no line.
Humm.. usually that little black/brown beaten up #24 cave line goes into some tinny little rat hole, zero vis, sidemount, silt out cave in this system. So obviously, I immediately put a clothespin down (despite the arrow - this line should be T'ed into the arrow) and went off following that little line.
Which then with almost equal disregard for my enjoyment dove right into a huge pile of silt. So I gently pulled it out, my vis started going and as I coiled it up on my hand I realized it was broken.
I finished coiling it up, then went into the cave, laying it back down. When I got to the end of it, I tied it off, pulled out a spool and went looking for the other end. While I never found it, I did get some very niec pictures of this sidemount passage.
So I turned and took the left (straight) at the T. More power cave, but its more interesting. There is some stuff to look at as the line heads along side one of the walls. 300 more feet pass and the line takes a about a 120 degree turn to the right and down. My max depth to this point was around 25 feet. The line dropped my down to 35 feet and the flow picked up big time. pushing under the ledge toward a collapsed exit from the cave. But wow, for the next 1000 feet, running at 35 or so depth there are some spectacular breakdown piles and delicate flakes worn into the lime stone. I'll let the pictures speak for me.
Some nice silt/clay stratification.
Some flakes sandwiched between layers of limestone sticking out of the walls.
And another T! And another broken line!
This time, when I went in search of the other end, I found it. A promising going tunnel. I will be back to explore this one. Took me about 10 minutes to find, run and repair it.
I was almost at thirds when I finished the repair job, so I only got to see the first 30 or so feet of this one. But it looks like the perfect size tunnel for this system. Just big enough to make it easy to sidemount without stirring up silt, just small enough to be able to see both walls and the ceiling in detail.
Do I know anyone with a zodiac who cave dives? :)
So, onward we went. Please excuse the complete garbage quality of the pictures. My new camera will have a housing on Monday (evening) so my next weekend of cave diving will have significantly improved image quality.
Boat loaded. Note all the fuzzy sidemount tanks! Yes, I have corrupted all my cave buddies with talk of crappy vis cave. Lulled them into thinking its actually fun to dive in these things. Convinced them that DIR style backmount is not where its at for this stuff. Lo and behold, presto changeo there are 3 more sidemounters wearing helmets for out betters to mock.
Here is one now! Note the fashionable white helmet. Camera blurred to protect his identity. Yeah right, camera blurred because its on closeup mode and this stupid housing won't let me change it.
And his buddy, in equal blur.
Note the franken rig. I'm happy with my dillo, but these abominations seem to work, even if they look quite odd. Made out of a backplate, wing and some other assorted ideas stolen from just about everywhere. But whatever floats your... ass in the case of sidemount.
My pseudo buddy managed to extricate himself from any surface shots with his fancy-boy red helmet on, but little did he know, at least until the flash went off, that he was being stalked though the cave. Lurking above him, pressed against the roof I dropped out of the black tea water and *click*
Take note boys and girls. This helmet is CE certified for your safety. Don't try this at home.
So enough mocking my peers, as fun as it is. As King Helmet it was my solemn duty to go have a good dive. A good dive in new-to-me cave. So off I went, swoosh. After about 300 feet of rather plain power cave I came to my first T. Power cave being big cave you could drive a buss down. Now power cave is great in Florida - its fantastic in Florida. But you see, in Florida you can actually SEE the walls. Here you can ether see the line and silt or you can see the rock walls/roof.. but no line.
Humm.. usually that little black/brown beaten up #24 cave line goes into some tinny little rat hole, zero vis, sidemount, silt out cave in this system. So obviously, I immediately put a clothespin down (despite the arrow - this line should be T'ed into the arrow) and went off following that little line.
Which then with almost equal disregard for my enjoyment dove right into a huge pile of silt. So I gently pulled it out, my vis started going and as I coiled it up on my hand I realized it was broken.
I finished coiling it up, then went into the cave, laying it back down. When I got to the end of it, I tied it off, pulled out a spool and went looking for the other end. While I never found it, I did get some very niec pictures of this sidemount passage.
So I turned and took the left (straight) at the T. More power cave, but its more interesting. There is some stuff to look at as the line heads along side one of the walls. 300 more feet pass and the line takes a about a 120 degree turn to the right and down. My max depth to this point was around 25 feet. The line dropped my down to 35 feet and the flow picked up big time. pushing under the ledge toward a collapsed exit from the cave. But wow, for the next 1000 feet, running at 35 or so depth there are some spectacular breakdown piles and delicate flakes worn into the lime stone. I'll let the pictures speak for me.
Some nice silt/clay stratification.
Some flakes sandwiched between layers of limestone sticking out of the walls.
And another T! And another broken line!
This time, when I went in search of the other end, I found it. A promising going tunnel. I will be back to explore this one. Took me about 10 minutes to find, run and repair it.
I was almost at thirds when I finished the repair job, so I only got to see the first 30 or so feet of this one. But it looks like the perfect size tunnel for this system. Just big enough to make it easy to sidemount without stirring up silt, just small enough to be able to see both walls and the ceiling in detail.
Do I know anyone with a zodiac who cave dives? :)
Journey of the Broken Line
Old dead picture links, sorry.
I ventured up to the caves again. Last day of my weekend splurge and I had to top the summer off with another cave dive. See, had to. There really isn't much of a choice. It's just to much fun. Besides, I think I look quite fetching in my helmet and Armadillo.
So today I was going to do a big push in Gervais. I wanted to get back into the deep recesses of the cave. I knew I needed to do some line work back there to get any further too. So I brought a few spools and my trusty reel. Knowing it was going to be a long dive, I elected to do my first stage into the cave. Already stupid shallow a simple AL80 would allow me at least another 1500 feet of penetration.
After chatting with the land owner for 15 minutes about cave politics.. well land ownership politics in general, cave diving, open water diving and everything else under the sun except the weather. I was ready to go. Tanks in the water, rig on, light fired (for now - more on this gem of brilliance later). I run over the dive plan quickly in my head once more, clip on all my bottles and run though a head to toe gear check. Yes, even my fantastic camera - which will never see this cave again, as I now have my new housing. I zoom passed the sign, taking a few more shots of it.
And right away, I stumble on this cute little guy.
A few gratuitous shots of the cave. These shots taken between sink #5
Just as I am getting close to sink #5 I come across this nugget. Even in a remote cave, you can't get away form ignorant people doing ignorant things.
I come up in pool #5. I have never been here, but it should link back up with where I want to go. One small problem. Pool number 5 is HUGE and... finding the way I want to go is not so easy. It took my primary reel and a jump spool to find it, but find it I did. About 5 minutes later I arrived at my first line repair of the day. It took at least 10 minutes to gap this one. Fighting the current in this large cave can be challenging. This bit of cave is about 50 feet across and has a ripping current that is hard to swim against. Pulling is difficult without damaging the cave so its fin, fin, fin. At least I get the two rope bits linked, clean up my lines and away.
I must have gone 15 whole feet and I hit this.
Another frayed end of the line. I repeat the above process and get about 60 feet. Another broken line. This is getting repetitive. Fortunately, this was the last break for a while. But I suspect another line has broken, because there is a missing T. Rather I was expecting to hit a T that never happened.
Instead I hit a T going left into a sexy little sidemount passage. As my luck would have it, this line was broken too. But I am getting much faster at fixing this stuff and I have the line sorted out in no time at all. Obviously I absolutely have to see whats in this new tunnel so I head in. Then my primary light flickers and goes purple. Just for a second, but in that second I remember that I did NOT charge it last night. A quick glance at my bottom timer tells me I have put 2 hours in the water and probably 10 minutes getting ready onto the thing. Now it SHOULD be OK. I figure I put an hour - an hour and a half on it in Lusk. So I SHOULD have somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour left on it. But see, these batteries are not new - they have a good 400 dives on them.
You shoulda seen my ass move.
I was out of that damn cave in under 40 minutes with the flow helping. Now I have 3 backup lights, no problem - I just didn't want to go there. I made it very familiar ground around sink #3. By this time my primary is flickering and going purple every few seconds and its quite dim so I shut it down and go to backup.
So, I'm brilliant. Big push, 1/2 charged light. Lesson earned, not that it was life threatening, just made things interesting.
A few parting shots of some stuff I found way back in there be fore my light decided to remind me who's boss.
I ventured up to the caves again. Last day of my weekend splurge and I had to top the summer off with another cave dive. See, had to. There really isn't much of a choice. It's just to much fun. Besides, I think I look quite fetching in my helmet and Armadillo.
So today I was going to do a big push in Gervais. I wanted to get back into the deep recesses of the cave. I knew I needed to do some line work back there to get any further too. So I brought a few spools and my trusty reel. Knowing it was going to be a long dive, I elected to do my first stage into the cave. Already stupid shallow a simple AL80 would allow me at least another 1500 feet of penetration.
After chatting with the land owner for 15 minutes about cave politics.. well land ownership politics in general, cave diving, open water diving and everything else under the sun except the weather. I was ready to go. Tanks in the water, rig on, light fired (for now - more on this gem of brilliance later). I run over the dive plan quickly in my head once more, clip on all my bottles and run though a head to toe gear check. Yes, even my fantastic camera - which will never see this cave again, as I now have my new housing. I zoom passed the sign, taking a few more shots of it.
And right away, I stumble on this cute little guy.
A few gratuitous shots of the cave. These shots taken between sink #5
Just as I am getting close to sink #5 I come across this nugget. Even in a remote cave, you can't get away form ignorant people doing ignorant things.
I come up in pool #5. I have never been here, but it should link back up with where I want to go. One small problem. Pool number 5 is HUGE and... finding the way I want to go is not so easy. It took my primary reel and a jump spool to find it, but find it I did. About 5 minutes later I arrived at my first line repair of the day. It took at least 10 minutes to gap this one. Fighting the current in this large cave can be challenging. This bit of cave is about 50 feet across and has a ripping current that is hard to swim against. Pulling is difficult without damaging the cave so its fin, fin, fin. At least I get the two rope bits linked, clean up my lines and away.
I must have gone 15 whole feet and I hit this.
Another frayed end of the line. I repeat the above process and get about 60 feet. Another broken line. This is getting repetitive. Fortunately, this was the last break for a while. But I suspect another line has broken, because there is a missing T. Rather I was expecting to hit a T that never happened.
Instead I hit a T going left into a sexy little sidemount passage. As my luck would have it, this line was broken too. But I am getting much faster at fixing this stuff and I have the line sorted out in no time at all. Obviously I absolutely have to see whats in this new tunnel so I head in. Then my primary light flickers and goes purple. Just for a second, but in that second I remember that I did NOT charge it last night. A quick glance at my bottom timer tells me I have put 2 hours in the water and probably 10 minutes getting ready onto the thing. Now it SHOULD be OK. I figure I put an hour - an hour and a half on it in Lusk. So I SHOULD have somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour left on it. But see, these batteries are not new - they have a good 400 dives on them.
You shoulda seen my ass move.
I was out of that damn cave in under 40 minutes with the flow helping. Now I have 3 backup lights, no problem - I just didn't want to go there. I made it very familiar ground around sink #3. By this time my primary is flickering and going purple every few seconds and its quite dim so I shut it down and go to backup.
So, I'm brilliant. Big push, 1/2 charged light. Lesson earned, not that it was life threatening, just made things interesting.
A few parting shots of some stuff I found way back in there be fore my light decided to remind me who's boss.
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