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.
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