Thursday, May 8th, 2008 ~

We hit Morrison's quarry last night, for the start of our Thursday night training dives. There was myself, Steve, Leigh, plus two others that wanted to join us. One friend of ours that is finishing up his T1 this summer, as well as another guy interested in the training we do. Leigh and I dropped down together, and did our valve drills and S drills, and Steve, Radu, and Martin teamed up. Our plan was to drop down to the sub (about 60', and do a timed ascent, then surface and discuss. We weren't sure whether doing it in a 5 person formation was the best thing to do or not, but we thought we'd give it a try!

Yeah.. that wasn't the best way to do it...

Lol... So.. Steve buddied up with our new friends, and Leigh and I went and did a couple more ascents.

We were told that the shark on the 30' ledge was missing, so we went to look for him. We found him.. he was belly up at 80'. We'll have to go back down with a lift bag to bring him back to life! :D

Leigh pulled an OOA on me, and all went smoothly. We swam around a bit, then hovered for a while, and watched the others, then went for another ascent. When we headed back to the plane, the others had gone back to the beach, so we made our way back in too... a nice and easy swim back in.

A great dive!

Bottom Time ~ 58 minutes
Max. Depth ~ 62'
Water Temp. ~ 42 and 44 (Except I think I had a slight narcosis at 60'... I swear it said 100 degrees...) :o
Vis. ~ 50'

Sunday, May 4th, 2008 ~

Steve and I headed down to the mighty Ktown on Friday night, to sit in on a split weekend Fundies course. This was Steve's first course that he was interning on, on the road to becoming a GUE instructor. I like sitting in on classes, as I enjoy reabsorbing information. Friday night was some classroom stuff, Saturday started off at the pool, for the swim and breath hold tests, then back to the classroom again!

Sunday was dive day. There were four students ~ Two in doubles and two in single tanks. Dive one was a "see where you're at dive," and Steve had the video camera going. I went in with Tom R for a leisurely dive in the Brule Road Quarry. We dropped down, did our valve drills, swam around the boat, found a ton of bottles, and Tom even found a gold necklace...:sure:We watched the students for a while, and surfaced with them. The two of us then went back to shore, but sat at the surface for a bit.

Bottom Time ~ 48 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 26'
Water Temp. ~ 55 above, 52 below thermocline
Vis. ~ 30' ish

We saw some familiar faces gearing up to get in, and ended up chatting for a while. I wasn't sure if I was going to last a whole lot longer on the second dive, as my back was a little sore, so I warned Tom that I may pull out the thumb. Back down we went.. back to the boat... through the boat...while my mask flooded... :loopy: We made our way back to the class, where we watched a bit, then ascended with them. Tom wanted to take a turn with the camera, so Steve and I hovered nearby. After a few propulsion exercises, Steve and I were to bring the reel in.. Steve started, then handed me the prize! :p: I reeled in, and we surfaced. I was then elected to be one of the single tank students' buddy for her Valve Drill and S Drill, and I had to play "dummy." She did the drills without a hitch, then did a timed ascent to the surface. Steve and I went back down for the lift bag, then came in. What a fun day!

Was I ever glad I had my She-P!!!!!!! :snoopy:

Bottom Time ~ 57 mins.
Water Temp. ~ 55/52
Max. Depth ~ 25'
Vis. ~ 30' ish

Our training dives start this Thursday!

w000000000000t! :D

Hi all,
Well, Phase 3 is complete. Like last post I'll layout everything Robert has had me doing in terms of workout, supplements and nutrition over the past four weeks.

Then I'll share the Phase 3 results. But no pictures (sorry Pue)

So here goes:

I'll only show one day of the supplement and nutrition plan as this was the same for all 28 days of Phase 3 with the exception of me being allowed to substitute 8 oz. of lean beef for one meal once every fourth day.

Meal 1 - Breakfast
- 2 oz Cream of Rice (1 Tbsp artificial sweetener OK)
- 10 egg whites (salsa & seasoning OK)
- 2000mg Pyruvate
- 2 tablets Tribulus
- 2 tablets Hydroxy Cut
- 2 vitamin & mineral complex

Prior to workout (which I did about 7:00am each morning except for Saturday & Sunday)
- 2 Tbsp liquid LCarnitine

Meal 2 - Mid-Morning
- 1 cups of broccoli
- 1 cup jasmine rice
- 8 oz chicken breast
- 3 Amino 2222 tablets
- 1 Omega 3 tablet
- 1 Acidophilus tablet
- 2 MSN/LGlutamine tablets


Meal 3 - Lunch Time
- 2 oz cream of rice
- 10 egg whites (salsa & seasoning OK)
- 3 Amino 2222 tablets
- 1 Omega 3 tablet
- 1 Acidophilus tablet
- 2 MSN/LGlutamine tablets

Meal 4 - Mid-Afternoon
- 9 oz tuna
- 1 cup of jasmine rice
- 1 cup of broccoli
- 3 Amino 2222 tablets
- 1 Omega 3 tablet
- 1 Acidophilus tablet
- 2 MSN/LGlutamine tablet

Meal 5 - Dinner Time
- 50 gram protein shake
- 8 strawberries
- 3 Amino 2222 tablets
- 1 Omega 3 tablet
- 1 Acidophilus tablet
- 2 MSN/LGlutamine tablet

Meal 6 - before bedtime
- 6 egg whiles (seasoning & salsa ok)
- 1 fist size sweet potato
- No supplements at this meal

In addition I am drinking over a gallon of water a day.

And on every third day meal 6 was replaced with a repeat of meal 4.

Now on to the workout plan. I won't layout what exercises were done but rather just show the days by bodypart we were working on.

Monday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- Chest
- Traps
- Cardio
- Abs

Tuesday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- Abs
- Quads
- Abductor
- Adductor

Wednesday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- Light Arms
- Calves
- Cardio

Thursday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- Back
- Cardio
- Abs

Friday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- Abs
- Shoulders
- Hamstrings

Saturday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- Abs
- Arms

Sunday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- 12 minutes run bleachers
- walk 1 mile

So how did I do?

Phase 3 started off great as I was really excited about the great results I experienced in Phase 2. I was feeling really good (finally over the late winter bug I had been struggling with) and was beginning to really push things in the gym again. But then things got really difficult. After 20 some years in business my gym closed and I had to find a new place to work out. I also was fighting some serious food cravings the past few weeks. I wish I could say that I did well in the fight but I soon found myself cheating almost every day. Not much, but cheating none the less.

But the results weren't all bad

Results:

Weight - Gained 3 pounds
Bodyfat - dropped 2% (4 pounds of fat loss and 7 pounds of muscle gain)

Measurements:
Shoulders - gained 1/4"
Chest - lost 1" (finally some fat loss in this area)
Waist High - lost 1"
Waist Medium - lost 1/4"
Waist Low - no change
Hips - no change
Thigh Left - gained 1/4"
Thigh Right - no change
Teardrop Left - gained 1/2"
Teardrop Right - gained 1/2"
Calf Left - gained 1/2"
Calf Right - no change
Biceps Cold Left - gained 1/4"
Biceps Flexed Left - gained 1/4"
Biceps Cold Right - no change
Biceps Flexed Right - no change

I feel like my metabolism is speeding up and it was good to feel my legs starting to respond a little.

So were off to Phase 4. I'll lay it all out in another post but there are some minor supplement and meal plan changes and also some minor changes in the workout splits.

Saturday, April 19th, 2008 ~

We went to pick up Woofybeotch at his new house, and we headed to the river! Little did he know that there was a surprise birthday party being held for him, when we got back. Steve and I were his decoys, to get him to the party! :tushywag:We met Kevin and Jeremy down at Centeen Park, for some diving fun! The air temperature was an amazing 25 degrees, and the sun was shining!

Kevin and JJ brought their scooters, so they took off to the wreck. Leigh was having a few issues with his hands, so we just tooled around Centeen Park, doing skills and just enjoying the river. The current wasn't very strong at all, but the vis wasn't that great. Steve passed a stage bottle back and forth with me, and I was a backfinnin' fool. :loopy:

Bottom Time ~ 50 minutes
Max. Depth ~ 34'
Water Temp. ~ 41
Vis. ~ A bit stinky ~ 15'
Air Temp. ~ 25

We found a bike in the water, just off the side of the entrance, and Steve attempted to ride it under water... nope... didn't work so well...:headshake: Soooo... with some coaxing of a few local kids on the beach, he decided to ride the bike down the hill, and into the water...:v8:



Now... we just had to film this for the next video, so his stunt had to be repeated a few times...:evil_4:

A mink that ran by us...



Passing ship...



The boys...



Steve and I...



Ok.. back to Ottawa, where we had to actually find the pub that we were to bring Leigh to... The Heart and the Crown. We showed up exactly on time (which can sometimes be a challenge for us...Lol...), to greet the "SURPRISE!!!" :snoopy:Leigh did have some clue, as we never want to get back to Ottawa right after diving... rofl.. but he was very happy with the party! We had a fantastic night with close to 30 people, had some appetizers, cocktails (er.. there is no such thing as headache-free beer, Leigh ;)), then off to an Italian place for Gelatos and dessert! When we came back past the bar, we were stopped by some interesting ladies, wanting to know what the "We Go Down" shirts meant... I won't even go into that story, but it was a little bit of a movie scene... rofl Steve and I dropped Leigh back at his place, where we still had to unload his gear...

This about sums it up!



Sunday, April 20th, 2008 ~

Steve and I headed to the quarry for skillz. We didn't bother even trying to call Leigh. :wink: We dropped down, did our valve drills, S Drills, then headed down to the sub for an ascent from 50', making stops every 10 feet. When we surfaced, we discussed my bag blowing skills, which need more practice it seems. I haven't done them all winter... We did a timed descent back down, that went extremely well, then another ascent that also went well. We went back down to the plane, passed a stage bottle, then headed back in (Steve had a glove leak). The vis was absolutely stunning!!!

Bottom Time ~ 40 minutes
Max. Depth ~ 53'
Water Temp. ~ 42
Vis. ~ Unbefreakin'lievable
Air Temp. ~ 25

Here's an example of how incredible the vis was, from topside...

Here's a shot of the plane, at approximately 23'...



The boat at approximately 45'...



The quarry is pretty much ice free now, except for a wee bit at the far end!



Steve...



Me!



...and Zora, the resident quarry pooch, having a snooze in the sun...

Saturday, April 12th, 2008 ~

A gaggle of us gathered down in Rockport, for the first river dive of the season! Myself, Steve, Francois, Eric V., Kevin, Oren, Sean M., Jen B., Jeremy, Anne, and Harold hit the water in Rockport! :snoopy: Oren and Sean went out to the Kinghorn, while the rest of us went off to the South West, to what's left of an old Rum Runner. Vis wasn't the greatest, but it was so good to get back in the river again!! The quarry is great for winter diving, but it's very refreshing to hit the river again!!!

Bottom Time ~ 53 minutes
Max. Depth ~ 65'
Water Temperature ~ 36...made it to 37 at one point, but I just couldn't make it any warmer! :D
Vis.~ Only about 30'

Here are some pics from the day!

Kevin, Tom, and Anne...

Tom is sporting one of our new "We Go Down" hoodies (there is also cool printing on the back of them)!!



Harold and Anne...



Sean M....



Jen B....



Oren and Jeremy...



Frankie...



Steve, Eric V., and Frankie...



Steve & I... with Kevin making a cameo appearance...



Jeff from Rockport Dive Centre.. our gracious host!



OO.. and me 'n' my P Valve!




Sunday, April 13th, 2008 ~

While today is Woofybeotch's milestone Birthday, we were not able to get him out for a dive. Instead, Steve, Francois, Eric, and I went for a skills dive at the quarry. Eric is going to be taking fundies this year, and we were showing him some of the skills that would be expected of him. Most of the quarry is open water too!! :snoopy:

Steve, after he and I had done our valve drills...



Steve ran a line to the plane, then we dropped down to the sub, and worked on ascents. Mine didn't go as well as I had planned, and I got frustrated with myself.. pft.. I was also starting to get a bit chilly. We dropped back down to the plane, swam around a bit, then went back down to the sub for another ascent. Much better this time around, for everyone. :)

Me... chillin' before we went to the plane...



Frankie...



Eric...



Steve...



..er.. and Steve, playing silly buggers... The ice was just slushy, so he stuck his head through it...:loopy:



..and this one... My Sweetie...



Bottom Time ~ 59 minutes
Water Temperature ~ 40
Max. Depth ~ 57'
Vis. ~ Freakin' wicked... about 150'

We went for the usual debriefing at Jean Burger, over some butt-growing Poutine! :wink:

Yet another wonderful weekend of diving and playing with friends!

:snoopy:

Hi all,
Well, Phase 2 is complete. Like last post I'll layout everything Robert has had me doing in terms of workout, supplements and nutrition over the past four weeks.

Then I'll share the Phase 2 results. But no pictures (sorry Pue)

So here goes:

I'll only show one day of the supplement and nutrition plan as this was the same for all 28 days of Phase 1 with the exception of me being allowed to substitute 8 oz. of lean beef for one meal once every fourth day.

Meal 1 - Breakfast
- 2 oz Cream of Rice (1 Tbsp artificial sweetener OK)
- 8 egg whites (salsa & seasoning OK)
- 2000mg Pyruvate
- 2 tablets Tribulus
- 2 tablets Hydroxy Cut
- 2 vitamin & mineral complex

Prior to workout (which I did about 6:00am each morning except for Saturday & Sunday)
- 2 Tbsp liquid LCarnitine

Meal 2 - Mid-Morning
- 1 cup of broccoli
- 1 cup jasmine rice
- 9 oz tuna
- 3 Amino 2222 tablets
- 1 Omega 3 tablet
- 1 Acidophilus tablet
- 2 MSN/LGlutamine tablets


Meal 3 - Lunch Time
- 2 oz cream of rice
- 8 egg whites (salsa & seasoning OK)
- 3 Amino 2222 tablets
- 1 Omega 3 tablet
- 1 Acidophilus tablet
- 2 MSN/LGlutamine tablets

Meal 4 - Mid-Afternoon
- 8 egg whites (salsa & seasoning OK)
- 1 sweet potato (eaten like an apple)
- 3 Amino 2222 tablets
- 1 Omega 3 tablet
- 1 Acidophilus tablet
- 2 MSN/LGlutamine tablet

Meal 5 - Dinner Time
- 8 oz chicken breast (or Jennie O turkey)
- 1 cup of jasmine rice
- 3 Amino 2222 tablets
- 1 Omega 3 tablet
- 1 Acidophilus tablet
- 2 MSN/LGlutamine tablet

Meal 6 - before bedtime
- 50gm protein shake
- 8 strawberries
- No supplements at this meal

In addition I am drinking over a gallon of water a day.

Now on to the workout plan. I won't layout what exercises were done but rather just show the days by bodypart we were working on.

Monday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- Chest
- Traps
- Cardio
- Abs

Tuesday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- Abs
- Quads
- Abductor
- Adductor

Wednesday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- Abs
- Calves
- Cardio

Thursday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- Back
- Cardio
- Abs

Friday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- Abs
- Shoulders
- Hamstrings

Saturday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- Abs
- Arms

Sunday:
- Lower Back & Leg Stretches
- 12 minutes walk/run bleachers
- 10 - 40 yard sprints

So how did I do?

Phase 2 was a little mixed for me. I was sick for a few days right at the end of Phase 1 so Phase 2 got off to a little bit of a slow start in the workout department as I was still a bit weak from the illness. Unfortunately this bug I've been dealing with really never went away and had me back in bed for a couple days of week 3. Then I was out of town for all of week 4. As a result I did not make it to the gym for the last 10 days of Phase 2 and diet really suffered during this time too.

But the results weren't all bad

Results:

Weight - Lost 15 pounds :snoopy:
Bodyfat - dropped 4%

Measurements:
Shoulders - no change
Chest - lost 1"
Waist High - lost 1/2"
Waist Medium - lost 2" :D
Waist Low - lost 1/2"
Hips - lost 1"
Thigh Left - lost 1/4"
Thigh Right - lost 1/4"
Teardrop Left - no change
Teardrop Right - no change
Calf Left - no change
Calf Right - no change
Biceps Cold Left - no change
Biceps Flexed Left - lost 1/2"
Biceps Cold Right - no change
Biceps Flexed Right - no change

In spite of the lack of consistency in Phase 2 due to illness and travel for work I'm really please with the results. Weight wise I'm down to 220#, which is lighter than I've been in probably 10 years or more, and losing 2" off my gut this past month was fantastic. But I still have a long way to go.....

So were off to Phase 3. I'll lay it all out in another post but there are no supplement changes, some minor meal plan changes and also some minor changes in the workout splits.

Saturday, April 5th, 2008 ~

Well, Steve had to work on Saturday, but managed to leave a bit early, so off we went...

Where, you ask?? OO!! The quarry!!! :wink:

It was an absolutely gorgeous, sunny day, and we stopped by Leigh's new house, to see the improvements they made.. and... his...

NEW TLS!!

It fits like a freakin' glove... looks like a cave cut suit! Lucky pants!! :)

We then headed up to the quarry (without Leigh), and went for a splash. The ice on the beach is starting to melt a bit, but our "Pentagon" ice hole was still there, and open! It was even safe enough to use. If the weather holds out this week, we should see a good chunk of open water next weekend!

We dropped down, did our Valve drills, S Drills, and headed out. We dropped down to the sub, played around a bit, then did a timed ascent up to the plane. We played around, worked on finning techniques, then I brought the reel in. A good, fun, relaxing dive!!

Bottom Time ~ 35 mins.
Water Temp. ~ 38
Max. Depth ~ 57'
Vis. ~ Still Wicked!!

Next week... The whole gang shebang is headed down to Rockport!

Stay tuned!!! :snoopy:

Here's a compilation of the multi-post report. By Penny and me.
************

From a diving perspective, it would sound allot like previous JB trips, including the one we did a report on last Fall (with pics), but I think the primary difference this time was how we traveled down there.

Typically, every time I've gone down to Jackson Blue (Marianna, FL... about an hour north of Panama City), we've done a straight 12 hour drive down. Originally we were going to do our drive on Saturday, but this time I opted to do something different. I've got a gazillion hotel reward points from last Fall, so I picked up Pue from work in Northern Kentucky on Friday. This saved her an hour drive home to northern Cincy first, and then another hour back-tracking south again. We drove about 5 hours to Franklin, TN just on the south side of Nashville. It was a fairly easy drive, and we could have driven another couple of hours, but since I was using Hotel Rewards that required 24 hour notice, ya just gotta plan the best you can.

On Saturday, we got an fairly early start, but knowing we had only 7 hours left to go, we had a couple of "sit down" meals instead of chowing in the car.

Our first stop Saturday afternoon was at the Sheriff's Office to sign in and pick up the gate key. We then got the key to the trailer next to Cave Adventurers, and then snuck in a couple of dives. This was Pue's first time to end a cave dive at night. It is kind of odd to be coming out of the cave into darkness when you normally get a nice blue karst window to peer out of during the deco.

After the diving on Saturday, we decided to hit a Mexican restaurant that is a favorite of ours before we returned the JB gate key to the Sheriff's office. Lo and behold, Matt (Superbugman) and Ben were in there eating, and Earnest, Allythia, and Stacia (3 new friends we'd met that afternoon at JB) had just sat down with Matt and Ben. Dinner was a hoot, and I was laughing allot!!

Sunday was an easy day. Pue had been sick some leading up to the weekend, so there was no sense pushing the diving, but we had fun poking our heads into various nooks and crannies of the cave. I've never been one to really care about how far I got back into the cave, but would rather have a relaxing time poking around.

I had someone chide me once for wearing a compass in JB because it "just a tube" that goes one direction. I'm guessing this is same person that has failed to see the multiplicity of jumps available off the mainline. I'm always trying to look for them, but saw even more this time. Many of them seem to be unmarked. In fact, someone was telling me that I missed one that goes straight up at one point. :v8:

A major storm blew through on Sunday night, so we finished up our diving just before the rain hit with a fury. We decided to watch the Daytona 500 during the lightening storm. Apparently about an hour or so west of us, some tornadoes touched down and caused allot of damage. After the race, we went out to a different Mexican restaurant to eat.... lots of good food to be had!

Monday, we were experiencing some sinus issues, so we spent some extra time over at Oxycheq harassing Patrick and Duane and joking around quite a bit.... I did a bit of shopping to stock up and put quite a dent in the wallet. Afterwards, Pue and I went over to the Florida Caverns State park and toured the exhibits, walked some trails and through a dry/damp cave, and then took a walk around a swimming hole that appears to have a spring in it.

We started back up the road on Monday afternoon, stopping for Mexican up in Dothan before ending up in a hotel on the North side of Birmingham. I was a bit hungry when we pulled in, so after I finished gnawing on Pue, we went out to a fast food place called "Whataburger".... unlike any burger I'd had before... a bit greasy, but good.

Tuesday morning, we took our time getting up... had a sit down breakfast, and started north again. Near the border of Tennessee and Kentucky, we stopped and did some wine tasting and brought a couple of bottles back with us.

Well... that was a bit more than I intended to write, but that'll give you the gist... Pue got some top side pics that she might share.

All in all... a very nice extended weekend... and extremely relaxing!!

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

A week before I took off to Northern Florida, I saw my cave instructor at an Ohio quarry. After a brief conversation, he mentioned that he was headed down for some cave diving with one student and a small army, and there was one bed available in the trailer they were renting from Rennaker's. As things worked out, I claimed the bed as my own!!

I drove down to Luraville, FL by myself, leaving at 5am and arriving by 5pm. Even though I was staying at Rennaker's trailer, I know more folks over at Dive Outpost (Cathy's), so I got my gas and supplies there all week long. Cathy throws a dinner on Saturday evening, so I accepted an invitation for some food. Low and behold, BabyDuck, JasonB, and Bobby, along with other NC Divers were there for the weekend.

************
On Sunday, we spent the day diving Peacock 1 and Orange Grove caverns. This gave me a great opportunity to practice using the camera strobe in a cave environment. Still have a long way to go, but the strobe makes a big improvement, especially when silt starts to fly during cave drills.


Sunday afternoon, I ventured off with Gil and Sandy to dive down Nicholson and lower Cisteen passages back around to the Wishbone area.

************
Monday turned out to be my first trip to Little River. Every time I've been to Florida previously, there had either been construction or flooding that prevented me from seeing the inside of this system. Since NFL is experiencing low rainfall, the flow in Little River cave system is down considerably. Evenso, I figured since it was my first time in the system, I didn't want to fuss with a camera rig, so I wimped out on pics!! It was great doing dives with the class past Table Rock to around the "T". This gave me allot of time to scope things out. On my first dive into the system, I hit my 100th cave dive.


************
Tuesday we were back at Peacock to do some longer dives with the student, so I got the camera back out. We trekked down the Peanut Line first and turned just prior to the Peanut Restriction.


Later, we went down the Pothole tunnel and came up inside of Olsen Sink.


************
Wednesday was another first for me. Telford was finally diveable after being tannic on all of the previous trips to NFL. Pretty cool system with lots of different character. We went past both of the sinks and past the high vertical structures to the point where it drops down to approx 70ft. Since this my first time in the system, I again opted to leave the camera behind.

************
On Thursday, some of the group went to Ginnie Springs to continue their class, but I opted to go to Madison Blue with Gil and Sandy. I'd only dove this system before with Joe Steffen, so I wanted to the beauty of this system again. Since the flow can be a bit high in this system, I left my camera behind because Gil and Sandy were diving wet, while I was diving in a drysuit. Since I already had great resistance than they did, I didn't want to add to my drag with a camera/strobe rig. Madison was every bit as beautiful as I remembered it to be!! I got some nice surface pics of the incredibly blue spring pool that empties into the river a few feet away. We found the flow to be quite a bit lower than expected, so we made it a couple hundred feet past the Mount offshoot. I can't say enough about this beautiful system!

The cave entrance for Madison Blue is located below the high dive platform, so you need to peacefully co-exist with the swimmers!



************
Friday, Gil and Sandy twisted my arm for a dive in Upstream Cow. I've been in Downstream Cow a few times, but had never ventured upstream. Gil and Sandy warned me that the restrictions at the beginning would be "interesting". Boy were they! With both my back and my tanks rubbing and had to go back and forth a couple of times to maneuver through the sandy floored passage and squeeze inside. Once inside, the flow was quite a bit higher than I expected. There is a "ski rope" installed along some of the more fragile areas to aid in the "pull and glide". Even despite the attempt to preserve such a spectacular system, it was sadly obvious that there had been some malicious divers poking holes in the beautiful marbled clay banks that were off to the side of the beaten path. Makes you just shake your head and say :wtf:

We ventured back past "?Not my fault" where it drops down to 100ft, and continued until it started to ascend some where we turned the dive. On way back I took in the cool features of this cave. When we got back to the restriction at the entrance, I had to do some digging to clear out some sand after I made a couple of attempts to wriggle out. I was the bigger of the three divers, and to boot, I was wearing a drysuit and larger tanks, so I had to work a little more to make it out. However, with plenty of gas in my own tanks, and a buddy in front of and behind me, I just calmly persisted to clear enough room to scrape out. What a hoot! I can't wait to go back to this one again....seriously!! :D

I got some surface pics of Cow Springs, and some of the Cavern area where I'd left my camera.


On Friday afternoon, we went back to Peacock 1 where Gil and Sandy had me lead a dive down the Peanut line to Waterhole Sink. As we reached the sink, we turned the dive and came back out the same entrance we went in. I'd forgotten how varied the Waterhole tunnel is. Some areas require good technique because there is lot's of soft silt just waiting to be lofted into the water column. This is complicated by the constant up and down of the silt dunes throughout the passage. Other areas offer high domed ceilings that are pretty when lit by three primary lights. It was very satisfying to have 3 divers exit the tunnel with nary a wisp of silt to indicate that we'd came in through this same passage. My last trip through this tunnel was behind two other divers that didn't exercise this kind of restraint, so my view had been seriously impeeded.

************
On Saturday, my last day of diving, I had decided to hook up with Mike McCaullife (a Ranger at one of the local State Parks and a former Michigander). I'd been wanting to check out the Wishbone Tunnel in the Peacock System, so Mike let me lead back down Pothole line and make the jumps into the Lower Cisteen line, then into the Wishbone tunnel. You can certainly tell that this tunnel doesn't see much traffic. There is hardly a mark on the floor or ceiling, and your bubbles dislodge the albino crayfish and ?isolapods. There was lots of "smoke" in the Wishbone. Apparently, there is some tannic river intrusion that enters these passages because it was pooled in some of the dips in the tunnel.

On the way out, we took our time, so Mike poked his head into several side passages and gave me some photo ops.


I'd hoped to meet up with Perrone on Saturday afternoon for a dive at Troy Springs, but the timing didn't work out this trip, so maybe next time buddy!

************
I had several firsts this week. After three years of cave diving, I finally made it to Little River, Telford, and Upstream Cow. Woo Hoo! I also hit my 100th cave dive early in the week for my first dive at Little River, as well as my 700th dive while diving Upstream Cow. What an awesome way to hit some minor milestones!!! :woohoo:

It was a great week! I met some new folks while socializing at Cathy's (Dive Outpost), and dove with some skilled divers that showed me some new passages. Who could ask for more?!? :D Even at Saturday night dinner on the final night, I ate with Netmage (Tim) who had taken Fundies class with Kelly (Alisa) and Dave (CaverDave). He was taking class from Leslie (RunawayLobster) with a group from South Florida. Always good to meet more folks in the cave community!

On Sunday, some snoring in the adjacent bedroom woke me up at 2am, so I went ahead and got up and headed back north for my 12 hour jaunt back to reality. I think I need to find a way to be a cave bum and do some industrial training in Northern Florida! :D

Can't wait to go back at the end of August!! :cheers:

I've been procrastinating on this, so I'm going to write this in installments! Here is Part 1: The trip down with some background of the area.
***********************

On Friday Jan 20th, Dave, Penny, and I drove down to Florida so that they could take a cavern and Introduction to Cave course from Mike O?Leary. We rented a minivan so that we'd have more room to stretch out, and could take a bit more gear with us without being packed into a midsized SUV. It took us 12 hours of driving (not counting stops) to get down to Northern Florida and we arrived at Dive Outpost in Luraville around 10am Saturday morning. I tried to do most of the driving through the night, since Penny and Dave had worked all day. There was a section in the middle of the trip where Dave drove for about 4 hours and I dozed off a bit.

Much to our delight, the room was already ready to move into. Cathy initially didn't think it would be ready until around 2:30pm, so it seemed like a good time to catch a nap. HOWEVER.... instead we decided to drive 45 minutes over to High Springs to see what we could do with Penny's dive light. How that story turned out is covered in another thread. Leaving High Springs and heading back toward Luraville, we were all running on little sleep, and I was getting really silly and a bit punch drunk so everything seemed funny. Anyone seeing us would have thought we were inebriated.

On the way, we stopped in the town of Mayo so that I could show Penny and Dave the dining opportunities we could avail ourselves with. There was a BBQ place that I remembered, so we stopped there. Being a little too tired to be thinking clearly, I ordered the ?all you care to eat? Ribs and Chicken, with generous portions of sweet tea. (Ya see, up north, sweet tea is a very rare commodity, and even more elusive is to find a really good tasting glass of it!!) Dave and Penny were much more sensible in their choices, so they rolled me out of the restaurant in a cart, and after dumping me in the back of the van, headed up the road back to Dive Outpost.

Arriving back at Dive Outpost, we unpacked and then I took them to the PeacockState Park where they'd likely be doing their cavern class dives in the Orange Grove Sink and Peacock 1 Springs. Walking around, we looked at the gear benches, steps, and entrances into the systems, as well as various other sinkholes around the park. While there, Janet, one of the Park Rangers, was nice enough to look up the information for my lost annual pass and upgrade it to a family pass so that all three of us could use it cheaper than Penny and Dave having to pay for their dives one day at a time.

I also had the opportunity to meet some friends like Mike McCaulife, and a couple of instructors that I see talked about from time to time like, Jim Wyatt and Johnny Richards

Peacock Springs State Park:
The Peacock Springs Park is a popular training system for cavern, intro, and full cave course. It contains many of the things necessary for training without driving to many disparate sites. It has nice caverns at Orange Grove and Peacock 1 for those that are getting a taste of the overhead environ. It also has many of the types of environ that intro students need to encounter, and many of the things useful for FullCave students to practice in.

Accomodations in Luraville:
Considering that Peacock is such a popular system, there are only a couple of close choices for gas fills, and accommodations, Dive Outpost and Cave Excursions. They are each unique and good in their own way. Bill at Cave Excursions has a few mobile homes that can be rented. He also fills air, nitrox, and trimix as needed. I'm making some generalities here, but Bill's place is good if you are going down in a self-contained group (instructor traveling with students that want little interruption and a degree of isolation). Cathy at Dive Outpost has a much different and cozier feel. There is only one kitchen in the main lodge along with a few bunk beds, as well as three cabins/trailer scattered on the property that have various numbers of beds and bathrooms. If you want to cook, you have to head back up to the lodge, which gives you a wonderful opportunity to mingle with other cave divers and make new friends. Cathy also fills air or nitrox, banking 32% and charging by the CF (like Bill). Each is good in it's own way, but I've grown to like meeting new folks at Dive Outpost.

The Corner Country Store:
There is a nice little country store in Luraville that is a good place to pick up a fresh breakfast sandwich, a sub for lunch, or to sit an enjoy some sweet tea while listens to the men in "Liar's Corner" talking about the state of the world. They are a funny group of guys and it's a great way to start a day listening to them raz on each other!! :D

Part 2: Diving in the Luraville area
***********************

On Sunday morning, we got up bright and early so that Penny and Dave could prepare for their first day of class. Unfortunately, :D Dave is a VERY early bird! His alarm on his phone was on the other side of the room and I think Penny and me heard it more effectively than he did! We were in a cottage with 3 beds in the same room with an attached shower/bathroom, so WE became Dave?s alarm clock as we shouted him out of his slumber.

After getting all the toiletries orchestrated, we headed up to the Luraville Country store and got some breakfast sandwiches to go. Mike was just arriving at Dive Outpost when we got back, so Penny and Dave skittered off to gather their class materials. I thought about sitting in on the lectures, but after a few minutes, Mike suggested that since they wouldn?t be getting in the water until late afternoon, that I might be able to find someone to dive with at Peacock. My cave instructor was staying around the corner from us in one of Bill?s trailers, so I?d visited with him and other folks the night before. I?ve dove with some of them in Ohio, and they had came down to dive with Tim during his class. I?d seen them drive by just a few minutes before Mike?s suggestion, so I darted out and shoved off to get an AM dive in.

At Peacock 1, I joined up with Brian, Heather, and Bill for an easy tune-up cave dive. It seems that Heather had been out of the caves for a few years due to medical issues. On my way back from the van, a man with white hair and a long white beard walked up to me, and Brian yelled over that he was by himself and was looking for someone to dive with. I?m always leery of cave diving with someone that I haven?t been in OW first with, so I himmed and hawed around a bit saying that I needed to talk with Brian first. Brian informed me he?d dove with the guy before and he was really good. So after a minute or two I walked back over to the gentleman to see if he was still interested. He had temporarily planned on diving with a cavern class, and said that he?d be happy to, especially since he was wanted to get a good dive in before he took off for Atlanta that afternoon. After our introductions, I quickly realized that I was going to dive with someone VERY familiar with the Peacock cave system. He asked where I?d like to go, and without a map, I tried to describe to him where I?d never been.

We quickly geared up and did safety checks with each other, then headed down the Pothole tunnel. The first jump to the right was made down the Nicholson tunnel, and then another down toward Cisteen. I?d never been this far in Peacock or along this route, but it was very beautiful and relaxing. It was cool to jump off on the line toward Cisteen and see line that looked like some of the original white line placed in the system (not the main gold line used elsewhere). In fact, there still was debris hanging on the line from the last flood. Likely, this particular tunnel doesn?t get viewed very often by divers, as it seems pretty pristine compared to other sections of Peacock that get used often for training. I enjoyed hugging near the bottom of the tunnel and glancing to the sides to see passages running invitingly far back on the sides, but a bit too small to squeeze into without making a mess.

I was reminded throughout the dive why I enjoy cave diving. This was way cool stuff!! Dang this awesome!!! It was also cool to be with this particular diver, and how easy he was to dive with. Later, he told me of early discussions in cave diving when he and others first started using cave arrows, and even his first attempt at using a ?lost line? drill for real when it was just a theory thrown around among instructor buddies. I am appreciative for having had the neat opportunity to meet and dive with Forrest Wilson. He was very sharing, and never condescending in his comments or recommendations. After I got a picture of Forrest, he laughed that I should have gotten one of him while he was still in his suit since he looked a bit like a drowned rat after his drysuit neck seal burped and leaked down the front of his shirt.

When I got back to the Dive Outpost, Penny and Dave were going through gear checks with Mike. I was still grinning from ear to ear, so Penny commented that I was glowing. ?Was it a good dive?? Oh? you have nooo idea!!! The afterglow lasted for a couple of hours!! :D

Penny and Dave got ready and we headed over to Orange Grove for their first skills dives and some light cavern work. They were unable to get as much done as they?d hoped because of delays from an equipment issue, but were able to make it up the following day.

After some air-sharing exercises, the group headed down to about 65ft and headed down the Orange Grove cavern to the stop sign and turned the dive.

That evening, we headed over to the Mexican restaurant about 20 miles away in Live Oak. Penny and Dave were hilarious as they entertained the Guatemalan and Mexican staff with their Spanish. I felt like I was caught up in a scene from Helen Keller as Dave would ask the names of items or would excitedly rush over to the beer cooler and identify what we wanted. What a hoot!! The staff got into the flow and played along, almost welcoming Dave?s curiosity. (Personally, I think she was flirting with us!!)

The next morning, Mike had the class head over to Peacock 1 which has a nice cavern area to practice in. This provided a good opportunity for Dave and Penny to run reels for the first time underwater. I caught the moment of their ?firsts? and put the pics in my member gallery. It was nice to NOT be involved in the class situation and be entirely relaxed as an observer.
http://www.zendiving.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/559
After a long day of diving in the cavern, they finished up with some ?no mask? line work in the basin of Peacock 2. This was hilarious because the rocks were heavily covered with moss and muck. Pretty soon, it was hard to differentiate Penny and Dave from their environment!!! :D

The students had a great deal of homework that night, so I was able to talk extensively to one of the staff of Dive Outpost about his survey work and experiences in one of the local cave systems. It?s neat to hear about work going on along the ?off-beaten? trails.

When my stomach could take it no longer, I talked ?our students? into a food run down in Mayo. Because places were closing earlier than we expected, we just barely got our order in for Pizza at a place that was ready to turn its lights off. They needed to finish/continue their homework, so we took it back to the lodge, so I continued to relax in Cathy?s nice recliners and read about cave diving history while they toiled!!

The final day of diving started us off at Peacock 1 for a jaunt down Pothole tunnel for some ?lost buddy? practice, where I got to hover above the group and practice my ?spiderman? imitation. I also tried to minimize my impact on their group by keep my light emissions to a minimum so that they could see what to expect ?light-wise? from a group of two or three in a team. Later, we went down the Peanut line for ?lights-out? air-sharing exits. I gotta tell ya? I really enjoyed this part of their class. It was good practice for me as well, and I was able to move myself to a point where I could see the faint green glow from the cavern exit, and see other teams come in and go past me without seeing me, yet remain contact with Mike, Penny, and Dave!

After lunch, we ran over to Cow Springs and did some diving in one of the downstream areas. I?d only been to Cow once before in May 2005, so it was nice to go in and see it in a class situation where I could take my time an ?soak it all in?. The system has reddish/white walls which is very different from the walls in the Peacock system. The class did their lost line drills here, and after I escorted Dave out (for low air), I was able to do some additional reel practice in the basin.

Cow is a very primitive/undeveloped system, and I love ?pristine-ness? of this location. It?s a bit difficult to entry and exit from, but the diving is nice. However, to do so, you either have to be a student in the right class, or a member of the NSS-CDS. Cathy at Dive Outpost has the liability waivers and the key for the gate.

I?ve intentionally left out details from class, as I figure it?s up to Dave and Penny to fill those in. I was merely an observer of the class, so I don?t feel it?s my right to publicly comment on what I saw of the students. Again, I?ve placed photos of their dives of Peacock and Orange Grove in the member gallery (I forgot my camera on the Cow dives).
http://www.zendiving.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/559

That night we went over to the Mexican restaurant again for another good meal. The following morning, we took our time getting loaded up and reluctantly started back up the highway toward the cold weather in the north.

It was a very enjoyable trip with very easy to get along with folks. Of course Penny has her nickname of Princess, and Dave took a new one on himself... hmmm... what does wb mean for you??? I earned a new nickname as well... but hopefully I wasn't overbearing in my attention to details on the trip!!!

Looking forward to the next trip down!!

bob... wb... LM!!! :D
(Logistics Man) :superman:

I posted this cave trip report on another forum, but thought you might enjoy getting a glimpse into a trip that I was on just before Thanksgiving 2005.

**********************
On Thursday Nov 17th (my late-father's birthday), four of us rode down to Marianna, FL to dive in a couple of different caves. We had Brandon (who started the drive down from Detroit) that picked up the remainder of us (Scott L, Dan G, and me) along the way for our long trek down. Poor Brando had the longest drive from MI, down through OH, KY, TN, AL, & finally FL, piling over 2000 miles on his van after all was said and done.

We arrived in Marianna, FL about 3:30am CST after what seemed like forever. What makes the trip go allot faster is that we played DVD movies all the way down. After settling into the motel, we crashed hard, then got up bright and early in the morning (okay...it just seemed bright and early), to head over to Cave Adventurers and meet with Ed, the proprietor of the establishment. Ed is one heck of a nice guy, and a pleasure to do business with. His work ethic is second to none, and I was impressed with the amount of work he did for us to get gear down and back up the hill from the dock.

We rented a pontoon boat for Friday, and tooled over to Hole-in-the-Wall cave system. This was Scott's and my first time in this system, so I was pumped to check it out. The first dive would be a warm up dive, before any subsequent scooter attempts, so we swam in to check things out. Using our stage and backgas, our "warm-up" dive ended up lasting almost 2hrs. We'll... I can say I was plenty warm after that dive!! It was a very nice system.... white walls, stained reddish throughout gave it an almost "Navaho" feel. Once past the restriction at around 20ft that you had to squeeze and wiggle yourself through, it opened up quite nicely. We dropped our O2 inside, and started off on our stage cylinder. Reaching 1/2 plus 200, we dropped the stage, and continued on using 1/3 of our backgas. After a couple of jumps, we turned the dive somewhere around 2300ft linear feet from the entrance, and started our easy swim back. Quite a remarkable system, and very serene!! After an uneventful deco, we surfaced four happy campers... errr... cavers that just marinated in the afterglow.
Max depth around 100ft, run time 116 minutes, memories: priceless!!!

Our follow-on dives here and the next day at Jackson Blue were equally remarkable, although I must say that coming out of Jackson Blue cave gives you an incredible "window" that is every bit as impressive as I've seen in JB photos on the web or in books. Simply breath taking!!!

To dive at Jackson Blue, you have to sign in at the Sheriff's office, and pay a $25 entrance fee. If you're going to be the first couple of folks in, then they'll give you a key to the gate. If not, hopefully the gate will be unlocked at the Mill Pond park (not sure it's real name).

It was an incredible experience, and I'm glad I finally added some of the caves around Marianna to my list of cave dives!

If you ever get a chance to go here... I'd say, forget it, it's not worth it.... just stay away and save yourself the trip.... ....and leave this awesome system to the rest of the folks that venture to these caves that are located off the beaten path from the typical Northern Florida cave region. To those who shared the system with us, we say thanks!!!

So, after two days of diving, we packed up the van and trailer, and headed back north on Sunday.

If you ever get there... enjoy!! I know we sure did!! WOW!!

Bob

Couple of photos inside these caves:
http://www.zendiving.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/449/cat/500/ppuser/132

http://www.zendiving.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/448/cat/500/ppuser/132

On Thursday March 30th 2006, I headed down to Marianna, FL (about 60 miles north of Panama City and 60 miles west of Tallahassee) to do some cave diving on Merrits Mill Pond with Scott L (scooter), Brandon S (brando), Scot W (scot), and Don C. This Pond has access to several cave systems, 3 of which we did: "Hole-in-the-Wall", Twin, and Jackson Blue.

I'd driven down to Cincinnati a few days earlier, so they picked me up on the way past there. We used a couple of vehicles to get the 5 of us down the road. All of the tanks went in the back of the Scott's truck that he and I rode in, and the scooters and other miscellaneous gear went in the rented mini-van with Brandon, Scot, and Don. I had to chuckle when I considered what the DOT might think about the 9 sets of steel doubles, 10 AL80's, and 5 02 bottles (mostly AL40's) riding in the back of Scott's truck (I realized it's wasn't commercial transportation, but it still made me chuckle to see all the tanks). The best way to describe driving that truck was trying to maneuver a wounded sow down the road! :D


We arrived down at Marianna around 11pm CST, secured equipment in two Ramada hotel rooms, and placed batteries on chargers for some last minute juice. Bright and early Friday morning, we headed out for breakfast, then head over to Ed's at Cave Adventurers. We topped off our tanks, and headed down to the pontoon boat that we'd rented for the day. Our first stop with the boat was over to the "Hole-in-the-Wall" cave, located about 200 yards from the boat dock on the opposite side of the pond. It's literally an underwater entrance to a cave at the base of the cliff, hence, a "hole in the wall", so to speak.



Our first dive down this cave was to the tunnel on the right. Near the entrance, you squeeze through a restriction that forces you to rub you belly and tanks a bit between the ceiling and the floor, but it's a small restriction to squeeze through, then opens up quite nicely. I followed the crack down and to the right, running my reel, to tie into the main gold line at around 70ft deep. This first dive was a warmup for us, so we breathed off of our stage bottles only, and held our back gas in reserve. With a depth of around 100ft, we made it several hundred feet before we turned around and came back. Since I ran the reel down, I was last one back up, and Scot had me move the reel over to the other tunnel passage and tie into the main line located over there. Back near the entrance, we picked up our O2 bottles and stopped a few minutes at 20ft for some additional off-gassing. Max Depth 105ft, approx 60 minutes.

The second dive was with our scooters. Since there were five of us, we'd broken in to two teams (3 person, and 2 person), just like the first dive. Since it's possible to scooter further back into a cave than you can possibly swim out (using the back gas you're carrying), we decided to conservatively limit our "trigger time" to 20 minutes on penetration (our scooters have a burn time with the pitch turned down of an hour), and then turn around and come out. We had made good distance past a couple of T's, swimming through narrow sections to avoid silting the bottom with our scooters, but finally reached a really silty section that got a bit messy from the five of us going through it. We turned the dive there and swam our way back through the murk, then scootered again once we reached clear water. It was awesome to see how everyone calmly reverted to their "low visibility" training to get back out to clear water, then proceeded to exit out. Max Depth 100ft, 100 minutes.

After lunch, we headed about 500 yards further down the pond (toward the head springs) to Twin Cave. I'd never done this cave before, so I was looking forward to seeing it. Scott and Brandon ventured off on their own, while Scot, Don, and I head down this beautiful long hallway that reminded me of a scene from the Middle ages looking down a hallway with arches across the corridor along its length. We dropped down off the gold line, leaving our scooters and stage bottles, and swam down several passages that were marked with white survey line. It was cool to go down passages that didn't show signs of "wear & tear". A very relaxing diving with lot's of sight-seeing! Max Depth 100ft, 90 minutes.

My final dive of the day was a short one with Scot W to retrieve the reel we'd left in "Hole-in-the-Wall" cave (we thought we might make it back for another dive, but we ran out of day). Since we'd already had some long dives, we took our ascent very slowly and spent additional minutes on the O2 at 20ft and up. Max depth 70ft, 25 minutes.



When we got back to the hotel, we dismounted some of the sensitive gear and set stuff on chargers, then headed out for Ruby Tuesday for a hearty meal!

The next morning, we got up early for breakfast, then headed over to the Sheriff's office to sign in and get a key to the Mill Pond Park where Jackson Blue cave is located. Unfortunately this is on the opposite side of town as the caves so there's a lot of driving involved.

There were several cave divers and their vehicles already there when we arrived, but the cave is pretty large (with a healthy current), so it clears out fairly quickly. For our first dive, Scott L, Don, and I did a scooter dive down the main line, past a couple of "Y"'s in the line where we placed cookies (line markers). This was allot more fun than the last time I was in here since I was swimming then. After we dropped our stage bottles, we got a bit further and were close to dropping our scooters when we reached an area with lots of silt in the water for another group that had passed us a bit earlier exiting. So, unfortunately viz was low and we turned the dive. It was cool to see so much of this beautiful "white walled" system. Max depth 100ft, 70 minutes
Photos from Cave Adventurers


On the second dive, we decided to setup for some pictures in one of the larger rooms. I refer back to this dive now as the "Olin Mills" dive since it seemed like a professional picture session that might have been schedule for family portraits. Scott L had a remote strobe and sensor setup against a nice white wall, plus the two strobes on his camera, and he proceeded to wave us past his "setup" and stop for pictures. Some of the shots became very amusing and comical... what a group! After several minutes (and my turn was over), my light started dying due to battery charge, so I went to backup, and Don and I headed out toward the entrance where we took lot's of extra time in the cavern zone enjoying the incredible beauty of the exit. I love just poking around inside of a cave to discover little crevices and passages, to catch those extra little things that someone might typically rush past. A very relaxing time! 100ft 60 minutes

For our 3rd dive, Don and I planned on running a reel off of the main line down various crevices and passages that we'd seen at the end of our second dive. Was I ever glad we did!!! We went a couple of hundred feet back into the tunnel, tied off, and proceeded down the crevice on the left side of the hallway as you're entering the cave. After I got to the bottom of it, and proceeded along the bottom a ways, I was looking under the ledges and saw something I never would have expected. Now, I've had the privilege to see some cool animal life inside of caves, like albino crayfish, and albino salimanders, as well as lots of catfish, etc, but NEVER did I expect to see a fresh water eel... not just any eel, but this beautiful blue-gray creature was 4-5 inches in diameter, and possibly 5ft long. It started turning away as I approached and worked it's way further underneath, but I was like "THIS IS FRIGGIN' AWESOME!!" Don later confided that he was concerned that the eel might dart out at me and gnaw my face off. :D

I reeled up our line, and tied off to the main line right before the descent to 80ft, and explored a bit back deeper into the cave, to unexpectedly find another white line that had a sampling station setup beside it. It had a note beside it to "not disturb" so we left it alone, tied off our reel to the white line and followed it a bit. The line dropped sharply through a restriction, and appeared to continue on. We were not far from our turn around pressure by this time, so we had to bid farewell and leave the line alone, saving exploration for another time. I'm eager to see where it goes! While Don and I were discussing the dive on the surface, we met another cave diver that we've seen post on TDS, and he explained that the line we found was a circuit. I hope to follow it next time! An incredibly relaxing and fun cave dive! Just the way I like them!! 70ft, 63 minutes

Once again... the service that we received from Cave Adventurers was "Top Notch"!! Ed does an incredible job of servicing his customers from the dive shop and air station on the first level of his house!


After packing up much of our gear Saturday night, we finished packing at 3am Sunday morning, and headed back up the road to Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. While I prefer trips that are stretched out a bit, without all this compressed diving/driving in such a short timeframe, it was great to head down and get into these cave systems again, and I look forward to the next opportunity I get to dive them again.

Many thanks to "the boyz" for having me along on this trip on short notice and letting me experience these caves again that are a bit off the normal "cave diving" path!!!

February 21-March 2, 2003


Cave Training
Scott (Scooter) and I decided to head down to Florida for a week to complete a Cavern to Full Cave course with an instructor from Indiana that we'd met and dove with at Gilboa. We'd already done some skill work with Tim, so Scott and I weren't going in completely cold. Even so, this is still an aggressive pace for this amount of information, so I respect anyone's opinion that would discourage cramming this much info into such a tight timeframe.

Day 1 Saturday
After having driven through the night, the 16 hour drive ended around 5am in the morning. Since everything was closed, we parked across the street from Cave Excursions and tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to catch a couple of hours of sleep. Sleeping upright in a truck is not my idea of a good time, so sleep proved to be somewhat elusive. Since Cave Excursions didn't open until 9am, we went down to Peacock Springs at 8am to get signed in for the week. Since we were getting the weekly Family pass for our vehicle, we bickered as necessary to put up a good showing. We toured around Peacock Springs to see the various springs and sinks (Orange Grove, Olsen, Challenge, Pothole, Peacock I, II, III, and Waterhole). Some of them had very clear water to look down in, while other's were covered with Duckweed. The Duckweed was unique in that it was a small clover-like plant that floated on the surface with a small root that hung off the bottom of it to gather sustenance.

By 9am, we were back at Cave Excursions to get the keys to our mobile homes. Each trailer was reasonably priced for a day. $40 covered the first two people in a trailer, and $10 for each extra person. Only one of the trailers was immediately available for use because there had been a slight mix-up in scheduling for Friday night. It wasn't a big deal 'cause a couple of use just crashed on the couches to catch a few more winks before lunch. After the other trailer was available around lunch, Scott, myself, and the other student (who was already cavern certified) moved our stuff into the other trailer.

The rain was pouring down pretty good at this point (North Central Florida needs rain pretty bad, so we weren't discouraged). To get started on some line work, we set up an obstacle course inside one of the trailers and practiced running line, following line, primary & secondary tie-off's and line placements. Also, had the opportunity to place line arrows, as well as attaching jump reels. Near the end of this session the rain let-up outside, so we moved our practice out into the yard and woods. The primary focus of our practice outside was touch contact with the line and the other team members. It seemed to take forever to traverse the several hundred yard course, especially since some to the arrows were placed incorrectly (on purpose) to force us to back track and verify at least one previous arrow. This was to simulate a "misread" of an arrow in the potential adrenaline enhanced situation of a no-viz touch contact situation. Also, it gave us extra practice passing "communication" back and forth in the 3 person team.

The remainder of the day was spent settling in, getting dinner, gear setup & evaluation, and finally settling in for some real sleep.

Day 2 Sunday
On Sunday we headed over to Orange Grove at Peacock Springs to get allot of practice in the cavern zone. OG has a large open basin that gave us plenty of room for skills. Most of what we practiced initially was touch contact line following with team communication and air sharing. The other student in the class apparently had recently acquired equipment for the class, so he was trying to acclimate himself to diving a dual-bladder large wing & twin LP85's in a wet suit. Watching him, I found myself reflecting on a valuable piece of advice I'd been given a couple of years ago: get used to the equipment prior to a class setting so that training time could be spent absorbing new information, not making extensive equipment adjustments, nor adjusting to the equipment. Of course, you have to be in contact with the instructor or perhaps have chosen a common equipment standard to avoid wasting money needlessly on poor equipment. At some point during the diving, the other student opted not to continue. That left Scott and I to focus on the class alone. For us, this began a week filled with S-Drills, equipment checks, bubble checks, and dive planning (SADDD -Sequence, Air, Distance, Depth, Deco).

We had 5 dives and 173 minutes of bottom time, including 2 dives back to the "Stop Sign".

Day 3 Monday
On Monday we staked out spot at Peacock 1. Our first dive was down Pothole Line to Olsen Sink. Tim used this as a familiarization dive to show us how the line takes a sharp 90° turn to the surface of Olsen sink. Just around the corner to the right the Olsen line starts, but requires a jump from the Pothole line. We turned the dive here returned to Peacock I.

Our next dive was down the Peanut Line. At around the 250' mark the tunnel transitions into a tighter tube-like area. From approximately 250-500' the restrictive area ascends slowly to a depth of 15ft. We turned the dive just as the tube opens up in the "Breakdown" room. On the way back through the tube, Scott and I did an OOA drill for a distance of 200 feet back through the tunnel. This is definitely a single file area air-share area and to make things worse, we had to do it as a touch contact line drill. Since I was the donor, Scott was in front of me with me primary regulator. The permanent line in this area ran back into the tighter recesses of the tunnel. Maintaining line contact, sharing air, crashing between the ceiling and the floor (there was about 10-12 inches of leeway), and continuing forward progress proved to be a bit difficult and we got beat up pretty good. It had us both questioning if we could have made it out in time on a continued air share.

On dive 3, I ran the primary reel from the cavern zone back to the permanent line on the Peanut side. The first (or primary) tie-off is performed outside of the cavern/cave in an area that allows clear access to the surface. This allows touch contact out of the cave into a safe area in the event of no viz. The secondary tie off is made well inside the cavern zone in case the primary comes loose or is tampered with. From there I headed back to the primary line to make a tie-off. The permanent line (in this case a strong yellow kermantle line) is placed well back inside the cave beyond the cavern zone. It is placed in a location that prevents casual location from the untrained. After I made the tie-off, I headed back down the Peanut Line. Scott was in the #2 position. We proceeded back past the "Breakdown" room to the Crossover tunnel. After Tim showed us the permanent line in the Crossover tunnel, we turned the dive at 1100'. On the way back through the restrictive part of the Peanut line, Scott and I did another OOA with him as the donor. Learning from our lessons that we gained on the prior dive, we were able to scoot along considerably faster and finished the drill with a degree of confidence that we could survive this if we worked as a team and used our heads.

Scott was the lead and ran the reel on dive 4 down the Pothole line. I like the beginning of this dive. It is a sharp descent down an angled fissure that bottoms out quickly. It's a bit of a challenge for a novice like myself to maintain good "line work" while descending sharply, inflating BC, clearing ears, and looking good. Scott did a good job of it despite the fact that the reel he was using presented some opportunities (I don't have a clue who used that reel on the previous dive, honest Scott, I just don't know how that could have happened ;-). The on the return leg of this dive, we used backup lights

After four dives and 176 minutes of BT, we called it a day.

Day 4 Tuesday
Our first dive of the day was a setup dive to eventually do a circuit from Pothole line around to Peanut line. I led down the fissure to Pothole line and continued back to Pothole Sink. From there I ran a jump around the corner to the Olsen Line. This is a permanent line that extends from the Pothole sink to Olsen sink. The goal was to push back to the Crossover line and determine where our1/3rd's would take us. I'd been pushing it a bit too hard and reached my mental limit about 100 psi prior to 1/3rds. Turning the dive, I marked our maximum penetration with a clothespin so that we would have a future reference when we came around from the other side. I just couldn't get into "the zone" on the first half of the dive, but after I turned it, things settled out nicely. In fact, when we returned to the Pothole sink, I noticed all of the animal bones that had been pulled off the silty bottom and placed on a nearby ledge. The word I got was that there had been an animal that had recently fallen into the sink. After some lost diver drills, we returned back to the surface to change tanks, leaving our primary line in place in to provide a continuous line back to the surface if we were able to make the complete circuit from the other direction on the next dive.
Depth 66ft, 85 minutes

Scott led the next dive down the Peanut Line. The objective on this dive was to see if we could reach the clothespin I'd placed at our furthest penetration on the previous dive. To do this we had to get back through the restrictive tube (now becoming my favorite part of the tunnel) and then place jump reels from Peanut to Crossover and from Crossover to Olsen line (I'd already placed the jump from Olsen to Pothole line on the previous dive). We made it back to the Crossover line without incident (about 1100' back). We made the jump to Crossover line, and quickly became apparent that the permanent line in this tunnel was different. It was a standard white cave line and was knotted every ten feet on the end where we made the jump. About 1/2 way through the tunnel was a white placard that indicated that a survey was underway in here. We got to the other end of this line and Scott placed in the next jump. This placed us back on the Olsen line. Shortly thereafter Scott spotted my clothespin. We'd been very close to 1/3rd's, in fact Scott later mentioned that he was ready to turn the dive when he thought he saw the clothespin, but it turned out to be a knot in the permanent line. However, my clothespin was just a few feet beyond. On the way back past I pulled out the jump reel from Olsen to Pothole. After we got past the Pothole on the return to the exit, Scott was told to go to his backup mask. When he pulled it from his pocket, I noticed that only one side of the mask strap was attached. I thought....he is SO hosed. As he was trying to discover what was wrong by feeling around his backup, he found the problem. Putting it over his face and clearing it, he saw what it would take to orient the mask strap to fix it. While repairing the mask and eyes closed, he held buoyancy within a couple of inches. We were all so impressed we started bowing and paying homage right then and there in the tunnel. Later as we began our ascent back up the fissure, we did an OOA drill.
Depth 65ft, 82 minutes, linear distance approx 2800 ft.

Day 5 Wednesday
While gearing up for the first dive, we had a brief conversation with David Rhea who was conducting a GUE Cave 1 class at Peacock. As our dive started, Scott started out by running the reverse of the previous day. He installed the jump from Pothole to Olsen that I removed, I removed his jumped from Olsen to Crossover and Crossover to Peanut after everyone was past. On the way back down Peanut, I placed a jump from Peanut to the Waterhole line for use on an upcoming traverse, but we headed back toward the exit on Peanut. On the way back, we did "lost fin" drills and went to backup masks. In the cavern zone, we had a wet note conversation. After a pressure check and a decision to round the corner and head back up Pothole to retrieve the jump at Olsen, the most disturbing thing that happened all week transpired. After doing a complete circuit, we recalculated 1/3rd's. I wrote down what I thought I "heard" Scott say (2400) and I wrote down 2800. It should have dawned on me then, but there's no way, even with a "cave" fill in my tanks, that I could have 2800 in my doubles. There'd been a bit of ceiling bumping in the restrictive part of Peanut line, but I'd discounted it. As I lead the group back toward Pothole sink to retrieve the jump reel, I'd been doing pressure checks and it finally hit me that my gauge wasn't moving. I reached back and bumped my valves and had my gauge drop down to 1100 psi. Oh... this wasn't good.... I quickly did a full valve check, while mentally replaying what had just happened. Turning the dive, I chastised myself all the way back to the entrance for not catching the problem sooner.
Depth 64 ft, 115 minutes, 3700 ft linear travel.

Scott and I talked with Tim about a dive where we could focus heavily on lost line and lost diver drills, so we headed down the Peanut line back to the "Breakdown" room. In the restrictive part of the tunnel, I did lost line drills. Sounds simple enough in a smaller area, but it's complicated by a narrow "ravine/rift" that runs along one side of the tunnel. After conducting additional drills, we concluded the dive with 102 minutes of bottom time.

Day 6 Thursday
Today we ran over to Ginnie Springs to experience maximum entrance fees ;-) and high current. During high flow, Ginnie Springs averages an out flow of 40 million gallons per day. After driving through very heavy rains and flooded dirt roads to get there, the rain finally subsided. Our first dive was down the Devil's Ear. After a brief swim over to the Ear, we encountered heavily tannic water. The viz cleared at the mouth of the spring. We found the Ear to be an angled shaft the sharply descends into cave. I quickly emptied my wing and dropped into the crack to run a line. Staying in the shadows and nooks we tried to avoid the brunt of the flows force. Even so, it took quite a bit of effort to descend and run a line into the cave. Once in the main tunnel, the scalloped walls gave some relief from the flow before planning the next assault forward. After we poked our heads over the "Lips" and gained the plateau beyond, we rested briefly before continuing on to the Cornflakes. We figured out a variation of the "pull and glide" technique. I call it the "Grab and Tackle". The flow was brutal in places, so I felt like a down hill skier that would rock back and forth before launching and tackling the next objective. It seemed like we had barely made any distance past the Cornflakes before we called the dive on 1/3rd's. Scott had to do a lost line drill before we got all the way back. The ride back out was incredible though. It was like drift diving through a canyon! Prior to the exit, I deflated my wing and drysuit thoroughly to avoid being spit out of the ear and embedding myself into the log that sits atop the opening. After a nice slow ascent up the Ear, I settled in for a nice stop at 20ft. Looking up, I saw the most incredible sight I've ever witnessed while diving. The dark tannic waters were fighting to overcome the flow of the springs. The struggle that was taking place above us created a most incredibly picturesque sight as the high noon sun cast a brilliant backdrop. The swirling bloody-looking waters looked like they were locked in mortal combat with the swelling crystal clear waters emanating from the spring. It was only after great effort that the upwelling would temporarily push back the dark foreboding tannic. Words to describe the incredible awe I felt fail me, but scenes of foreboding from the movie "Lord of the Rings" come to mind. Simply incredible....
Depth 88ft, 66 minutes


Dive 2 Scott led with the reel down the Devil's Eye. This passage was a bit more restrictive than the Ear, but Scott did a good job with the line. The objective on this dive was to reach the Bone Room, but shortly after our last jump, the dive was called on 1/3rd's. About 1/2 way back, I had to do a lost line drill. This was quite different than doing it in low flow conditions. Since we left a primary reel in the Ear, we went back that way to exit. Again, we enjoyed the incredible show above the Ear.
Depth 88 ft, 84 minutes.

Day 7 Friday
We went to Telford to check out the conditions, but there was allot of tannic at the entrance, so we took a look at the upstream sinks, but we were a bit leary about how far the tannic had intruded. Rather than make a go at it, we decided to go back to Peacock instead. Since we still had a jump from Peanut to Waterhole line, we decided to get in at Waterhole sink and traverse across to Peanut. I would much rather get in than try to get out at Waterhole. There was some mild tannic intrusion at the beginning of Waterhole line that mildly clouded the water, but we soon swam out of that. This section seemed to be more up and down than other sections than other sections of Peacock we'd done. It definitely had a character of it's own. I noticed several of the "blind" white crayfish in this section. This was a very relaxing jaunt back around to the Peacock exit.
Depth 54ft, 91 minutes.

I had some sinus issues during the morning dive that made ascents unenjoyable, so I skipped out on the final dive of the week and read several chapters from Sheck Exley's "Caverns Measureless to Man". Scott led a dive from Peacock I to Peacock II and back. From what I hear, he had some true low viz diving that he'd been craving all week. Careful what you wish for Scott!

Woohoooooooo!!!! What an incredibly good and intense week with good camraderie and lot's of good-natured ribbing (Scott and I relentlessly dogged the crap out of each other for major and mostly minor stuff all week). Things got a little testy at times, but it was usually because the other person made a good point that the other didn't want to hear. Lot's of good character building and strengthening of friendships! There was a multiplicity of valuable lessons learned and internalized. It was amazing how many problems we solved or prevented on the surface by thinking through the dive or not taking Instructor remarks and suggestions at face value (he was trying to set us up a couple of times). I left Florida feeling that as long as we stayed within the limits of our training and experience, there was very little that we couldn't think through and solve together. Teamwork and trust in the team members is paramount.
After logging 16 dives and 16 hours bottom time in six days (Scott had 17 dives and over 17 hrs BT) with two 16 hour drives on both ends of the trip, I think I need a vacation now....

Contentedly,
wb

For all those who spent time with me in Fiji will have noticed that I have put on a little padding since last year. As motivation to train for three century rides this year, I declared that I would start training for the first century ride on the Monday after I got back from Fiji. Today I started that training. This blog wil be my j