Cave Diving with Wreck Divers
By Capt. Heather Knowles and Capt. David Caldwell
Northern Atlantic Dive Expeditions, Inc.
Since we had a forced two week hiatus from Donna III local diving (Doug had gone on vacation-- a cruise on a future wreck), we figured why not take the time and go to Florida and cave dive. Dave had already been certified back in 1993 but had not been back since. I had wanted to take a course but had time and time again been sidetracked with other commitments. So, we finally decided to do the course and figured we would both get something out of it. We thought it would be good for our diving to work together. We talked about whom we might like to work with and came up with a short list of people and we narrowed down the list based on a few factors—such as style; experience and what kind of feedback from others we had picked up. We were not looking for someone to teach us how to dive but instead critique our overall diving, in addition to teaching me cave diving techniques. After a string of emails and discussion working out schedules, we set up a course to work with Jill and Paul Heinerth over the course of a week down in Florida.
Soon enough the time arrived to begin preparing and heading down to Florida. We had decided on driving down so that we could avoid the hassles of flying, renting a car, tanks, etc. When we ran the numbers, it was definitely cheaper to drive, with the only real cost being the time commitment. Stripping our gear was quite interesting. Since you do not need hammers, chisels, crow bars, lift bags, jersey reels and argon bottles in caves, lets say our equipment lightened up quite a bit.
The plan was to get on the road Thursday night and get past New York. That way, we would drive all day Friday and give ourselves time to arrive at the Dive Outpost on Saturday afternoon. After speaking with Cathy at the Dive Outpost, we didn’t want to arrive in the dark, especially since the store is really in the middle of nowhere and not well lit. So with that in mind, we got on the road a little after 9 pm on Thursday night, ready for the adventure ahead.
We drove for three or so hours before snow and exhaustion forced us to stop in White Plains, NY for the night. We had come close enough to our planned stopping point and were only a few miles from our goal of reaching the Tappan Zee Bridge. We crashed hard and slept in until about 8:30 am, planning to hit the road again just after the rush hour passed. Sure enough, we cleared, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland with relative speed and comfort. We drove until about 2 pm and decided to stop in Virginia for some lunch. We stopped in a busy rest area, and what would be the last of the restaurants and surroundings we were familiar with. We settled on a lunch at TGI Fridays, and I mean settled. The first indication that we weren’t home anymore came quickly when we walked into the restaurant and saw a couple sitting on a bench waiting to be seated. Sounds pretty normal, except for the fact the place was empty. A girl came up to us and told us it was going to be a 10-minute wait. Dave looked and me and I looked at him—ten minutes? The place was empty! Dave had told me that things go a little slower in the south, but this was ridiculous. Finally we were seated and Dave asked why we had to wait ten minutes to sit down. The girl responded by telling us that they were trying to keep the stress to a minimum. Stress to a minimum? We were planning to swim hundreds of feet into dark, underwater caves and this was stress? I was baffled but shrugged it off. “We’re on vacation”, I said with a smile. We ate quickly, or as quickly as possible given the glacial speed at which our waitress moved. Getting back on the road, we decided to make the next big push to at least as far as South Carolina.
We drove hard and reached Savannah, Georgia by about 10:30 pm. The landscape changed quite a bit when we passed South of Virginia. There was not a whole lot of anything. We crashed out again, tired after a long day of driving. We hit the road the following morning around 10 am and made the final leg of the trip. We passed Jacksonville, heading towards the Dive Outpost on RT 10. Restaurants became fewer and far between and soon enough the only choices were McDonalds, Hardee’s Hamburgers and the scary, very scary, Waffle House.
I was getting hungry and being a picky eater, I was also beginning to get a little squeamish given the choices. Dave was threatening me with McDonalds, as I don’t like fast food places. In return, I threatened him with Subway, which I like but he has some “issues” with. We arrived in Live Oak and surveyed the scene. Not many choices. Dave suggested a buffet place off the road in the downtown area. I was appalled but when we pulled into the parking lot, it was clear I had no choice.
Walking into this place was a little interesting, to put it politely. When I think of the “Golden Coral Buffet”, I think “open trough”. Enough said. Everything is deep fried and heavily salted. I don’t know how anyone lives past the age of forty down there.
We arrived at the Dive Outpost, which is located about 20 minutes from Live Oak, the last stop before you fall off the map. The Dive Outpost reminded me of college—it is like a diving frat house, but without the wild keg parties. The store is stocked with every piece of equipment and accessories a diver might need. Couches and reclining chairs line the inside with a large picnic table in the center of the room. A TV playing a constant run of movies is located in the upper corner. Outside on the porch, there are more sofas and recliners. Nearby also outside, there is an air station, which banks nitrox and air. Back inside the store, a kitchen and small classroom make up the back of the store. There is Cathy, who like the housemother, oversees all of the events and Scott who lives and works at the Dive Outpost and is like the guy who never graduated. Cats and dogs roam the store and a stream of regulars drops in to say hello or top off for another dive. Out in the back, three small cottages make up the accommodations. Dave and I settled into a small cottage with a private bathroom and TV/VCR. At least once per week, Cathy cooks up a big feast for everyone (she’s a great cook) and the divers gather round the table in the store for a great meal. Cathy is extremely nice and runs a great, great store. I would highly recommend the Dive Outpost. It was just like my days living in a co-ed fraternity in college, minus the animal house part.
Dave outside of the Dive Outpost, our center of operations.
The temperature was cold, cold, cold. We arrived right in the middle of a nasty cold snap and temps were down around 30-40 degrees. Not the kind of Florida weather I was used to. We hit the sack early, ready to meet Jill at 9 am.
We met Jill at a little before 9 am outside the Dive Outpost. We chit-chatted about the cold as we watched the thermometer creep towards 21 degrees. This was nothing for Jill as she had been diving underneath icebergs in the Ross Sea in Antarctica not too long ago. And we are used to the cold of the Northeast, although it is not quite the same kind of cold as Antarctic winters. We headed inside to begin out lecture and get an introduction to what our objectives for the day would be. We filled out a mountain of paperwork and waivers to start and then chatted about some basic types of caves and some cave diving history. She talked about the evolution of the cave diving guide to accident analysis. The points have been summarized in a few acronyms, such as: “Thank God All Divers Live” or, and probably easier to remember, Jill said another good one was, “Two Guys All Day Long!” Dave said he liked the sound of “Twenty Girls All Day Long” better. Hmm….whatever helps you remember I guess.
Anyway, what does it all mean? The acronym sums up the primary reasons people die while cave diving and consequently, the golden rules you must abide to in order to survive. The “T” stands for training, easy enough. The “G” stands for running a continuous guideline; “A” indicates a managing your air supply. “D” stands for depth, which actually is the number one cause of death among cave divers, narcosis creating a snowball effect in problem management. Lastly, “L” indicates a need to carry 3 lights per diver, one primary and two back-ups. Jill gave some real life examples of these sorts of “pilot errors”. She also said it is very rare that the cave can collapse or seal you in causing your death but said that it did occur on one such occasion at Wakulla when Parker Turner was trapped in a sand avalanche resulting from a severe, abrupt drop in water level. He and another diver were sealed in, buried by sand and Turner did not survive.
When we were done with some lecture we headed out to the parking lot to put some gear together. Jill set up her open circuit gear, making some adjustments to her bands. Then she looked over our equipment. She asked a few questions about how we did this or that but overall, she was satisfied with our equipment. She said that as long as you understand the advantages and disadvantages of any piece of gear or configuration and it works for you, then it was fine. Jill and Paul are used to improvising since due to the remoteness of some of their projects, they can’t always use something off the shelf. Being flexible and knowing what works and how to make something work is a far more useful skill. Jill ran through some line demonstrations showing me how to do a primary and secondary tie-off as well as placements. We are pretty familiar with running reels so we breezed through the land demos pretty quickly. We were chomping at the bit to get in the water so we loaded up and headed off to Orange Grove.
Orange Grove is usually covered with duckweed but the dry spell had eradicated it from the water’s surface. At times, the water becomes infested with algae and it turns the spring solid green, with no visibility. With no visibility in the spring, it is difficult to access the cave when the conditions are like that. Fortunately, it was crystal clear all the way to the bottom, which was about 60 feet deep.
Orange Grove Spring: It drops down to about 60 feet right away. If you swim off
to a smaller entrance away from the main system, you can 180' deep in no time at all.
We geared up and hit the water. Jill talked us through the pre-dive safety checks: bubble check, light check, head to toe equipment and the s-drill. Once we had done that to her satisfaction, she had us run through a line drill in shallow water. She wanted to test our buoyancy and line laying skills in open water so she had us set up the lines in 20 feet of water or less so any buoyancy goofs would be obvious. I ran the line and placed it where she indicated she wanted it to go. Then we ran back and forth through drills following the line with eyes shut, sharing air and “pulling” the reel. We surfaced and reviewed quickly and then dropped back down. Things had gone pretty smoothly so we entered the cavern zone on the next dive. Jill took us through the long way and we ran the line to the cave entrance. She had us follow it back with our eyes closed. It was a challenging first drill because there were about seven other lines running into the cave and some of them were really poorly placed, coming loose from placements and crossing other people’s lines. Jill said there were a lot of good examples of what not to do in there.
On the way out of the cavern zone I hit the inflator on my suit and nothing came out. I thought that was strange so I reached back and checked the valve on the left post. Sure enough it was off. I thought to myself, “Damn, she is already shutting our air off and it is only dive two!” I turned it back on and continued the dive. We pulled the reel (removed it from the cave) and surfaced. We reviewed some points on the surface and I asked Jill if she shut my air off. She said that she would never do that to me, but thought it was good that it happened so I would be aware.
On that note Jill thought we were ready to enter the cave so we dropped down again and headed in the short way through the cavern zone. Dave ran the reel in and we headed up the tunnel. This was my first cave dive and I was trying to be very conscious of my buoyancy and position. The cave leading out from Orange Grove is very small. The tunnels are narrow and there is a heavy clay silt bed. Any mistake with buoyancy or finning will be obvious. Jill wanted to see what we could do right away. We moved at a good slow place, keeping in constant communication. We swam through the winding tunnels until Jill signaled that it was time to go back. On the way out she signaled to me that I was to be out of air and she donated her primary and we shared air all the way out.
Upon surfacing Jill said things were going great and that we looked very good. She said she turned the dive because she felt that a penetration 650’ into the system was far enough for our first cave dive. The only two criticisms of my technique were that I was dropping my knees a little bit and occasionally sculling with my left hand when turning around. Other than that we were in fine form and looked great. Jill said this was going to be a good week. We exited the water and headed out for lunch.
We headed to the Luraville Country Store and ate a few sandwiches while chatting. We looked at a map of the Peacock system and talked about diving in general. Once our stomachs were full we returned to the Dive Outpost for some more lecture. We talked about our motivation for cave diving, as well as decompression diving and our experiences getting bent. All three of us have been bent and we talked about how it happened. Jill emphasized that she never understood how strong the denial element of being bent was until it happened to her. I agreed, especially since I suffered for four days before crying “uncle” and going to the hospital, finally admitting I was bent. The fact I was laying in bed after the dive with a steel 72 full of oxygen was not enough to convince me. Jill agreed that she had persisted in denying it the same way. In fact she was so weak that she had to be recompressed in-water in the middle of the jungle first before hiking out 7 km to be evacuated. You can’t really understand it until you experience it, although we all hope it never happens-- but if it does, it will change the way you think about decompression and your body in diving. We all agreed on that.
We decided to wrap it up there since Cathy was cooking dinner for the divers staying at the Outpost. She is great cook and made a ham with scalloped potatoes, spinach and cauliflower. I was so tired I could not even talk; I just ate until the food was gone and then staggered out of there to our room. It hit the spot and we crashed out, tired after a big first day.
Jill had to work on her latest film with Wes Skiles, “Water’s Journey” and was up against a deadline so her husband Paul took over the class. Paul is a very cool guy and has been teaching cave diving for over 25 years. Interestingly, Jill’s film will air at the Boston Sea Rovers show this March. Based on what I have heard, it should be very interesting film (more on that later on in the report).
We met Paul around 8:30 am and chatted for a while going through some introductions. Paul had done some diving on the Empress of Ireland years ago and we recounted stories about the wreck. Paul was fortunate to visit the Empress when it was still ok to recover artifacts. He hauled lots of china, including a porthole off the wreck. We had a big day today so we put off some of the lecture and geared up to hit Peacock I and start getting into the nitty gritty of the course.
We arrived at Peacock and the place was a zoo since it was a holiday. Everybody was down there, including our pals from back home, Scott and Pat Robinson, who spend a few months of each year cave diving. Scott and Pat were safety divers the Wakulla 2 Project, which Jill and Paul were a big part of. So everyone was gabbing away, excited we had all crossed paths.
Dave is such a "Chatty Cathy".....
Today we were diving Peacock I, which has a very small open water area but a very large cavern. The opening is right underneath the stairs and you can go any number of ways into the system from there. This is a very popular site for Cavern Diver training, in addition to Cave.
Two views of Peacock I spring with Heather exiting at left. The 3 bottom stairs are usually underwater but the
dry weather required us to climb out from the side. Not too long ago, there were no stairs here at all.
It was time to go diving though and we all splashed into the crystal clear 72-degree water. It is incredible. The visibility in the open water at Orange Grove and Peacock was 60-70 feet. The water is so clear and dark in the cave that you can see as far as an HID light will go, and that is pretty far. We dropped down into Peacock, heading up towards Pothole Sink, which was about 600 feet up. There we made a jump, placing a gap reel between the mainline and the segment of line leading to Olsen Sink. The plan today was to get an introduction in how to run a circuit, which involves going one direction and returning the same way on dive 1 and coming from the opposite way, picking up the reels or marks on the second dive, completing the loop or “circuit” on dive 2. Everything went well with the gap placement although my mask strap slid out under my hood and I could not seal the mask on my face for the last few hundred feet towards Olsen. I was having a hard time getting the mask to stop flooding and it was really distracting me. I knew there were two scenarios—the first was that we would reach Olsen and I could fix the mask on the surface and the second was that we would hit thirds and have to turn before we got to Olsen, in effect, resulting in a 1000 ft swim where I would have to take the hood off and the mask off to fix it. Let’s just say I was pushing to get to Olsen. Sure enough we just made it and reached Olsen. We did a little surface interval and I fixed the strap and got it on my head correctly, and we headed a little further past Olsen until we hit thirds. We made the turn and came back the way we had come, pulling all the reels.
On the way back Paul “got lost” twice and Dave or I had to go find him. The procedure was that when you realize a diver is lost, you swim along the line in the opposite direction until you reach side tunnels or a big room where you can’t see the whole cave, then you tie off a safety reel with a directional arrow indicating the way out secured under the loop of the reel. You search and when you locate the diver, you place him or her between you and the mainline, making sure everyone is in constant contact with the line. Paul was hiding pretty well and we eventually found him. The only error we each made when doing the drill was tying off the line from the point we realized a diver was lost instead of backtracking to where the cave opened up beyond our visual range or tunnels opened up off the mainline. We exited the cave, having swum about 3200 feet (1600 each way). We were sure tired!
I was learning quickly that cave diving trim was very crucial and involved some different techniques than I was used to. Here in the Northeast, the water is so cold we use our suits as much as possible—to keep them pumped up with warm air or argon. The problem was, in the cave, all the air was rushing to my legs throwing off my buoyancy. As a result I was forcing my legs down instead of keeping them up. Basically you want put just enough air in the suit to take the squeeze off and then use the wings for adjustments. This was something I had to be conscious of since my suit is big and traps a lot of air.
We returned to the Dive Outpost to pick up where we left off with the lecture. We talked more about the Empress and more experiences with decompression. We talked about the differences between pure oxygen and 80/20, as well as deep air diving and all the other bad things we aren’t supposed to do anymore. Unless you are an asthmatic or have some other issue with pure oxygen, there is no reason to use anything other than 100%. Dave recounted a story where he and another guy had done the same profile, with the same gasses, the only exception being that Dave used 100% and the other guy used 80/20. When they were tested with a Doppler to measure bubble formation, Dave was totally clean and his partner was cracking away. The real control would have been to have each of them use both gasses but the example was clear enough—there are considerable differences in the efficacy of your off gassing between 100% and 80/20.
We met up with some other guys and hit the “Brown Lantern” back in Live Oak for dinner. We talked about the Empress of Ireland still more as one of the guys was Canadian and an avid Empress diver. The other guys were from the Great Lakes region and we talked about the ever-hot issue of taking artifacts from wrecks. I saw flames flicker in their eyes when I told them I would find it hard to resist hacking a helm off one of those Great Lakes wrecks! They were nice guys and we had a good discussion about Northeast wreck diving and the infamy of Andrea Doria expeditions.
Another big day ending, we retired to our cabin at the Dive Outpost tired and ready for bed.
Today’s adventure was to run a complete circuit in addition to turning up the volume on the drills. Jill had called Paul that morning and told him to really whip us into shape! We got to Peacock I really early and were the first divers in the system. The cavern zone was pristine and compared to what it looked like at the end of the day, it could have been two different dive sites! Since Dave was already certified, I was going to be put in the spotlight all the time. I had Paul’s eyes on me ready to pick up any little mistake, plus I had Dave over in the peanut gallery ready to throw his two cents in.
I ran the reel again and we worked our way up the Peanut tunnel towards Olsen sink. Swimming up the Peanut tunnel was cool; it is very small and then opens up wide when you reach a place called the Breakdown room. Then it twists and turns some more up to Olsen sink. We placed two gap reels, bridging all the lines as we worked our way up to Olsen. The swim was nice and uneventful. We surfaced at Olsen, not even having hit thirds yet and discussed the plan on the way back.
Olsen sink. Entry here is prohibited because of the impact that divers have on the soil.
Exit is permitted in an emergency or with the permission of the ranger. We exited here
due to a "bathroom emergency"...everyone had to pee. We okayed it with the ranger.
It is a long haul climbing up this hill with a set of 120s on.
Paul said we were going to do some out of air, no lights drills on the way back. When we reached the Breakdown room, Dave was to signal that he was out of air and share air with me using no lights (touch contact only) while we swam thought the Peanut tunnel back to the cavern.
All went well on the swim back. We passed the gap reels that I had set in preparation for the next dive, which would involve swimming up towards Olsen from the Peacock I, making a jump at Pothole sink. We reached the Peanut tunnel and Dave signaled he was out of air. I donated my second stage on the long hose and Paul shut our lights off. For some reason, I guess it was my first exposure to the true meaning of “darkness” in a cave, but I went into “problem solving mode”, forgetting all about the no lights part. I pulled out my back up light and switched it on. Paul must have been like, “Huh?” because he turned it off. I said, “Ok, my back up light went, now I should go to another back up!” Again Paul shut it off. I then thought to myself that I was out of lights now and I should do the rest in darkness, maintaining touch contact. We were stumbling along in the dark, feeling the cave and holding the line and trying to maintain physical contact with each other all at the same time. We were bumping around in the darkness and I had decided to shut my eye because the darkness is so dark, your eye cannot focus and you can become disoriented in a “sensory deprivation” sort of thing. We were making slow but steady progress when all of the sudden, I took a breath off my regulator and nothing…. and I mean nothing…came out. No air, not good.
Now, Dave had my only other second stage, and he was in front of me and Paul was somewhere behind us, also with no lights on. I was in total darkness, with no air, one regulator and no one was aware I was having this problem. While I try not to use profanity in these dive reports, I must admit that the first thoughts that raced through my mind like a lightening bolt striking water were, “Ohhhhhh fuck,” but I kept my head together and thought it through (very, very quickly I might add). I knew the regulator in my mouth was coming off the left post and it was more than likely that I had rolled it off bumping the ceiling in the tunnel. I knew I could hold my breath for at least a minute under stress, so I reached back to try the valve before grabbing Dave. I got my hand on it and opened the valve. A whoosh of air came out and I had gas again. I thought to myself, “Holy shit, that was interesting!” The whole thing passed in about five seconds but it sure seemed like an eternity when I wanted a breath. No one even knew it occurred until we surfaced and I recounted the story.
Paul chuckled, as this was a priceless lesson you can’t plan but said we were going to do it again because I wasn’t supposed to be fiddling with the lights. No lights means don’t use any lights. Duh. I retorted in my defense that at least I had good natural instincts going to back ups. They laughed.
We
got prepped for another dive and reentered Peacock I, the plan being to swim
towards Pothole sink to pick up our gap reels and complete the circuit.
But we had a small, unpleasant sidetrack.
During the lights check we noticed my Sartek HID light would not fire up.
There were no problems with the batteries being charged but the light
would not go. Paul and I exited the
water and rather than fiddle with it more and he just gave me his back-up
primary, a 35-watt halogen to use. The
handle was different so it made running the reel was tougher.
The 35-watt halogen light paled in comparison to a 10 watt HID and my
visibility was considerably diminished as a result, especially since I was
leading all the dives. I was very
unhappy about all of this, as it was a new piece of equipment to get used to but
felt I fortunate that I had a light at all and we could continue the dive.
It would be awful to come all the way there and not be able to complete
the course in the time allotted because of a light. Anyway, my new smile therapy is working great so I absolutely
loved the light and we jumped back in the water to restart the dive.
We started up towards Pothole, laying a second primary reel into the cave since we were going in a different direction than the way to the Peanut tunnel. We made a visual jump at Pothole, as there is available light and an exit, albeit not a convenient one. Pothole is small but it is accessible if you absolutely have to exit the cave so this wasn’t too much of a faux-pas. No one uses Pothole to enter the system. We passed Pothole, reached Olsen and picked up the gap reels. This time when we reached the Breakdown room, we were going no lights and I was to be out of air. Paul started us further back this time, probably to make me pay some more for turning my light on the last time!!!
I signaled to Dave that I was out of air and Paul shut our lights down right away. I started swimming towards the tunnel, trying to maintain contact with the line and feel the cave. The line often runs through line traps so you can’t always put your body where the line is going. My head learned that the hard way. We stumbled along, feeling and now bouncing around through the Peanut tunnel. Things were settling out and we were making slow and steady progress when all of the sudden Dave climbed up over my back and grabbed my second stage. I guess somebody rolled their valve off!
As it turns out, Dave was doing the same thing I did on the last dive. It is very difficult to avoid it with no lights and being in very close proximity to another diver. We were also both wearing high pressure 120s, which are a little tall. It seems the second diver bounces around more because you are basically getting kicked while trying to maintain touch contact and share air when single file. Jill had told me that the best thing to do was swim side by side when sharing air unless the cave prevented it. The Peanut tunnel has a lot of line traps you’ll run into with no lights, which makes this sort of thing a little tougher. Dave’s valve jammed shut and he experienced the same thing I did on the last dive but he could not turn it back on. He climbed up my back, flipped the lights on and grabbed my regulator. I was unsure what was going on at first but I figured it out pretty fast. I was breathing off his tanks and he was breathing off mine. Paul got his valve turned on, Dave gave the thumbs up and we exited the cave. We were pretty much there at the end anyway so I pulled the reel from the Peanut tunnel and then Dave and Paul pulled the second one we put in. Dave got a good “charge” zing through him on that one. He said it had been a long time since he had an “oh shit” and that it was a good one.
This is a good time to digress for a moment about hose configuration. In this kind of a situation, the events we experienced demonstrated in practical real world examples why gear is thought out and arranged a certain way. Basically, you want to have the long hose coming off the right post as well as your BC inflator. The reason being is that it is far more likely you will roll you left post off than your right one and the regulator on the long hose is the regulator your going to donate. If your left valve closes, you still have the ability to inflate your wings and maintain crucial buoyancy control, not to mention that the person who received your long hose regulator is still guaranteed an air source—think of it this way, your right valve will only jam open, not closed. It is far easier for you to figure out (and deal with) your left post valve where you can reach it than it is for the person in front of you who is now freaking out because they have run out of air twice.
Overall the dive had gone well but I was dropping my knees too much still and stirring up little “dustclouds” when we passed a low area. I was having a hard time with my black CF200 drysuit because it is so big (thanks for the custom suit, DUI). Any air I put in the suit would go to my legs anytime my head went down so I was struggling to maintain the proper trim. Then I would make matters worse by sculling a little to get into position. I wasn’t wrecking the visibility or anything but we were being critiqued to do it as perfectly as possible, not just “good enough.” My back was also killing me from holding my feet up and I think most of my mistakes were just coming from getting sloppy as I got tired. I decided to wear my old blue CF200 suit the next day since it is much smaller and doesn’t trap so much air.
All in all, it was a good, tough day. We had learned a lot and Paul reported back to Jill that we were doing well still. We went to the “little BBQ place in Mayo”, whatever it is called. It was all you can eat pork night so the place was packed. Good God. Anyway, we returned to the Dive Outpost to crash out. Paul and Dave took my light apart and discovered the wire inside the head had snapped off the resistor so no power could get to the light. Nothing I did but just the same, the light was toast. I lamented that the rest of the course would be done with the other light and cringed at the thought of dealing with yet another piece of broken equipment and dive store people.
We filled tanks and analyzed our gas at the Dive Outpost for the next day and we hit the sack as we were planning to get up early and head to Ginnie Springs for my “high flow” experience.
The Dive Outpost uses a membrane system for blending and banking nitrox (32%). They have a great air system.
Dave analyzes gas while trying to stay warm next to the heater. No matter how sure think you are,
you must always analyze your gas.
We got on the road nice and early, all gassed up ready to dive Ginnie Springs. We had 34% nitrox in our tanks since we knew we could only get air tops at Ginnie. On the way to High Springs we stopped at Little River, which is presently closed for renovation. Apparently, it is being turned into a concrete jungle gym and the beach is being erased. We hopped over the gate and walked down to see what it looked like. It was blowing blue water and looked good for diving but granite blocks, stairs, ramps and construction equipment was set up all around. I forgot to grab the camera and did not want to walk all the way back to get it but pretty much only one side of the beach remains. The rest of it is all paved. It was kind of a bummer because it seems like such a pretty place.
We got back on the road and headed towards Ginnie. We passed the sacred DIR store “Extreme Exposure” on the way-- looks like just another dive store to me. We arrived in Ginnie and began the “process” to enter the park. Those people are so uptight it is incredible. Waivers, more waivers and still more waivers. Witness this, sign that, date this, cross your t’s, dot your i’s, use only black ink, jump on one foot, bark like a dog and recite the alphabet backwards—twice. Then maybe, just maybe you can go diving.
Ginnie is very strict about rules for Cave divers, whereas most other places are less patrolled.
I decided to buy a Goodman handle for Paul’s light since holding in my hand was bound to be horrors in a high flow cave. We got it all rigged up and once Paul found his instructor card (like the guy has only been teaching for 25 years and was there last week), we were able to proceed. Apparently there was a fatality at Ginne just a few days before. The victim wasn’t actually scuba diving; he was wearing only a drysuit and a backplate swimming in Ginnie Spring. He drowned and was discovered the following morning. It seems he was planning to enroll in a course the next morning and had entered into Ginnie Spring to test out some equipment. Something went wrong and he drowned. The whole thing puzzled everyone and no one really knows what exactly happened.
Anyway, we got suited up and entered the water to set up a circuit. We were going to swim up the mainline, make a jump off the mainline and come up the “big room” to the “maple leaf”. We had two gap reels to set. The next dive we would come up the mainline and pick up all the reels.
We dropped in through Devil’s Ear. You have to swim into the river a little bit to get there. The current was blowing pretty well, you could already tell. We started dropping and pulling our way down. We passed through a tannic layer, which was a murky rust color. The visibility opened up after than but it was only about 30 feet, which was not as good as it usually is, I was told.
I wrenched myself down the ear, trying to stay negative and pull. I learned very quickly that swimming was not an option. Paul led the dive and told me to follow his lead and direction to go where the least flow was. I was fighting the flow and kicking too much and wore myself out very quickly. I was not pulling enough. We stopped for a moment to catch my breath. Dave and Paul signaled that I needed to pull more and kick less. I started up again and began to get the hang of it.
We reached “the lips” and I watched Paul practically invert himself and “walk” on the ceiling. The flow is so strong and the handholds are so small that you need to push off the ceiling. The lips are about 4 ft in height so it is small enough to get your legs up and still look forward. I put my head down and started walking my way forward. It was pretty cool. We came out of the lips and the flow abated a little bit, especially as we got to the bigger parts of the cave.
We turned the dive after setting up the circuit and headed out in a whoosh. Coming back up the ear was interesting. Paul gave me the “dump all of your air from your BC” signal, which I promptly did before hanging on for dear life coming up to my deco stop. I positioned my legs under a large log and braced my arms in the rocks. The water roared by me but it was a smooth hang.
We surfaced and grabbed some lunch. Getting fills was interesting. Ginnie only pumps air, not nitrox but you’d think we were asking them to fill the tanks with pure hydrogen the way they inspected the vips and hydros. We had to “prove” the tanks had been stamped and he even tried to rub it off a few times with his thumb before finally accepting that indeed, the tanks were current. We discussed the next dive’s goals, in which I would lead the dive up the main line, make the gap and complete the circuit. On the way out we would do the no-mask swim skill and some valve drills.
I gave Paul the “but, but I don’t wanna do it” look on the no-mask swim. Since I wear contact lenses, I could not open my eyes without losing them. I don’t like the masks with lenses and I wouldn’t do the dive without my contacts so I was sort of screwed. Paul returned my look with the “tough shit” look and I lamented that not only was I going to have to do the no mask swim with my eyes closed, it was going to be a no-lights, no-mask swim. The plan was that after we exited the lips, I was to swim the remainder of the cave back to the primary reel, with no mask. I grumbled but knew I wasn’t getting out of it.
We entered the cave this time through Devil’s Eye, which is like a vertical shaft dropping down about 20 feet. Then you enter the flow by crawling through some very small tunnels up towards the mainline, where the Ear merges with the system. Basically, there is no reason do go this way unless it is an exercise of some kind. The Ear is much easier because you don’t run a line and it is not so tight to get through. I began crawling down the slit in the rock. The flow was very strong and with a reel in one hand, it was slow going trying to make placements without being “flushed”.
Slowly but surely I made my way to the mainline and we commenced our progression up the mainline. Once passing the lips and keyhole the flow lessened and we could swim with relative ease. We worked our way back until reaching the maple leaf near the big room. We completed the circuit, picking up the reels and relaxed as the flow carried us out of the cave. We came upon the lips once again and I lined it up with the tallest part of the opening and near the line, ducked my head down and zipped through it. I reached out, grabbed the left wall and banged the corner for the homeward stretch.
Paul signaled to me that it was time to take my mask off. So, I flooded the mask and pulled it off my face. I got a hand on the line and began following it back. Since my eyes were closed I ran into a few line traps, since the line was my only orientation. Paul kept a hand near my head so I wouldn’t clock myself. When we reached the reel, he pulled on my nose and I knew I had the green light to put the mask back on. It was not so bad after all and at least I know I can do it without losing my contacts.
We had racked up quite a bit of decompression at this point and it was time to get up into the Eye. Dave and I were pulling the reel and I was frantically trying to reel the line in as we were blowing out towards the exit. Our timing and feeding was going well until I reeled when I should have waited and the line jumped the spool and I jammed the whole damn thing. I starting trying to untangle it but it was jammed good. Paul signaled to me that we were accumulating too much decompression to be fiddling around and indicated that I should just wrap the line. I waved my fists and reluctantly balled it all up. We exited the flow and settled in to our decompression. Paul untangled the reel and we had it all payed out and re-spooled in about 8 minutes. While we were untangling it, Pat Robinson (who was working with Scott and a class) dropped into the hole to say hello and gave me a chuckle having seen my little mess.
Once the reel was put away, we did some valve shut down drills, no problems there. Wearing 120s and no gloves make things much, much easier. Still, we had more deco time to kill. So we just waited it out, finally surfacing almost 1 hour and 45 minutes after entering the water. We all had to pee and it was dark out. We packed up our gear and got ready to eat a much-desired dinner.
Heather after exiting the Ginnie system and trudging back to the car. It was dark out when we finally
surfaced.
The plan was to have Scott and Pat join us but since they had gotten side tracked with the class, they would not be making it. Instead, we headed over to Wes Skiles’ place where Jill had been working on the film to pick her up and get dinner. We had planned on a big steak dinner but everyone was pretty wiped out and we opted for a meal at the nearby Floyd’s diner instead. It turned out to be a good choice.
At dinner we talked about the day’s dives and how they had gone quite well. I showed Jill my hands, which looked like they had been through a blender after two dives in Ginnie. Everyone seemed amused. We also chatted about her upcoming film with Wes Skiles called “Water’s Journey”. The film follows the flow of water through an aquifer, which ends at a sinkhole that the locals have been using as an illegal dump. What these crackers don’t know is that they are dumping trash in their own drinking water. Jill said they were encountering so much garbage that it nearly blocked their passage at times and that when they surfaced in one sinkhole; the water was so toxic it was burning their skin. All sorts of things have been dumped—oil, batteries, chemicals, furniture, etc. I remarked that I was quite shocked at the amount of garbage littering the roadsides all over Gilchrist and Branford. Little River looked like a dump outside the gates—I think people just pull up and fling bags of trash out of the car. Everyone agreed that it was pretty ridiculous and that people are extremely ignorant of the impact on their environment. Anyway, the film will air in an abridged version at this year’s Boston Sea Rover’s show at the film festival, I think it will be worth checking out.
Jill had planned to take over the class again, but Paul pulled the short straw and was stuck with us for a couple of more days. We planned to meet at the Dive Outpost at 9 am the following morning. We were all pretty tired.
The temperature had taken a nosedive and it was becoming very cold once again. The morning broke with temps in the low 20’s. We hung around for a little while, opting for some lecture before hitting the water. Today’s destination was Peacock III and it was to be some of our more challenging dives of the week.
The Peacock III system is a siphon so unlike the other systems in the area, the water flows in instead of out. This means that it is more work to exit the cave and the visibility tends to be diminished. The system was not siphoning heavily so we were able to dive it. It is a more advanced site so there are not as many people diving there. It is extremely silty. The silt settles on the walls and makes the cave very dark. Just looking at the silt the wrong way can stir it up.
Peacock III spring: This location is generally for more advanced divers and the conditions are not usually real good
so it is not visited often. There are no steps here and you have to climb a bit to get in and out of the water.
I ran the reel in, running it along the ceiling of the cave to avoid the bottom as much as possible. I lead the dive, swimming up the mainline until we reached the first jump point. I placed a gap reel, bridging the lines and we headed up one of two passages leading to a place called Henley’s Castle.
The swim was long and the tunnel began to get smaller and smaller. The silt began to get higher and higher. The plan was to set up a circuit but when we were about 200-300 ft away as I later learned, I saw the ceiling drop very low and the silt level rise very high. It seemed difficult to get through without stirring about something. The line trailed off into the sand. I stopped, took a hard look at it and I signaled to Paul that I was just fine right here and called the dive. I didn’t get any argument from Dave! I think we were both ok with stopping there. Paul gave the ok and we turned around, bagging the circuit and pulling the gaps.
On the surface I explained I just didn’t feel really comfortable going through that passage. Paul said it opened up right after that and we were very close to Henley’s castle when I turned. I said that we could have made it but my instinct just said, “This is far enough for right now.” We decided to attempt Henley’s castle from the mainline next time, as Paul really wanted us to see it.
Since we had some gas left, Paul and I returned inside the cave to do my lost line drill. It was a perfect place to do a drill like this—dark and silty. We swam about 300 ft into the cave, until it opened up enough so we could actually lose the line. Paul swam me off the line and pointed to a rock he wanted me to tie a reel off to for the search. He pointed to a rock and then shut all our lights off. In total blackness I closed my eyes to stop the frenzy of trying to see something and felt for my safety reel. I pulled it out and looped it around the rock. I gave it a couple of tugs to make sure it was on there good before I departed. The last thing I wanted was to lose my known point after I started swimming away. Each time I tugged on the line, it slipped off the rock. I was getting frustrated and was afraid the reel was going to jam. After a few minutes Paul came back and redirected me to a better spot where the line could grab on. I quickly and easily tied off on the wall and headed out into the blackness.
You pretty much have no orientation and are attempting to hold a direction. There are a few strategies for finding the line. One is to swim along the ceiling to the opposite wall and then back down along the floor to your home base. Then start reeling your line in. Most likely, you will have snagged the line and you can just reel yourself to the mainline. In my case, the line was pinned to the cave wall and I knew this going in so this technique would not be so easy. I just tried to hit the opposite wall but there was some ceiling hanging down at a few points that was sort of a false wall for all intents and purposes. A few times I found I had gone in a circle without even realizing it, ending up where I began. Finally I reached the other side and began feeling along the wall. I really have to idea how I found the line; there was nothing strategic or systematic about it. I just made jumps from the rock until I hit something and finally after about 20 minutes, I ran into the line. And conveniently, I landed near a directional arrow so I quickly knew which way was out. Doing this as a drill certainly gave me an appreciation for how frustrating and scary something like this might be if you were doing it for real. Food for thought.
Anyway, we returned to the surface about 35 minutes after leaving Dave in the spring. Paul explained to Dave that he was doing his best to lose me but I keep coming back. We exit the water to do a surface interval and gas up for the push to Henley’s Castle.
We picked up Scott, who works at the Dive Outpost to join the dive. Since solo diving is prohibited at Peacock, this was a good opportunity for Scott to get a dive in. The four of us headed straight up the mainline to Henley’s.
This was the big attraction of this site. It begins about 1300 back and opens up in a dramatic ballroom of boulders on the cave floor. The ceiling is like a giant cathedral. It is not hard to see how it got its name. Off to the left, the cave slopes steeply down beginning at about 75 feet, descending to about 210 feet. Paul had asked us how deep we wanted to go and we decided to stay up shallow at the top since we were on the 3rd dive of the day and it was a long haul to get there.
Just before entering the water Paul dropped one of those “oh by the way” comments. Most of the skills we did were done on little notice and this would be no different. Paul said there was a restriction about 1000 feet back we would have to pass through and that on the return, he wanted Dave and I to share air through it. Uh, ok.
We hit the water and I once again lead the dive. We swam and swam and swam and the cave started getting smaller and smaller. It is a beautiful cave, but the visibility is not more than 25-30 ft with particulate in the water. I followed the line and saw that the cave made a right turn and got real, real small. I guess this was the restriction. I took another hard look at it and said, “Ok here we go”. I think we were going no matter what! We passed the restriction and didn’t even stir up the silt. My trim was improving tremendously since I swapped suits and stopped putting so much air in it. I didn’t have the sensation that my legs were floating off towards the ceiling when the depth changed. Using your wings instead of the suit is definitely crucial in up-and-down silty caves and it is a better practice anyway since if you have a loose neck seal and you look up, therein lies a big risk of burping a considerable amount of air out of the suit, severely altering buoyancy. I was so shrink-wrapped in the suit that I had a valve imprint on my chest that I noticed later from the squeeze while wearing thin undergarments. But hey, my feet were up!
We reached Henley’s castle and it was a very impressive sight. We lingered for a few minutes, looking around from the top and then turned. We had not hit thirds yet but we decided to get going since we had some skills to do. On the way out Paul signaled that I was to be out of air and share with Dave. I swam over, giving the signal. Dave donated his regulator and we passed the restriction smoothly. We did a great job with it. We continued out of the cave until Paul signaled to me again that we had “lost” Scott. I tied off my reel with the directional arrow and headed down a small tunnel looking for him. My primary light had died out by now and I was exiting on back-up lights. I had to locate Scott on back-ups but sure enough I found him hiding in the dark behind a wall.
We had done a good job with the dive, although we had a few communication issues, part of which was the result of adding a 4th person to the team and doing drills where I had to be out front. We had not exited the cave in the proper order, as I lead out instead of trailing back. Things had gotten a little out of order doing the drills but we should have reassembled properly. I knew this was a problem and tried to correct the line up, as team leader I should have made sure everyone was in front of me, especially when I pull the reel.
Once again tired from a long day of diving, we retreated to the Dive Outpost to fill tanks and enjoy another dinner cooked for us by Cathy. She made curried chicken—and it was delicious. I don’t even like curried chicken but I couldn’t get enough!
Our final day waited, and our bodies and gear were getting run down. We crashed out, planning to meet at 9, expecting temperatures near 12 degrees.
Today was graduation day and the plan was to dive Peacock I up to Cisteen. However, the parking lot was spilling over with people so we opted for Orange Grove again. Ending where we began. We decided to swim to Challenge (or turn on thirds). We would surface there and then decide what to do.
Heather and Paul in the Orange Grove Spring.
Challenge was a very small spring about 1700 feet from the entrance of Orange Grove. Once again I would lead the dive. Paul said he wanted to see me communicate to the team, making eye contact with everyone, keep my knees up and my wandering left hand glued to my inflator. I said I could do all those things.
We swam up the small, winding tunnels to Challenge. It was a long swim, part of which was against a light flow but we reached the site without even coming close to thirds. Our consumption rates were very good. We surfaced and discussed what to do next. Everyone had to pee so badly, as it took about an hour to reach Challenge, that the plans were revised and we decided to swim to Olsen Sink, about 1400 ft away and exit the water. We did just that and coming down the mainline, the cave opened right up and was a spectacular awesome sight. It was probably one of my favorite segments of cave we encountered. We surfaced in Olsen and everyone congratulated me on a perfect dive. I had done all the things I was supposed to. Paul said we did great—“Three people swam through but you’d never know we were here.” I kept my knees up and my hand on the inflator. Anytime I was signaled, I did a nice little helicopter turn and stared right into their beedy eyes.
Dave and Paul walked back to Orange Grove to get the cars, while I hung out with the gear. The walk up from Olsen was a serious haul and something to take slow, especially after a long dive. Paul and I returned to Orange Grove to pull the reel and Dave, Scott and Pat were waiting at the surface to congratulate me on completing the course.
Heather and Paul return to Orange Grove after a bathroom break and are ready to jump back in to pull the reel.
We finished up the final exam and signed off the paperwork back at the Dive Outpost. Then we celebrated with a big lunch at the Brown Lantern and said our goodbyes until next time. We really enjoyed our course—Dave and I got some great skills out of it and improved our communication considerably, which was something we knew we wanted to develop. I had corrected the problem of dropping my knees, which was simply sloppy technique that the defaulted to when I got tired and my back started hurting. It definitely takes some time and there is a learning curve.
Cave and wreck diving are very, very different. There are different hazards in the ocean on wrecks—seas, current, ships, monofilament, nets, collapses, disorientation; it goes on and on. As much as I learned about cave diving and as much as it helped my skills overall-- there is not too much I would change based on the way I presently do things. Some things are better for caves and some things are better for wrecks. To me, cave diving was like being an astronaut, in caves without flow it was like doing a space walk (as much as I would imagine, having never done one). The environment is tranquil and still. You’re exploring natural formations, like the surface of an uncharted planet. Total darkness surrounds you beyond the glow of your light in an eerie calm, which makes you feel as if you are in a distant and unknown place.
Cave diving requires an intense level of focus and discipline, similar to deep wreck diving. There is only one way out and when you are 1000 feet back in the cave, you must solve all of your problems right there. An instructor is only a guide at this level, if your shit isn't together, there is nothing anyone can do for you. We got some great skills and had the opportunity to do some great diving. We definitely moved at a rapid pace and pushed hard at times-- and that is what we wanted. We adapted quickly and any criticisms were minor and more like “you know better” or “that was sloppy, do it better”. We met some very nice people and found everyone to be friendly and helpful. Thanks to Cathy Lesh at the Dive Outpost, Jill and Paul Heinerth, and Scott and Pat Robinson, as it is always nice to see people from back home.
Dave, Paul and Heather at Peacock Springs. Thanks Scott and Pat for taking the photo!
Here are few links worth checking out:
This is Jill and Paul Heinerth’s dive store located about 3 hours South of the Peacock Springs area. They offer instruction for just about everything you'd want to do underwater.
The Dive Outpost, owned by Cathy Lesh. Absolutely a great place. Nitrox is available for $12 per set of doubles and cottages are very reasonable for overnight stays.