Abaco cave dives

[cavecliff]

First dive day was Sunday 16-Dec-07, we choose an inland dive hole called Magic blue hole. This site is actually considered open water, at least at depths above 300fsw. This dive site is one long column. Terri and my friend Thaddeus who joined us for the trip did an open water dive to a depth of about 70fsw where there are some cool ledges with formations. I was looking to drain some 15/44 so I dove to the top of the th debris cone at 180 and then explored some cool boulders down to 245fsw all the time I could look up and see clouds. Deco started at 70 ft on 50% and continued with O2, deco was smooth.

Monday, Terri and I did 2 dives in DAN's to her level of 1/6ths. At about a 500p the depth exceeds 100fsw, so we took our time looking at everything within 500p. There is a lot right in the begining of Dan's including a short loop Brian felt was ok for Terri to do as a Basic diver. Beautiful formations some columns 30ft in dia easy. Just beautiful...

Tuesday, Terri and I did 2 dives in Ralph's to her level of 1/6ths. Ralphs is a cave of prolific beauty. Not a lot of penetration (at basic) but what formations exist in the beginning are un-beliveable. Tons of the pink calcite, Saraha dust, Brian speculates.

Wednesday was 2 solo dives in Dan's. I geared
up my 131's and O2 bottle, except for a flaky DR
slimline light that wouldn't spark, get out of gear,
get out of basin and the sucker is ON, wtf, over. I
swapped out the light head with my spare, geared up,
again and slipped into the basin, which is cressent
moon shaped, stashed my O2 bottle on the deco log and
hit the main line, which starts in the basin, aka no
primary.

Cavern is a wide breakdown room with large slabs of
limestone that have fallen from the ceiling. Some
decorations a visible off the the right, at about
100-200p the decorations really start. The main line
takes you thru an opening in a forest of columns. most
of the stalagtite/mites are off to the right, a short
cavern-like loop takes you through this wonderland of
mite/tites, the largest column being 30ft in diameter
easy, many many others. All these I had seen in
detail on previous dives with tecterri, today I was
heading further.

I took the 'main' line (what a joke, these caves are a
spider web of white nylon, "T's" everywhere) to 800p
then when up and off to the left.

Here in an area Brian calls the crystal palace,
followed a few T's then tied in my primary/explorer
reel and 'wandered' thru a palace of crystal
formations. Curtains, huge flowstones, frozen
waterfalls, mite/tites everywhere. Something rare,
pink calcite in the formations. Brian speculates that
this is from Sahara sand/dust carried over the
atlantic. Calcite some white, some clear, some pink,
just everywhere. Moving super-super carefully thru
this forrest of crystal, I am simply overwhelmed by
God's handywork, in this section of cave. I continued
on only to find myself back at the T at the 800p
junction. Pausing for a moment, I retraced my path
thru this amazing place.

Un-believable beauty, left me in a europhoric state as
I drifted up to deco log. 9m to clear my DC, plus 3m
for a slow ascent from 20ft to the surface of the
basin. A few minutes of surface deco, just floating
on the surface, reflecting on the dive in a lush green
lines pool of fresh water.

Cave diving doesn't get any better than this.

SI was peacefull and second dive was a bit of a
cluster... more on that dive later, BECAUSE Brian just
returned with more O2, filled my deco bottle and he is
guiding me today to an area of Dan's cave that is one
of two of the most beautiful places than Brian has
seen on Abaco. Suffice to say the 'fanggorne forest'
on the way to 'wrigley field' is supposed to put the
crystal palace to shame.


Thursday I did a guided dive with Brian in Dan's to an area of the cave called Fangorn forrest, some of the prettiest from Brian account. We got a late start for this dive, a planned double stage. One part of the cave dipped down to 140fsw so one of our stages we mixed light(29%) the remaining 3 bottles each had 32%. This cave is MASSIVE and the formations are breathtaking. We made it past Fangorn to a room Brian calles Wrigley field, about 300ftx800ft. Taking time, as planned on the way out we marveled at the formations in Fangorn forrest. I believe Brian called it a Haloclite. It is a stlagtite that has a curly corkscrew horizontal section. Extreemly fragile section of cave, exhaust bubbles were causing some sodastraw to fall so we split. A long swim brought us back to the mouth of the cave where out 50m of deco was spent. Bottom time was about 97 min.

Towards the end of deco I started to feel stomach cramps and the feeling like I have to take a dump. I write this on my slate for brian and he has me do extra deco +8 after my Nitek3 cleared.

I surfaced and thats when the problems started...

Continued as Badly Bent(IRAP)