Manatee - 05/17/2009 - Catfish upstream

Note: this is a repost from another thread in Dive Reports.. (SMILE)

Dove this morning/afternoon in Manatee. (05/17)
We went in at Catfish (didn't want to try Friedman's yet).

Vis in Catfish was from 0-10 feet once you got into the cavern. Once I found enought tree's to do tie-offs on , we finally got to the gold line and headed upstream.
The vis improved once we got into the cave. (10-15 feet from Catfish to Sue's)
Didn't see any light coming in at Sue's at all.

From Sue's to about 400 feet from Friedman's (we turned at the 400 foot arrow from Friedman's) the vis varied from 10-25 feet.
It seemed to be improving the closer we got to Friedman's.
There were numerous times I could see the bottom quite easily from 20 feet above it (I was hugging the gold line quite closely , for safety's sake).

Turned around and drifted back downstream (again , no light at Sue's) and picked up our line in Catfish and swung around and did the Downstream Traverse to Manatee. (I had Ed J hold the end of the line in Open Water while I went down and found the downstream line).

Downstream vis was about 10 feet all the way. We used the same (hold the line) once we reached the end of the line in downstream to get to the cavern exit (5-10 foot viz).

Exit was ejection time , as usual.

Vis in the Manatee basin was about 20-25 feet.

Run time 110 minutes.
Approx 15 mins deco.

All in all , the cave seems to be flushing out the tannic water quite nicely. Flow was about medium.

It might take a bit for all of it to come out. Bottom line , the vis got a little better the more we got upstream of Catfish.

Thanks to the two Ed's for a wonderful time and dive today !!! (SMILE)
You guys were fabuloso... (wink)

Jeano Beano