Flexibility w/ work and telecommuting allowed me to spend two weekends up in Cave Country as Terri went to do some training w/ Rich...
Saturday was a day of tuneup dives @ Ginnie, since we were staying in High Springs for the first half of the trip. Being a lazy diver; I had us run into the ear for two nice dives.
Sunday, I got to fly solo while class was in session and swam mainline back to 1800'. This was my first trip diving wet and I didn't mind so much kicking into the flow full bore down the middle of the gallery... About 43 mins into the dive, I was thinking this kicking thing is overrated,... and I also started thinking to myself...., "self, if Raphael was here, we'd have six lights...." its time to turn....
Monday - Thursday I was (somewhat) back to the grindstone with work. Terri firmly wrapped up Apprentice and had a pickup dive with a nice guy from CEE, Steven, to keep her occupied and get some more time tackling the ear.
Friday we headed over to my regular cave destination, Peacock Springs & Dive Outpost, Cathy is always the generous hostess with the mostest. We run a few dives in the Pothole tunnel to pick up some spools left behind during training and take a few diversions down the Nicholson tunnel where the flooding has left quite a bit of gunk on the lines, viz was way down from normal, and was more appropriate for Halloween than the Summer with a very spooky cobweb look about.
Raphael (chimie007) showed up w/ some new 7mm suits to help us w/ the chilly springs water, com'on we're used to diving 80 degrees down here... We hit the Peanut line all the way back to the Peanut Restriction, and a few hundred feet past as we attempted for Challenge, viz markedly improved on this side, to try and benchmark where we are consumption and comfort wise for an future grand traverse.
We headed over to the CDF Social and met w/ friends old and new, and man... that chili was good......! Terri was disappointed, as she won yet another textbook... :) I scored a nice CDS shirt.
She sat out the afternoon as Raphael and I went for Orange Grove, I mean, there's like NO duckweed... sure, the basin is crap.., but I did say NO duckweed....! Apparently a few other teams also got the word, as we entered being team #4....
Team #3 forgot a computer at the steps, so we shuffled ahead....
Tied into some tree on the surface, ran down the rock face and entered a very nice clear cave. Might as well renamed the place Lipton Sink, cuz it had a brown hue. Probably within the first 100', we're right on the tail of team #2, not trying to be pains, we're just slowly inching forward, when we see them shuffle over to the right of the line, Raphael sees the opportunity, and we pass on the left (Apparently a battery issue w/ a HH controller; all well and all...). We kick into cruising speed and head down the mainline... run into remnants of team #1 at the Distance Tunnel as the initials DAB from the reel in the cavern pop into my head... A ha... that must be Dave and Ron.... a few S. Florida locals, you know, noisy OC DIR troublemakers... :) We get about 1700' in and turn on thirds, Raphael was on his 85's vs. 104's, so no getting to Challenge.... we come back to Distance tunnel and the spool was pulled, exit nice and slow, and we run into Ron and Dave at the entrance and do a nice slow ascent, did I mention Duckweed free....? :)
Saturday night was a bang... also staying at Dive Outpost was Bobby Franklin & Bill Ripley, folks I'd come to know from RBW, so we chatted, and introduced, and Bill's buddy, who's name escapes me, brought a cartload of fireworks... Everyone had a hoot blowing stuff up... I mean, it really doesn't get much better than this.... :)
Checking out Sunday morning, we decided for a single dive before hitting the road; Terri, Raphael and I decided to head to the Peanut restriction via the Pothole line, again, trying to gauge future traverse opportunities. We have a kick ass dive up Pothole, across Olsen and make it maybe 200' past Olsen and turn... Viz seemed better compared to 2 days prior.
Stop by Kazbors for some wings before hitting I-75, and settle in for the 5 hour drive south.... Upon downloading from my Sensus, our dive times are eerily sync'd up..... Everything over at Peacock was 1:22 +- a minute, despite different buddies and system...
A nice pair of weekends, and boy are my glutes sore...
Ginnie Springs High Springs Devil's Eye 6/27/2009 11:51 93 1:25
Ginnie Springs High Springs Devil's Eye 6/27/2009 16:10 90 1:19
Ginnie Springs High Springs Devil's Eye 6/28/2009 10:07 98 1:34
Peacock Slough Luraville Peacock 1 - Pothole Tunnel 7/3/2009 13:11 69 1:23
Peacock Slough Luraville Peacock 1 - Pothole Tunnel 7/3/2009 15:53 68 1:23
Peacock Slough Luraville Peacock 1 - Peanut Tunnel 7/4/2009 10:32 55 1:24
Peacock Springs Luraville Orange Grove 7/4/2009 15:26 66 1:22
Peacock Slough Luraville Peacock 1 - Pothole Tunnel 7/5/2009 10:04 67 1:23
-Tim
