Wayne's World aka School Sink (04-13-2005)
This morning was my first dive in Wayne's World in about a year. It was also my first dive here wearing a sidemount rig. John and I were diving together here for the first time. He had never seen any other part of this system, except for the long route/short route circuit, so we decided to take the short route and head west down the Mainstreet tunnel.
Once we were through the sinkhole restriction and had reached the main T-arrow, I was surprised at how tannic and murky it was. Visibility was less than 10'. I remained positive and figured the visibility would improve as we progressed further into the system.
By the time we reached the Mainstreet tunnel, it was obvious that visibility was not going to improve. The "T" had been removed and had been replaced by about a 10' gap. I closed the gap and we proceeded west down the Mainstreet tunnel. The halocline layer was with us for most of the time in this tunnel, which didn't help to improve visibility any. After swimming for 300' - 400', John called the dive, so we turned and returned to the short route line.
We finally reached the sinkhole restriction after having a bottom time of 46 minutes. We made 2 decompression stops for 3 minutes at 25' and 6 minutes at 15' before we surfaced. Maximum depth was 107'. John used EANx 32 and I used EANx 36.
I've been diving this system since 1995, and this probably one of the worse diving conditions that I've seen. It'll likely take a few weeks without any rain in the area before the visibility returns to its more normal 25' - 30'.
Re: Wayne's World aka School Sink (04-13-2005)
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainSpeleo
This morning was my first dive in Wayne's World in about a year. It was also my first dive here wearing a sidemount rig. John and I were diving together here for the first time. He had never seen any other part of this system, except for the long route/short route circuit, so we decided to take the short route and head west down the Mainstreet tunnel.
Once we were through the sinkhole restriction and had reached the main T-arrow, I was surprised at how tannic and murky it was. Visibility was less than 10'. I remained positive and figured the visibility would improve as we progressed further into the system.
By the time we reached the Mainstreet tunnel, it was obvious that visibility was not going to improve. The "T" had been removed and had been replaced by about a 10' gap. I closed the gap and we proceeded west down the Mainstreet tunnel. The halocline layer was with us for most of the time in this tunnel, which didn't help to improve visibility any. After swimming for 300' - 400', John called the dive, so we turned and returned to the short route line.
We finally reached the sinkhole restriction after having a bottom time of 46 minutes. We made 2 decompression stops for 3 minutes at 25' and 6 minutes at 15' before we surfaced. Maximum depth was 107'. John used EANx 32 and I used EANx 36.
I've been diving this system since 1995, and this probably one of the worse diving conditions that I've seen. It'll likely take a few weeks without any rain in the area before the visibility returns to its more normal 25' - 30'.
That "T" isn't gone... there should be a "brass clip" that someone most likely just wound up... :)
That was done so that people diving here in the low vis would not get confused and simply ride the 'loop' to the exit.
Personally I leave it "snapped" but some people feel the need to unclip it from time to time... :?:
