Thanksgiving at Little River
After a 5 hr drive, I arrived at Little River today. I had plans to explore the deep section which I had previously only gotten a short distance in.
I have already swam to the jump for the deep section and know how much time is required and my bailout needed from that point. I decided to scooter to the jump in order to save time and deco requirement. I kept in mind that I might have to bailout and did a quick calculation as to what my turn time would have to be from the deep section.
I carrtied 2 AL80's and left a 40 of O2 at the sign. I know that this was pushing my BO, but I was planning on the flow to help speed my exit as it did the last few times.
Let me mention this little tidbit - after a week of diving the Mexican caves with different undergarments and a ever so slightly different configuration, my stupid arse thought that my trim and bouyancy would just magically be spot on. Close, but no cigar.
I scootered to the jump and clipped off the scooter. It is a little bit tight going through right where the jump starts, but not too bad at all. I continued to the "T" and decided to take the route to the left since I had not been that direction previously. I went as far as I was willing to push it without sidemount and turned around. Back at the "T" with plenty of time left, I went down the other line. This is where things got interesting. It was getting tighter and tighter with a very silty bottom. I could see that it opened up in just a few feet. I saw where something had been dragging the bottom right in front of me. I stopped and did a quick double check of my gear. I did not want anything to touch that bottom because the line was tight to the right wall and might be difficult to follow out in a no vis situation. I tucked my drysuit hose under my chest strap, tucked my arrows under the drysuit hose, and tightened up the hose on my necklaced BO regulator. Now I was sure that I was all set to continue. Nice, slow, and easy fin kicks. Slow being the operative word here. The last thing that I wanted was a silt out. It would seem that I was just a tad too close to the ceiling and I did not notice it. Another slow and easy fin stroke drove my knee into the silt as my tank had no place to go. Frick, Frick, Frick - OK, not quite what I was screaming through the DSV, but you get the point. The vis was gone before I could even grab the line. I only needed to go 5 more feet.
Training, being on a rebreather, and not being prone to panic are the things that I am most thankful on this particular Thanksgiving Day. Lack of any of these and I might not be here to type this little note.
I stopped and verified that my rebreather was working and that I could breath. OK, take my time. Deco might be racking up, but I can deal with that. I was reaching for my safety reel to do a lost line search and decided to hold off on that for a moment. This passage is not tall and is only about 15' wide. I decided to try sweeping my arms in hopes of the best. Just when I had given up and grabbed my safety reel, my left hand flooped onto the line. OK, this is more like it I thought to myself. As I was surely adding to the current silt cloud during my exit, I went slow in a delibert attempt to not damage my rebreather in any way. I really did not want to be on OC right now. I have no idea how long this cloud will last, plus it is following me because of the flow. I didn't have to go more than 25' and the vis was beginning to clear up a bit. The vis was good enough that when I got to my cookie (There was another line in here that ran upwards and backwards from my current line), I went up there a little ways just to check it out too. The rest of my exit was rather uneventful.
I was still well within my BO and deco plans so I swam my scooter out just for the practice.
