I dove Vortex Spring today. This was my first time in and I had quite a good time.
Check in went smoothly. The price had come down as they have new ownership (original owners from a while back). I heard a lot of complaints about this park but I felt it was as good as any other and would mostly compare it to Ginnie as far as private owned parks go.
The staff was friendly and informative. I asked to see a cave map and was shown not only that but the current mapped data (there is a new team mapping it) and the new unpublished survey maps that help me in figuring out where I was going.
I don't know how far back, but I would say 150-200ft? in there is a locked rebar gate blocking the cave. You must check in and show full cave creds to get the key for the gate.
I planned a dive to about the 500-600ft mark and geared up.
It's a holiday weekend and this is a big time OW, training site and swimming hole for the locals. I read that you should be the first one in to get good vis. I was the 2nd diver in this morning and the water was CRYSTAL CLEAR. The main pool was quite relaxing and I liked it's terrain (river rock looking stone across the bottom and lots of "playground" stuff, including some hoops, and even two man made "caves" to do training in.
I made my way to the cavern entrance, tied off and made my way in.
There is a reaper sign front and center as soon as you get into the cavern zone. Most OW divers ignore this and make their way back to the locked gate, which is VERY much cave zone. Since I was the 2nd one in, and the divers in before me didn't muck it up, I had perfectly clear vis the ENTIRE way in.
There is a pipe running along the bottom from some past dredging they used to do, but it now lay un-used and in pieces in many places. I ran my line down the center next to the pipe where there was plenty of rocks for line placements.
Just before the cave gate, there is a large room with some rope lighting installed. It was rather useless for light, but odd to see deep in a cave. I didn't explore these areas as they weren't part of my gas plan.
The cave gate went well, and was easy to figure out and use. I dropped my deco bottle off and tied into the main line. The gate is about 110-ish feet deep. Bring a big primary reel, you're going to use most of it getting back this far. The main line is just regular cave line.
I entered a domed room with a big sign for some kind of memorial to the Ben guy that [fill in the blank] there. here there was a sand mound that kind of burried the line at this point. I tried to dig it out some, but after a few feet it got too deep and I didn't want to break the line. I just ran a jump from where it entered/exited the sand mound and continued on. I made it back to the 500ft arrow as planned and turned.
There are some BIG freshwater eels in here! as in 5+ foot. Most were 2-3 feet long, but the one huge one made me do a double take LOL.
On my way back to the gate, on the cave side, there is a large pair of maintained looking bolt cutters (clean, free of any tarnish) and a sign stating it was for emergency use to cut yourself out if you lose the key I guess. Good to know.
Exiting was smooth. Flow wasn't too bad, it was jut barely enough to want to turn you while holding deco stops, but not strong enough to hang on for dear life LOL.
There is an air bell and cinder block platform just outside of the gate at about 90ft. Good for a 1st stop.
Exiting went smoothly and there were some OW divers paddling about inside the cavern zone on my final stops.
the 30 and 20 ft stops had infinite amounts of places to hang out, or look at while waiting. It was quite nice having something to look at/do.
I had a modest SIT and jumped back in with my monkey rig and an AL80 an did an OW dive. I left my reels and lights behind but swam around in front of the cavern and had quite a good time squeezing through all the swim throughs. There were more OW divers paddling about down in the cavern and coming out of the cave area. I went back up top and swam around the main pool area. It was about 15ft depth average across the main areas. There were quite a few more OW divers in the water now and tons of swimmers. I The vis started to drop considerably with all the roto tilling going on from the OW people, but the pool is large enough that I never felt crowded. The vis was on par with the Devil's runs with swimmers and OW divers. Not bad, but well.. it is what it is. There are two large man-made "caves" that are in the shallow areas that you can swim through, practice cave stuff, do training in, take OW friends in for a "taste of cave". I thought that while tacky to be in a natural spring, they were actually kind of fun and a neat idea.
I ended my dive and headed out as the rains came in for the day.
All in all, this was one of my more enjoyable dives I've had in a while.
Many say this is a one-time dive, but I think I might just have one more dive left out of it before I cross it off the list.
