Lake Apopka Spring a no go today
Took Denise to show her the perfect vis, and pumping spring at the bottom of Lake Apopka today. Peter B and I had an awesome dive there on 3 November, so I didn't think it would be any different today. I was wrong. The lake was up a foot or so. That should have been a clue.
Denise miraculously dropped the anchor dead center of the spring. The 50 ft or so of anchor line went straight down off the side of the boat, obviously not hitting the bottom. A first for me there (except when the lake is very low).
We geared up and I went down first. Denise was wary of alligators waiting to eat her; just like Peter B on November 3rd :roll: . The anchor needed to be moved out of the hole. The expected perfect vis didn't appear before I landed on a tree that lies at the opening of the spring at a depth now at 34 feet/10 meters. I didn't see it coming since I could barely see my computer next to my mask. I felt my way around the debris and tree to get into the spring cavern and the perfect vis that had to be in there. It wasn't. I noticed zero flow where there was a good flow the last time. Vis never improved, so I called the dive. :(
Upon surfacing, and as I was about to get back into the boat, Denise was (too happy I think) to tell me the anchor was stuck. Down I went again. It was a pain, but it finally came free. It was stuck to something that looked like a giant piece of deck. Couldn't tell for sure. I gave the line two tugs to tell Denise it was clear and go ahead and pull it up. She thought it meant give me more line. I had to carry it up myself or risk getting it stuck again. I handled her the anchor, and got back into the boat. Not a good dive today.
With time to spare and since we hadn't see any gators up to that point, we decided to go slow along the bank, on the way back (about 6 miles) and count them. We only saw 10; none tiny.
