Hill-400 2 unique dives and a Recovery of sorts
Sean(Seanmeboy), Al(shellmoundal), and I met at Ginnie Springs on the morning of June 3rd.
The plan was to dive up Hill-400 to the jump at aprox 1200-1300’ of penetration that goes into what I call the backside of the double lines up towards the ice room. This is the jump aprox ½ way between the 1000’ line marker on Hill-400 and the bats.
All 3 team members were diving SM 85’s with a stage and a deco bottle.
AL was in the rear with video, Sean was in the middle with extra video lighting, and I was swimming lead.
So we entered the eye and left deco bottles just past the start of the gold line.
We swam stages through the lips and dropped the stages between the lips and the keyhole. It was a good place to leave them and not worry about drag through the rest of the dive.
We swam up to Hill-400 and I placed the jump reel to the floor and then over to Hill-400. We then proceeded up Hill-400 past the jump at 1000’ to the double lines. I then ran a jump to the floor and over to the jump towards the ice room. I turned the dive on thirds about ½ way between our second jump and the jump to the ice room. We were just before the passage to skid row.
We as a team did manage to silt it up a bit on the turn. We came back down the line to Hill-400 in a silt out for about 50’. Prior to Hill-400 Al signaled me and I turned to discover him showing me that his Go-Pro camera was missing from his helmet. I then signaled this to Sean. We left both reels in on exit as previously planned to support the dive Sean and I were planning for later in the day. We saw no sign of the camera on the way out.
Al had to leave for work after the dive. The next dive was originally supposed to be the double lines circuit, a dive I have done a few times and Sean has not done before. This was to be my 100th dive since full cave training. Sean and I decided to change the plan and do the same dive again, to enhance our chances of recovering the missing Go-Pro. We entered at the eye and ran pretty much the same dive plan, utilizing the reels we had placed earlier that day. We were scanning and searching everywhere in the hopes of recovering/rescuing our missing buddy(Go-Pro) from the earlier dive. When we arrived at the second jump at aprox 1200-1300’ the Go-Pro was wrapped in my jump line by the reel. Obviously another Cave Diver saw it and made the assumption that it belonged with my reel. Sean recovered the camera, and gave it to me to stow away safe in my dry suit pocket. Sean then showed me his wet notes where he wrote 100!!!, his way of saying congratulations on 100 cave dives. Our primary recovery mission was now accomplished. We then decide to leave the reel and continue up Hill-400 to the Bats. We turned at the bats and pulled both reels on the exit.
After deco and exiting the water I had a cold chocolate milk at my truck. This was a tradition for my main Cave Diving buddy, George Turner, and myself after a good dive. George and I went through all of our Cave training together. He has been fighting cancer and is finally winning. He has not been in the water for a few years. I wish we could have shared our 100th cave dive together. This one was for him! :arrowred
