Kitty Sink - Green Sink(08/21/06)

Lafayette Blue Springs State Park now allows cave diving from the park. Unfortunately, the only legal and easy access point is at the headspring next to the Suwannee River. This means that you have to swim upstream and enter open water at Snake Sink and Green(Yana) Sink before you can access the main part of the cave system.

We decided to access the cave system at Kitty Sink. The water level was down to the bottom concrete step, the layer of duckseed was gone, and the visibility was good in the basin.

We geared up with our sidemounts rigs and started the dive. We swam downstream towards Green Sink, passing by several sinkhole openings on the way. Visibility was poor-to-fair for most of the dive because of a lot of particulate in the water. We arrived at Green Sink 36 minutes into the dive.

We turned the dive at that point. The line was littered with wooden clothes pins every few feet, and I had considered removing them, but I didn't. We arrived back at Kitty Sink 72 minutes into the dive.

Our gas supply was still good, so we decided to continue upstream towards Trap Sink. Visibility remained poor-to-fair.

We swam past Trap Sink and continued towards Nostrils I and II Sinks. We turned the dive prior to reaching them. We arrived back at Kitty Sink for the second time 113 minutes into the dive.

Maximum depth reached was 52'. Gas used was EANx 32.

(Note: Access to the cave system at Trap Sink is not advised at this time for 2 reasons: Visibility in the basin is practically zero, and a rotten tree has fallen into it)

Great report Frank, thanks for sharing. We did a dive at LB last May (my first time in that system) while down for the CDS workshop and it was fabulous. We walked the trail down to the third opening and swam upstream until my primary decided to go south on me. From there we drifted with the flow back down to the river (vis was good enough that my backup in addtition to FW's primary lit things up fairly well, so why walk?) Having just had a hip replaced in March, we were looking for the easiest access/exits for me and I had no problems with what was encountered. The park attendant on duty at the time suggested this to us given my limitations; was mine a special case or have they stopped access via the route we took?

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Originally Posted by CaptainSpeleo

We turned the dive at that point. The line was littered with wooden clothes pins every few feet, and I had considered removing them, but I didn't. We arrived back at Kitty Sink 72 minutes into the dive.

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Thanks for not removing the clothes pins. Those are my survey stations,and we will be cleaning them up,but some are used to reference areas that we need to re-do or add landmarks.

Kelly:

We both thought they were a bunch of "Kilroy was here" markers. I know I counted well over 100 of them between Kitty Sink and Green Sink.

DeWayne:

According to the park ranger, access is only allowed via the main headspring which is separated from the river by the narrow limestone natural bridge.

We walked from the parking lot to Green Sink and checked it out. It's too long of a walk and too much of a climb down to the water for me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CaptainSpeleo

Kelly:

We both thought they were a bunch of "Kilroy was here" markers. I know I counted well over 100 of them between Kitty Sink and Green Sink.

DeWayne:

According to the park ranger, access is only allowed via the main headspring which is separated from the river by the narrow limestone natural bridge.

We walked from the parking lot to Green Sink and checked it out. It's too long of a walk and too much of a climb down to the water for me.

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100??! Just think tonight when you go to sleep you don't have to count sheep,but you can count clothes pins.

A plan of the park is to build a parking area and steps at Green in the future.

A parking lot and steps at Green Sink would be real nice and make accessing the main part of the cave system much easier. :D