Another Harvey's Dive Report

On 10/9, I met up with CaverCraig and we did a night dive in Harvey's Sink. This is only the second dive I've done there. When we pulled up, the water in the basin was clear (well, relative to Harvey's). Probably the clearest I've ever seen it the several times I've got by there in the past to check and even the time I dove it. So right now is a great time to dive Harvey's.

We were both diving sidemount. We ran a reel from the surface to the line that started at 20 ft. At 20 ft, we dropped O2 bottles. Remember, the basin is a good 90+ feet deep. If you clip a bottle and it don't hit the loop, you can kiss that bottle goodbye. It'll drop into the abyss. Then you'd have to spend an entire dive hunting for the dang thing in the muck in the bottom.

We then plounged down to the orange bell (reel or whatever you want to call it). We proceeded down the line to around 70 feet, where the line went horizontal towards the cave entrance. The basin of Harvey's can be a very intimidating place. Until you get almost 100 ft inside the cave, you are very line dependent. You can't see ceiling, walls, or floor. Everything around you is dark. Can be disorienting if you aren't careful.

Once we hit the T, we turned left down Turtle Passage. The vis in this passage varied. We hit areas where the vis got down to 5+ feet and other areas where it got 20+ ft. I saw my old buddy from the first dive I did in the sink - an albino cave crayfish about the size of my outstretched hand. This guy dwarfs those you see in Peacock. We also saw a number of dead ones on the floor. What was interesting was the decay around them turned the silt floor black, making a teardrop shape. I think the next dive I do here, I will carry my camera and take some pics of this.

We made it maybe 800 ft down Turtle Passage where we made a jump to the left into the Crystal Room. The line for this jump is no more than a foot away. The entrance to the Crystal room tightens down from the large tunnel you experience in Turtle Passage to a small rocky tube maybe 50 or 100 ft in length. Very easy to negotiate sidemount or backmount.

Once we got through this tube, the floor dropped out below us and vis improved to maybe 50 ft. We continued following the line through the middle of this huge room. The room is so huge that at this point, you can't see any real reference points. Then as you swim the diagnal line towards (what I'm picturing) the back of the room, you start seeing floor and then a wall. The diagnal descent is gradual and goes from 70 ft to about 100 ft. The line T's and creates a big circuit in the room (I believe). We took the right side. The line dipped to our max depth of 119 ft. There was a slant to my left that you could have gotten off the line and hit 130 ft probably. We continued around till we hit the backside of the circuit. There was a T there too. There is continuing passage that T's off the circuit. We entered it maybe 50 or 100 ft and I turned us. We did not do the complete circuit. So there's room to do another dive there sometime.

We started our exit. My ear was having a hard time clearing for the redescent towards 119 ft from that continuing passage I just mentioned. Luckily, it was a big room and I could stay higher. That's not always an option in some caves - which can be a scary event. Then, my ear cleared and I proceeded. We returned back to the Turtle Passage and made our exit.

At 20 ft, we switched to O2 and did maybe 7 minutes of deco for the 68 minute bottom time. One of my regular dive buddies accompanied us on the trip to stay topside. He was a great help with tanks, etc. In fact, while at deco, it was a little reassuring in that black, dark basin at night to see a light flashing you from the surface, and you'd flash back.

A great dive!!! What I am confused right now about is how the Crystal Room's line is laid. It seemed to me that we swam to the back of the room following the diagnal line before we hit the circuit (making a lasso looking layout). Then swam back to the front of the room where the continuing passage was. But according to the map, that continuing passage is on the backside of the the Crystal Room. So I want to make another dive there sometime to try and get a mental picture of how it's laid. The room is just too large to view with your lights.

I'd be very interested in hearing exploration or survey stories of Harvey's Sink. For example, how you made sense of what the cave is doing from that dark and eiree basin.