Little River – 12/04/2004
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What a great day to dive. Visibility was a max of 25 to 30 feet with percolation reducing the visibility anywhere from 15 to 20 feet.
The dive began with a meeting between three friends at CE2 in the AM. I arrived about a half hour before CE2 opened. This gave me time to set up my rig while waiting for Wayne to arrive, open up and begin the morning rush of air fills. The outside morning air was brisk, cold enough to see your breath rising up while breathing out. Once I got my tanks filled to a well, mmm, one hell of a fill. I moved my truck to get out of the way of the rest of the morning rush.
I ended up waiting an extra hour before my dive buddies arrived to get there fills. They got a late start getting out of Gainesville. It must have been due to the holiday traffic. On a Saturday Morning? Yaaahhhh, that’s it, the holiday traffic. While waiting for the fills we began discussing our dive plan. We were teeter tottering between going to Little River or Peacock. Little River was a unanimous decision. What a better place to go and see a cave that has been untouched since the beginning of the 2004 flooding. We discussed a plan of heading to the Florida Room by way of the Mud Tunnel and the Serpentine tunnel. We figured the mud tunnel would be a great way to go.
We ended up getting on the road from CE2 about 11 to 11:30 AM and making our way by way of the back roads. When we arrived at Little River I noticed a few trucks and a van in the parking lot. It seemed that the vehicles were from other cave divers that may have had the same thought as us.
Upon parking, we got out to take a few photos before donning our gear. While looking around and down at the water we noticed a few of the divers coming up the stairs closest to the parking lot so we went over to talk to them and find out about the visibility. They said that the visibility was about 30 feet and much like Peacock. There dive consisted of staying on the main line.
While donning our gear we discussed our dive plan further. This plan called for two jumps, one in and one out of the Mud Tunnel. Andy would be leading, Dave next and I would follow-up the rear. We also discussed possibilities of full silt out and lost line. In addition, we decided our air consumption would be 1/3 minus 200 to give us more in reserve incase of silt out and possibly a slower return to the surface. Our plans included a statement; if any of use felt uncomfortable for any reason to call the dive. Remember, we were entering a cave that had a possibility of having our visibility reduced to zero.
Once we entered the water we did a bubble check, each of us were given the “ok” sign. We made our way over to the log that has been located next to the opening of the cavern since time forgot. Once Andy tied off, we looked at each other and again gave the “ok”. We proceeded to the rebar and recalculated thirds minus 200. I dropped my deco bottle and then we proceeded through the tunnel to the Chimney. The inside of the cavern was not light in color like I remember but dark and absorbing our lights.
I could see marks from the recent divers that had just left on the inside of the cave walls. I was really hoping that we would be the first into the cave. Oh, well. The line was covered and looked just like the walls, dark and with a brown algae look. Once we made it to the Mud Tunnel visibility changed for me; I was the third so percolation was raining down on me and reducing my light to a max of 20 feet. I could still see Andy’s light up ahead and his shadow of a form that seemed to slowly blend with the rest of the blackness. We kept a close distance between use and the dive progressed slowly. Like many of our dives, this wasn’t a dive to get the furthest, but a dive to see what we could or better yet what we couldn’t see.
I exited the Mud Tunnel in a moment of aw to be one of the first ones through the Mud Tunnel since the flood. It was a token of nature reclaiming what man has touched or disfigured. The last time I was in the Mud Tunnel was before the Floods and I remember how many marks were in there due to careless divers. Nature once again has proven to come out on top.
We made our way to the Serpentine Tunnel with the same percolation that we encountered in the Mud Tunnel making me think once again we are the first in this section of the cave. I saw no marks of the earlier cave divers in this section of the cave. The whole time on our way to the Florida room was at a slow pace. We made it to the beginning of the Florida Room and we three reached thirds minus 200 right on the mark. Great timing; couldn’t ask for better. We couldn’t see much of the room since our light were swallowed up by the darkness, it was as though one would have tunnel vision. We could only see about 20 feet in front of us at this point.
I was in number one position now that we turned the dive. I noticed that my movement was at less of a pace with the flow of the water since the last time I was there. In front of me was a cloud of particles that had been raining down in us during the dive. Now our visibility was about a maximum of 15 feet. I stayed close to the line. I occasionally rubbed the side of the cave with my wing or bumped the over head with my rubber valve handles. Each time this happened it was as though the cave stretched out to say, "I know your there". Once we reached the Chimney we made a very slow ascent. I turned to face the oncoming flow and reduce my drag as I always do at this point in the dive. Since I knew where the line was, I kept my eyes on the crevice in the Chimney, so I could watch my rate of ascent. As I reached the top of the chimney and the tunnel leading to the surface was on my left I stopped and paused. I was now looking at two figures the second I could barely see the blue in his wet suit. At this point I waited for Dave and Andy to reach the top of the Chimney before proceeding toward the cavern area.
When we reached the cavern I picked up my O2 Deco Bottle, clipped it off and very slowly traversed to the twenty foot depth before taking my breath of 100% O2. How refreshing it was. We are back. Back from seeing rocks and formations that seem so different this time. Different; different due to nature’s hand. While doing our decompression, I noticed a few pennies lying in the sand silhouetted by my light. It turned out that I found a ring, one quarter, 5 pennies, and three dimes. What a find. Even after Mother Nature had caused the water to reverse flow once again there were still things to find.
I ended my dive at 58 minutes and a depth of 104 feet. And waited on the surface for Dave and Andy to finish there decompression since I finished mine 15 minutes before them. 100% O2 is a wonderful thing. It keeps me from getting so cold at the end of a dive.
Our day of diving didn’t end there. Once we got out of our gear we picked up a few items of trash in the parking lot that seemed to be deposited there from the flood.
It was one awesome dive day that ended with an afternoon submarine sandwich and lots of laughs in the little town of Branford.
Location: Little River
Dive Time: 58 Minutes
Penetration: Florida Room
Deco: 100% O2
Visibility: 15-20 feet
Water Temp: 70 degrees
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