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What is the "official" (recognized) deepest natural underwater cave (not a quarry or reservoir with a spring popped into, or flooded to make it deeper, i.e. Cannonball in Missouri, etc) in the US? How deep?
My understanding it was DiePolder 2...... approx. 360ffw or so...?
If that is the case, it was bested this past week......documented by at least three separate digital depth recording devises.
Would that be Weekie Wachie??
Red Snapper Sink at 482fsw off Cresent Beach FLA and Green Bananna Sink at 430fsw off Sarasota are the deepest I know of. Guess it depends upon your definition of a cave since both are submerged sinks. I understand there is flow at the bottom of Red Snapper indicating there is possibly some degree of connection to the aquifer.
I'm not sure that I'd call the two offshore sinks a "cave".....just a big overhang, but that may be splitting hairs. Megadome, out off Ft. Myers, however, is DEFINITELY a cave dive...and I think it's only been pushed to the high 300's or so...but no bottom yet...?
Then again.....non of the offshore sinks are in the US (offshore, territorial waters...?). Again, hair splitting, but interesting debate?
The deepest U/W US cave I know of is in Nevada. During the 90's Sheck Exley, Paul Deloach, myself and others were involved with exploring Devil's Hole and Devil's Hole II. In Devil's Hole II Sheck & Paul were diving deep and Sheck was tying off the line at 436ft when he dropped the reel and went plunging after it. He quickly retreived the reel and tied it off at 436ft. He estimated that he could see at least down to 500ft where the cave appeared to go under a duckunder or ledge. Check out this site for more information.
http://hegel.lewiscenter.org/users/m...iggsdeacon.pdf
Guy
Now THAT is good info......never heard of that one, Guy! Knew of the cave, just didn't know it had been seen (by divers) that deep!
BTW...in case it's not obvious by now...it is Weeki Wachi, at 401 ft, 4000ft. penetration (or so). Cave is still going bigtime....
...after thinking about it, Guy, I remember having dinner with Paul at a Tallahassee restaurant in the mid 90's, he was with a cave diver from overseas and talked about being out there...just didn't remember the details (imagine that!)...lol!
Goodenough Springs is well over 500 FFW
Goodenough is flooded under 150 ft. of reservoir, I believe.
Perhaps I should have asked which "spring in its natural state"....but again, this is hair-splitting. Sheck Exley used to be ingenious at "inventing" subcategories for record dives.....longest, deepest, coldest, scariest, most expensive per dive....etc, etc....lol!
Incidentally the deepest cave in the US (although it's not underwater) is Kazamura Cave in HI at 3614 ft deep according to Bob Gulden's list here:
http://www.caverbob.com/usadeep.htm
Maybe someone should ask him about adding a deep underwater cave list for the US and world.
Also the deepest in the world now for those that might not keep up with such things is Krubera Cave in the Caucasus Mtns. of Georgia at 7119 ft deep (that's over 2 km). Although it is not an underwater cave, there are a number of sumps.
Marbry