I was at Vortex yesterday for a picnic and to train some Advanced Open Water divers. Arrived early so I could get the key and dive the cave.
First, the procedure leaves me a little uneasy, but apparently it works. You swim to the gate, unlock it and enter. Then you lock the lock back to itself so that no one else can lock it. Then close the gate so that it appears locked (honestly, that's what I was told). You can see the potential for problems with this so i won't dwell on it.
After passing the gate, you go for a just a short distance in a fairly tight but back-mountable passage into a decent sized room. Very white, plenty of interesting formations. The floor and passage are sand and the flow is kicking. There is no gold line, but white line paralleled by 4 inch PVC. The line was covered by sand in many places and I had to free it up as I went. Continue on through the first room through a very small tunnel. I was in side mount and it was tight. Back mounters, you need to be good at picking your way. If you weave back and forth off of the line (not much room for that), you'll make it but you will scrape at several locations. This leads to another room, I'll guess about 600 or so feet back from the gate.
The second room looks similar to the first in size and general appearance. At this point, I was 132 feet deep and came to a tee. Continuing straight back, I found the end of the white line about 30 feet or so past the tee. Also, the floor goes to a lot of very fine silt here, and the passage ends or so it appeared to me.
If you go right at the tee, you head down to a small passage at about 142 feet. It was here that I turned it, not wanting to go any deeper. According to the map, it goes a short way from there and ends in about 158 feet of water.
All in all, a fun dive, very clear, lots of flow, and nice formations.
I wouldn't make a special trip just for it, but if you are in the area, it is definitely worth it.
Total dive time was 66 minutes, including 17 minutes of O2 deco. Max depth was 142 feet. Beyond the gate averaged about 125 or so until the last room. As far as marking, there were very few (I think 3) directional arrows and no distance marks. This probably isn't an issue since there is no where to go off of the line (that I saw anyway).
