Peacock Reports: Peanut, Waterhole in good shape
We did two dives at Peacock today and covered a fair amount of ground. The Peacock cavern is extremely murky and nasty looking---also there was a maze of cavern lines in there. I had heard that the park staff placed a line over the weekend, but it was impossible to know whose was whose, so we ran one too. I'd advise everyone to 1) not swallow the water in there and 2) wash your eyes, ears, and nose well after your dive, maybe some vinegar or alcohol in the ears for infection prevention.
The first was a nice circuit up the main line crossing over at Nicholson tunnel to Olsen sink. We swam up and through the little restriction there and then jumped off to the Peanut line for return. The main line and Nicholson sections were dark (lots of fine silt on the cave walls, vis about 30-40'). Peanut Tunnel was noticeably more clear and enjoyable on return. Water temperature was 69F.
Dive 2: Up Peanut Line, jump to Waterhole--swam to entrance and returned via same route. Vis about 50', temp 70F. We most likely were the first team in there since the cave repopened. It's darker than I've ever seen it, walls covered with fine silt, the line was buried in several places and had "spanish moss-like" goo all over it. Everything is intact, although the lines could do with some general tightening up. We tightened where we could, lifted the line out of the silt and skimmed off some of the mossy stuff on the return trip. The Waterhole entrance is blocked by a tree as well as a huge bundle of large branches. It would be very dificult to exit there.
We saw some divers getting out of Orange Grove but were late leaving so we didn't talk to them. I've heard from several people that P3 is a murky mess, so we didn't even think about it.
Anyway, we had fine dives and got about 3 hrs total of bottom time with no decompression. That's always fine by me!
Best,
Barbara/San Francisco
The vis in Waterhole was about the same as Peanut
