February 25, 2009 -- The Ice Room is a “cool” dive. With four back-up lights, and two stage bottles, I swam up the main line, jumped to the Hill 400 line, and up to the distal entrance (at the 1200 foot marker) of the Double Lines circuit, breathing 65 cubic feet out of one AL80. I dropped that empty bottle off on a shelf just prior to the jump to the Double Lines tie-in.
After running the reel, it was on into the nether regions of the Double Lines circuit. After a few hundred feet, at a hard left turn, the jump to the Ice Room line was visible straight ahead on a flat shelf of rock with a low rocky ceiling, that looked like a miniature “Lips.” After deploying my third and final jump reel, I swam guardedly into the Ice Room tunnel where I had never been before, with excitement and trepidation: it was a long way from sunlight and singing birds, and lonesome by myself.
I passed two side tunnels on the Left, and kept swimming through low areas for what seemed to be an eternity, trying to keep myself and my gear off the clay bottom. Finally, a steep turn to the Left and a hill delivered me into the Ice Room. A quick survey, and a look up at the ceiling revealed why it was named (which I will not divulge here so that others may have the thrill of discovering it for themselves). Someone had tied off a bail-out emergency snorkel and pair of swim goggles to the EOL, and I had a laugh, before commencing the business of getting all the way back out of the dark and into the warmth of the sun.
A glance at the pressure gauge showed me I was at, or a little past thirds overall; it was time to fully concentrate on the task at hand. I plunged down the hill, turned Right and noticed that I hadn’t been totally successful in avoiding silting up the passage on ingress, which added to my anxiety. Passing the two side tunnels to the Right, I ended up on the rocky shelf, and reeled myself back to the Double Lines circuit. Clipping off that reel, I swam back to the Hill 400 line and my second reel, which I pulled.
I picked up my empty stage bottle, and swam on down the Hill 400 line, starting to feel elation, being back in familiar territory. I started enjoying the feeling of knowing that I had the dive in the bag. I pulled my last reel from the Hill 400 line to the main line, and floated back past the great monuments of the Devil’s Eye system: the Junction Room, Corn Flakes, Key Hole, the Lips, and the stunningly gorgeous Gallery, which never, ever gets old.
The shaft of sunlight from the Devil’s Ear looked celestial as I turned off my primary light, clipped it, dumped all the air out of my BC, and crawled slowly up to the deco log. I parked for 21 minutes of decompression in the crystal clear water, home to the silvery mullet and the largest bass I had ever seen. The brim swam over to congratulate me.
This dive is no BFD to most cave divers, but it was to me.
Fun Facts: Bottom time: 67 minutes. Decompression on EAN32 was 21 minutes, plus a three-minute safety stop. Total time 91 minutes. Gas used on ingress: 140 cubic feet of EAN32. Total time spent consuming first post-dive beer: 30 seconds.
