JB flow is up!

I'm bringin my woollies!

Ice diving local quarries vs. record JB flow. Not even close. Waitin for Tesla to get their act together.

Back in the 90s my buddy and I were working toward our Abe Davis awards, and my instructor required ten systems, not just ten different entrances . At the time, the skinny on JB was, "If you don't have a scooter, don't go to Jackson Blue." Well, we decided to try it anyway; even if we only got 300' in, at least we got another system in our logbooks.

Turns out we swam to the second T on backgas only! And I've watched the flow go from very high to very low to very high to very low...

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Originally Posted by Sludge

Back in the 90s my buddy and I were working toward our Abe Davis awards, and my instructor required ten systems, not just ten different entrances . At the time, the skinny on JB was, "If you don't have a scooter, don't go to Jackson Blue." Well, we decided to try it anyway; even if we only got 300' in, at least we got another system in our logbooks.

Turns out we swam to the second T on backgas only! And I've watched the flow go from very high to very low to very high to very low...

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JB is actually a swimmable cave, even in the 90s when the flow was consistently strong. Reading a cave and swimming is an art and is an important skill for cave divers to master. There is a pervasive feeling that you need a scooter to navigate against flow, but swimming is a process, just like cave diving. First few times you do a cave dive, your distance is limited by a lot of factors. By the time we hit Abe Davis, that same dive we will double the distance with air to spare.

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Originally Posted by Kelly Jessop

JB is actually a swimmable cave, even in the 90s when the flow was consistently strong. Reading a cave and swimming is an art and is an important skill for cave divers to master. There is a pervasive feeling that you need a scooter to navigate against flow, but swimming is a process, just like cave diving. First few times you do a cave dive, your distance is limited by a lot of factors. By the time we hit Abe Davis, that same dive we will double the distance with air to spare.

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And the Atlantic ocean is able to be crossed in a kayak too. Sure you can swim it but most of the better parts in my opinion are back past the trash room. Even in a no flow cave most people aren't going to swim 3 or 4k into a cave only to have that long of a return. In JB you can get off to the sides on some smaller lines or just away from the gold line if you know the cave but there will be sections you have to pull during high flow conditions. If you have a properly weighted scooter and have good skills on the scooter I would say that scootering is lower impact on the cave and actually safer for a properly planned dive as your deco obligation is significantly reduced. So yes it is doable but as I stated earlier there are much better swim dives in the area. Hardly anyone dives Judge's and I really enjoy it as it is a mini Peacock to me and you can do a dive in Bone with your leftover gas from Judge's. Mattachuk is fun as well as Gator Hole. Twin is a good swim dive even though the Subway tunnel is a little boring but there are some really cool parts to Twin 3 or 4k back that most people never go see. HITW can be good but the viz is spotty in the main passages a lot of time. Bozel is one of the best swim dives in Florida but the river is up and the park is still closed from the Hurricane. I think that most just dive JB because it is easy access and requires less effort to get to it. I generally prefer the non tourist caves as all the damage in the JB is not pleasant to look at for me.

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Originally Posted by Kelly Jessop

JB is actually a swimmable cave, even in the 90s when the flow was consistently strong. Reading a cave and swimming is an art and is an important skill for cave divers to master. There is a pervasive feeling that you need a scooter to navigate against flow, but swimming is a process, just like cave diving. First few times you do a cave dive, your distance is limited by a lot of factors. By the time we hit Abe Davis, that same dive we will double the distance with air to spare.

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I agree with the sentiment you regularly express, unfortunately I don't think it's taught too frequently. I think the majority of people taking cave class only learn about reading the cave when their instructor tells them to get high in the gallery at Ginnie. That's about it.

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Originally Posted by Kelly Jessop

Before Cave Adventurers JB was consistently high flow and very few people had scooters. You learned to read the cave and find the low flow areas, and we would get reasonable penetration. I was there not too long ago testing out a new dry suit which was baggy, and had sidemount 95s. I made it well past the 2nd T, and turned out of boredom. During deco I watched 2 guys on scooters get blown out of the cave twice. Instead of going straight into the flow, look for areas of lower flow, and navigate there, which may not be a straight line.

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I just called Edd and asked how he managed to turn the flow down when he opened CA... that was a seriously weird comment.

JB boring.. yeah gonna disagree there

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Originally Posted by bamafan

And the Atlantic ocean is able to be crossed in a kayak too. Sure you can swim it but most of the better parts in my opinion are back past the trash room. Even in a no flow cave most people aren't going to swim 3 or 4k into a cave only to have that long of a return. In JB you can get off to the sides on some smaller lines or just away from the gold line if you know the cave but there will be sections you have to pull during high flow conditions. If you have a properly weighted scooter and have good skills on the scooter I would say that scootering is lower impact on the cave and actually safer for a properly planned dive as your deco obligation is significantly reduced. So yes it is doable but as I stated earlier there are much better swim dives in the area. Hardly anyone dives Judge's and I really enjoy it as it is a mini Peacock to me and you can do a dive in Bone with your leftover gas from Judge's. Mattachuk is fun as well as Gator Hole. Twin is a good swim dive even though the Subway tunnel is a little boring but there are some really cool parts to Twin 3 or 4k back that most people never go see. HITW can be good but the viz is spotty in the main passages a lot of time. Bozel is one of the best swim dives in Florida but the river is up and the park is still closed from the Hurricane. I think that most just dive JB because it is easy access and requires less effort to get to it. I generally prefer the non tourist caves as all the damage in the JB is not pleasant to look at for me.

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I am not saying don't scooter,but people who express the opinion that the only way to dive JB or Manatee is with a scooter are missing a dive that challenges you as a cave diver, and help you develop your skill set. There are some great cave dives that are very high flow, where a scooter is not reasonable due to the size. Having the physical stamina for sustained swimming against flow with a regulator which promotes hypercapnia, and knowing your surroundings as to where to be to avoid flow, can really pay off in these dives.

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I just called Edd and asked how he managed to turn the flow down when he opened CA... that was a seriously weird comment.

JB boring.. yeah gonna disagree there

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Funny. In the early 90s it was consistently high flow, and over the years the flow has diminished

JB wasn't boring,but the dive I was doing was because its only goal was testing gear

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Originally Posted by Kelly Jessop

I am not saying don't scooter,but people who express the opinion that the only way to dive JB or Manatee is with a scooter are missing a dive that challenges you as a cave diver, and help you develop your skill set. There are some great cave dives that are very high flow, where a scooter is not reasonable due to the size. Having the physical stamina for sustained swimming against flow with a regulator which promotes hypercapnia, and knowing your surroundings as to where to be to avoid flow, can really pay off in these dives.

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I swam Manatee as part of my cave CCR card. It was ok, but a lot of zigzagging to make any progress. I'm not sure I would call "hypercapnia or bust" fun. If the system is high flow and too small for a scooter, then I'm not sure if there's that much reading of the flow anyway. To me that's more a swim from handhold rest to rest scenario. The only one coming to mind is Mattachuk, but I was only there once years ago so I might be mis-remembering the experience.

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Originally Posted by bamafan

Twin is a good swim dive even though the Subway tunnel is a little boring but there are some really cool parts to Twin 3 or 4k back that most people never go see.

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Is there a decent map of Twin showing past the terminal room?

Field measurement taken on Jan 16th was 180 cu ft/s. Previous field measurement taken on Nov 8 was 76.69 cu ft/s.