Original exploration in the Devil's system?

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Funny you should mention the traverse. I remember needing a stage to do that dive, but I don't now. For the life of me, I can't figure out what is different, except maybe gear is better now.

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I don't have enough experience doing the traverse to give much of a reply. I will say that I did take a stage the first (and only) time that I did the whole traverse. My buddy and I did everything by the book and ended up swimming the distance several times over and doing some of the other traverses in the process. Some on purpose, some due to navigational disagreements that were easier discussed by surfacing at Olsen. I love all the available exits at Peacock, it just makes the long swim dives so much more manageable.

Back to the point... When we actually did the traverse, the stages proved to be superfluous. With good fills in our 104s we could have done the dive well within limits without the extra 80 cubes.

When I finally get to move to Florida :-D one of the first dives I plan to make is Peacock. I want to see the crypt, some of the tunnels north of the crossover and maybe do a traverse to P3. Plus I have to recover my lost duck (probably stuck to the ceiling somewhere). http://cavediver.net/phpbb2/viewtopi...=asc&highlight

LOL... FEAR THE DUCKY!!!!!!!! :-D

:?: So no one knows any stories that they could share?

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Originally Posted by phishfood

So no one knows any stories that they could share?

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I had lunch Thursday with my instructor. (He quit teaching/diving about five years ago.) I asked him to register on this forum and post some stories here, but I don't think he's all that interested.

So I asked him for some stories. In between numerous phone calls (he's a contractor and his phone wouldn't stop ringing) he gave me a few tidbits. He talked about how Ginnie Spring was just a mudhole in the woods, and how he made a lot more dives in Ginnie than the Devil's System in the 1960s. With the equipment at the time, it was a better dive.

He talked of how Ginnie Spring was "sacrificed" in the interest of development. There were two systems on the property, and they knew there was no way to keep open water divers out of the caves, so since Ginnie has the huge Ballroom, the property owners grated it off and called it the open water site. This allowed the Devil System to remain open to certified cave divers. In hindsight, I guess it was the right decision.

He also talked of all the solo dives he made at Peacock. Living in Georgia, he had no regular buddies, so he would make a day trip to Peacock (it wasn't state-owned at the time), making two or three solo dives. He said that of his first 200 cave dives, more than half were solo.

I'll keep after him to register and post.

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Originally Posted by flyczek

I want to see the crypt, some of the tunnels north of the crossover and maybe do a traverse to P3. Plus I have to recover my lost duck (probably stuck to the ceiling somewhere).

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I want to traverse to P3 as well

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Originally Posted by Slüdge

He talked of how Ginnie Spring was "sacrificed" in the interest of development. There were two systems on the property, and they knew there was no way to keep open water divers out of the caves, so since Ginnie has the huge Ballroom, the property owners grated it off and called it the open water site. This allowed the Devil System to remain open to certified cave divers. In hindsight, I guess it was the right decision.

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Interesting. I've always thought that was probably the reason it was grated off. But I've been told that it was grated because that system is unstable. I wonder if the latter has any truth to it. I have looked at a map of it and it doesn't look like a huge system. I'd still like to dive it sometime.

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Originally Posted by Slüdge

I had lunch Thursday with my instructor. (He quit teaching/diving about five years ago.) I asked him to register on this forum and post some stories here, but I don't think he's all that interested.

So I asked him for some stories. In between numerous phone calls (he's a contractor and his phone wouldn't stop ringing) he gave me a few tidbits. He talked about how Ginnie Spring was just a mudhole in the woods, and how he made a lot more dives in Ginnie than the Devil's System in the 1960s. With the equipment at the time, it was a better dive.

He talked of how Ginnie Spring was "sacrificed" in the interest of development. There were two systems on the property, and they knew there was no way to keep open water divers out of the caves, so since Ginnie has the huge Ballroom, the property owners grated it off and called it the open water site. This allowed the Devil System to remain open to certified cave divers. In hindsight, I guess it was the right decision.

He also talked of all the solo dives he made at Peacock. Living in Georgia, he had no regular buddies, so he would make a day trip to Peacock (it wasn't state-owned at the time), making two or three solo dives. He said that of his first 200 cave dives, more than half were solo.

I'll keep after him to register and post.

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Great stuff!

I had heard fragments of the Ginnie/Devil's story before, but that connects a lot of the stuff together. I have also seen a map online somewhere of the Ginnie Springs cave, a couple of different circuits, if I recall correctly. But you would think that with the amount of flow coming out of there, that there must be some major cave back there somewhere. Anyway, here I am dragging my own thread off topic onto a different system.

I have heard as well of the main line in the Devil's system starting at the Lips or even further back. That would add up to a lot of reel work on every dive.

The main reason Ginnie was grated was to keep Devil's Eye open. Bob Wray wanted to close all springs on the property to diving. At the time (and probably still true) "Jenny" held the record for number of fatalities. There are indeed two small tunnels beyond the grate. They are both low and silty. OW divers tended to wander into them, silt them up, then run out of air.

A deal was struck between the cave divers, and Mr. Wray. The cave divers would grate the cave, in exchange for keeping Devil's Eye open to cave diving.

You wanted a little known story? Well here it is. Ginnie was still allowing OW classes *inside* the cavern when it opened as a commercial site. As the first NSS-CDS Training Chairman, I wrote to the training directors of PADI, YMCA, NASDS, and NAUI. I told them that their instructors were taking OW students into a *cave*. PADI led the way by sending out a letter to all their instructors forbiding checkout dives in *any* overhead environment. The others soon followed suit. Between that, and the availability of the Cavern Diving course, the fatality rate in N FL caves dropped dramatically.

To the best of my knowledge the original surveyors included Sheck Exley, Ed Hall, and Ken Hiller. Sheck started diving with these two in 1974. There may have been others. Sheck, Ed, and Ken all lived in Jacksonville. They would meet at Sheck’s VW dealership or Underwater Designers (the closest thing to a tech dive shop today) after work. They lived close enough to be able to dive on weeknights. I started diving in Devil’s Eye in 1974. The permanent line did begin past the corn flakes. Back then the large orange colored “corn flakes” were the size of small plates. There were so many “corn flakes” that this was much more of a restriction. At that time you had to negotiate your vehicle through the woods to get to Devil’s Eye. I tried walking from Jenny “Ginnie” a few times but that was a long way in doubles. Ed Hall was my first NACD cave instructor so I got to hear about their exploration dives firsthand. Wes got a hold of their data and around 1977 produced a map which can still be found today. Since this was not Wes’s original survey work he identified the first Devil’s Eye map “Complied by Wes Skiles”. I welcome any corrections and/or additional info so we can start getting all this history written down.

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Originally Posted by zlyrack

LOL... FEAR THE DUCKY!!!!!!!! :-D

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Oooo...
So if we find this FIESTY DUCKY , what is the stated procedure for handling such forthwith? :-D

Da Bean

P.S. The DUCKY is probably still sidemounting in there , searching out new passageways OR maybe swam over to the Crypt and is hiding in there. 8)