Christmas Vacation wrapup....
Looking at the spread of days off due to the holidays, Terri and I managed to secure 10 days in cave country using up 3 vacation days... Talk about a deal...
We stayed at Lesley's Cave House (http://runawaylobster.com/cave%20house/Cavehouse.htm) for the duration and got fills from Cathy and Ron, the ever lovable (as long as you keep him fed) tank monkey, at Dive Outpost.... A few different groups of friends came up to join us through the stay, and it was nice to run into the regular cast of characters multiple days....
Friday kicked things off at Peacock with a return up the Cisteen line to the Wishbone and a trip up the crack into to bottom of Cisteen sink and a pokey return leg.... 183 mins, 68'...
Saturday, Tony and Kim joined us back at Peacock where we trekked down the Pothole line, dropped in spools into the Crossover tunnel and back down Peanut to close the circuit. Tony and Kim surfaced, and Terri and I continued a bit back to the Pothole line for our first visit over to the P2 line... Mental note, the passage to the right AFTER the sign, is much larger than the one before the sign.... :) We took the passage down into the well to the EOL. 132 minutes, 80'. Followed by Christmas dinner and festivities @ the Dive Outpost.
Sunday it was too damned cold to do much of anything. So we cleaned things up a bit and were generally lazy, making a trip up to Walmart in Live Oak - after all - its vacation.....
Monday we returned back up the Cisteen line, thru the wishbone, and continued onwards to the Crypt w/ JahJahWarrior in tow. 156 minutes, 73'.
Tuesday was originally planned to take a day off to visit Busch Gardens w/ Wormil - but then we decided a 3 hour drive was just too much work.... :) So the three of us went off to Madison Blue. We ventured around the Godzilla circuit, and then up the mainline to thirds and turned. Back at the sign, I pulled out a spool to show Dave the rabbit hole entrance. 98 minutes, 95'.
Wednesday Don Six joined into the fun and we started things off w/ a return visit to the Well, this time taking the much larger passage I mentioned earlier.... we then returned to the basin, recalced and proceeded down the Peanut mainline to the crossover jump where Dave hit thirds. 122min, 81'
Thursday I was able to talk poor Tony Flaris into showing me P3... It's been probably 2 years since I've dove it, and I forgot just about everything, and the first time I got intimidated by the Sand Slide thinking it impassable... Terri backed out to dive w/ Dave, fresh out of class, and Don bailed to dive w/ some friends visiting over in OG... Running into Marci and Larry over at P3 was a nice surprise. So, Tony, Li and I jumped into P3 and took a nice pokey trip up the mainline, jumping over the the Henley's Castle jump down to the bedding plane around 130' or so to take a gander, then venture back to main with slow return making a side visit down two little passages against the ever so slight siphon. 122min, 135'
Friday the 'original' plan was to do a nice short easy dive at Peacock then come back to the house for a catnap, and head over the Ginnie for the Galaxy dive and social. Lesley had driven up the night before, and at the drop of a single word, things changed as someone in our group mentioned Telford... The four of us drove down to the boat ramp, put our bottles in the water and geared for a brisk swim... Lets just say rebreathers and bailout bottles aren't the most streamlined things to swim against a river with. There's certainly easier ways to navigate the swim, pulling against the mud and trees being preferred. Then once you eventually get there, crawling over the rocks and sand, somehow managing to not a> rip off a spring strap, b> loose a bootie in the mud, and c> poke holes in your drysuit, you are eventually rewarded with a nice inviting cave entrance. Lesley takes the reel, as I'm reminded of how dusty Telford can be, especially now with the access hurdles decreasing diver traffic. We make our way to the first gap, and nothing is clicking into my memory. All my previous dives here were after dark, so seeing light penetrate into the sink is looking totally foreign to me. I'm number four in the group and Lesley places the spool and heads off over a silt mound to the right... Everyone follows. What happens next, is likely the worst situation I've ever found myself in. Coming up the slope, tracing the line, everything starts to silt out, I mean really silt out. I can see maybe a foot or two in front of my mask, and my 21W HID is giving everything its got. I get maybe 10'-15' or so, and I see another hand on the line, it's Terri giving me the turn around signal. I turn, and all I can hear is clunk, clunk, clunk, as I need to trim/claw around the line traps, and overhead passage in zero visibility. A few tense moments and I'm back on the other side of the mound, where the ever present flow clears up the visibility. Terri is right behind me, and Dave follows shortly thereafter, Lesley however is nowhere to be seen... i instruct Terri and Dave to hold back at the jump under the sink, and I approach the silt slope as the viz clears up a bit. In hindsight, Terri's recollection was the silt was siphoning into the tunnel..., not out into the main passage. i held at the top of the slope w/ my hand on the line knowing if it was really nasty, Lesley was on her meg and sit it out till viz cleared. I held at the top waiving my HID light a lighthouse. An eternity seemed to pass, so I questioned Dave... Did #1 signal turn...? And was it due to viz... I wanted to discern if it was a viz problem, or if she had some sort of other problem, perhaps w/ her meg. He responded she turned due to viz... Ok, back to the top of the mound I went - slowly passing my light. Terri decides enough is enough, and heads back in the cloud...
After maybe 25' or so I think Terri discovers a spool on the line at the exact moment Lesley completes her lost line drill, and the two do a happy dance and rejoin Dave and I back at the jump. We pull everything and make a hasty dusty exit. 41 minutes, 24'.
We chat back out in open water... we come to the conclusion rapidly we obviously took a wrong turn... Dave decides enough is enough... Terri and Lesley are up for a 'scouting dive' to figure out where we went wrong, this time I get to be #1.... Yea me... :( I tie in, primary, secondary, probably psyched over the siltout, a few additional for good measure every few feet and we're on our way. We get to the gap, and I'm thinking back two years to our last dives... I remember the line being high on the left side of a wall... I glance to the evil silt on the left and give it the finger... Not seeing anything promising nearby, I dash under the sink and find the placement in my minds eye exactly where it should be... I finish the tie in and the team circles the spool and we take off... We're greeted w/ decent viz and the wide open passages I remembered... We proceed maybe 20 minutes total and decide to turn... just a recon mission to make sure the cave is still here, Dave might be getting antsy waiting for us, so we turn... As if things couldn't get any worse with the day we've had. As soon as I turn, I give a pull on my rear dump and the entire thing disintegrates in my hands - WTF....? I give a quick glance around, and poke around the wing, sure enough, a hole, and no parts visible... Just great... I make up the lost ground, tiling up as needed to vent and signal to Terri - I'm fu**ked, and point to the bubbling hole in my wing and I move into position #2 and we exit. Terri pulls the spools and the reel as we surface into the clear basin greeting Dave. 44mins, 43'.
So much for an easy day, we hike back over the spring run, Terri imitates salmon running the river, and we make the lazy drift down the much colder river water dodging trees and we all decide we've simply had enough diving for one day. Thinking repairs are possible - I swing by CE, where Terri was able to recover a similar failure, fortunately the friendly faces of Bobby and Xenia were on hand to greet a frazzled me as we tore down the Meg and opened things up... Unfortunately, field repair was impossible. The inside nut broke apart, #@%#@$#!. As a glimmer of fortune would shine on me, Bobby had a spare Classic on hand to get me back up and running.
We returned to the cave house and just vegged in the new year crashing early after the rough day.
Saturday we were off to dive Ginnie and join in the CDF Social. Burgers and Charcoal in tow, we made a late arrive around 12:30. Lesley, Terri and I jumped in, for some reason, the ear and gallery seemed easier to navigate today, as we found the sweet spots outside of the flow. I jumped around to the side taking the keyhole bypass and next thing you know, we're at the park bench. We swim up to and take the jump to Hill 400 and make a nice leisurely swim pas tthe Bats and the Hillier Tunnel, probably one of the nicest dives ever at Ginnie. 142 mins, 102'. Lesley and Terri scolded me when I pointed out 30 mins of deco would suck in the ear, so we existing via the eye... A generous, caring, some might say handsome, guy named Russell would be ever so kind to pull Lesley's reel and drop it off at CEE for us...
Sunday was left for packing the car and driving home. 1040 minutes underwater and limestone the preceding 9 days - not bad at all....
-Tim
PS - thanks JahJah for finding my missing bits in Telford... That should make warranty service a little easier....! ;)
