Howard Park Sink

After much discussion, we ended up at Howard park Sink rather than Hudson Grotto. Took me almost an hour to find it, but at least now I will know what to look for next time. Planned a Monkey style OW dive just to check the place out. Had just found the old line when at about 20 ft down I had a positive shift in buoyancy. I returned to the anchored Kayaks to discover I had lost 1/2 my lead. I had 4lbs in each leg pocket, leaving me slightly buoyant at the surface holding an old steel 50. Losing one ended my day of diving.

I will return soon, this time fully equipped. I am thinking about taking on the sink as a survey project. I can't fine a map of the sink, just the cave (don't know that it goes anymore). Anyone been there enough to get feel for the lay of the land? Vis was around 10 ft, so I haven't the faintest idea.

Anyone interested in seeing this sink surveyed?

You posted on cave atlas. If you click on resources there is a map by Mike Emanuel done in 1992.

It has A LOT of silt filled into it.
It needs to be cleared out a bit and I have been thinking about doing something with it for a few years now.
PM me and we can come up with something.

My buddy and I have been meaning to check out Howard Park, I'd be interested in getting a dive together as well.

Any of you have a small boat? My 2 one-man kayaks don't really cut it for a real dive.

I do, 14ft john boat...but isn't it really close to the causeway? Couldn't you park as walk it? Last time I tried to visit it with my boat it got way too shallow way too quick.

Not REALLY close, but not real far. I found it by lining myself up with the northern edge of Howard Park, and the second bridge on the causeway. Water was 4-6' deep most of the way out. A bit deep to walk, kinda far to swim. Would be limiting without a boat, I would think. I would imagine the entire area has almost no depth at low tide. I didn't even bother checking the tides before leaving, as my kayak will float in <6" of water.

I am emailing Mike E. now, to see if he has any more data than what is posted.

When I went looking for it one day I hit the area at low tide and immediately buried the prop in the sand, 6 inches of depth in that area at best.

If it's anything like diving Crystal Beach you'll want to dive on the high tide.

I'm interested in what Mike says. I've seen the site map, but can't get a good feel for the cave size and layout though.

Not much like CB...pretty much a dead, no-flow system. Hydrogen sulfide is THICK, fills the whole tunnel, as you first get into the horizontal passage proper....it gets better as you go in a ways. The passage splits...to the right (iirc) doesn't go very far, sort of an ascending vertical fracture...the left passage goes farther, but just pinches out fairly quickly. Not a pretty cave, by any means, but worth a one-timer. Did it by boat, in thelate 80's, the hassle of trying to do it from shore negates the minimal reward of the system, imho.

I don't know how far the tide swings around here (really not a salt water guy), but I must have hit it near high. It would probably be really easy to find at low tide in my kayak. I want to start with getting an idea of how far the depression extends. This image gives a pretty good idea http://www.mejeme.com/dive/aerial/howard_air_2009e.jpg (from Mike's site).

Anyone up for hitting it Sunday? Low tide at 7:31 AM followed by High at 1:17 PM and again back to Low at 7:56 PM.

If you use the mapping tools on CaveAtlas.com you can use an embedded version of Google Earth. It does show some things but there is a lot of reflection on the waves - http://www.caveatlas.com/systems/map...sp?ID=37&co=US

The Bing (Brett loves these) map shows the entrance as well - http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=nps...prings%2C%20fl

I have been trying to integrate Bing into my mapping but haven't had enough to drink yet.

Yeah, that is typically what I use. The reflections killed it though. Can't really even see where the sink is. Google also has maps of the ocean floor (and the surface of the moon), but you loose those close to shore when you are zoomed in. I wonder if they maps they have have enough detail to show this sort of feature.

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Originally Posted by DeepSea

The Bing (Brett loves these) map shows the entrance as well - http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=nps...prings%2C%20fl

I have been trying to integrate Bing into my mapping but haven't had enough to drink yet.

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Very nice. Haven't used bing maps yet. I have a particular hate for MS (and Apple, btw) so I tend to avoid open-mindedness in their direction. Those maps would be of definite use on your site. Comparing them to the Google Earth or Google Maps versions, there a quite a few that the MS/Bing version is far better.

I was thinking about doing an open water dive at hospital hole on saturday, just cause I've never been, not really up for diving in the gulf at the moment, that water's just too cold right now for deco.

I think in a month when it warm up some I'll be looking to do a dive there.

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The reflections killed it though

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Whenever you have a bad aerial in Google earth, try looking at the historical imagery. In this case, the Sept. 2005 shots show it clearly.

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Originally Posted by Leslie Sapp

Whenever you have a bad aerial in Google earth, try looking at the historical imagery. In this case, the Sept. 2005 shots show it clearly.

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I had no idea that feature existed. Thanks for the heads up.

Sometimes, certain types of features show up better in the older black and white photos than in the newer color ones.

So I was just at the dive shop and mentioned this site to the woman there...who's dove it several times...

I'm told, it's a silt hole and it's very unstable. So, unless anyone has more info on it, I may avoid this site, an unstable site isn't very safe, and not something I'd feel comfortable in just yet.

I got a response from Mike. PM me if you would like to know what he said (nothing special, just would want to get his OK before quoting a personal communication online).