Devil's Eye 7/18/12

Devil's Eye is currently open to full cave divers. Curtain is up.

There was a reel with 72# line in the Eye. Does anyone know if this is intended as a "temporary permanent line" until the system/Ear clears? (Jim?)

Water level up 2' above early June levels. Flow up considerably. Little Devil basin is much clearer than Eye and rest of Devil's. Vis is dilute tannic all the way back to Heinkle. Slightly better past Bear Room and in the Hill 400 area (but not much better). You can see another divers light from 40' away but seeing walls/ceiling or the line is 20-30' vis. Scootering will keep you on your toes, even if you know the cave decently.

Thin layer of fine silt (river silt?) on top of the sand on the mainline passage and on lines themselves. Lots of new organic material in the cavern and half way down Gallery.

Everything (including the parking lot) looks rather flushed out and refreshed.

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Originally Posted by mer

Devil's Eye is currently open to full cave divers. Curtain is up.

There was a reel with 72# line in the Eye. Does anyone know if this is intended as a "temporary permanent line" until the system/Ear clears? (Jim?)

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Yes I left that reel in several days ago. I expect they will ask us to install a reel starting in the cavern one soon.

When I put that reel in you could not see daylight from the Grim Reaper sign.



Jim Wyatt
www.cavediveflorida.com
www.cavecountrydiving.com
352-363-0013

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Originally Posted by Jim Wyatt

When I put that reel in you could not see daylight from the Grim Reaper sign.

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I'd say that's still accurate.

Probably headed back there today, but will be swimming this time. Will be interesting to see if my perception changes off the trigger.

Think I will be doing the same.

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Originally Posted by mer

Probably headed back there today, but will be swimming this time. Will be interesting to see if my perception changes off the trigger.

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Very interesting swim dive with the system in its current condition. Very hard to judge if there was any improvement in vis from Wed to Thurs - esp since one was swim and one was scooter.

There's river silt way back in the cave (and tons of it in the gallery/cavern areas). Just guessing, but that would lead me to believe that the system reversed. Caverns will be dusty right now. If you're not really familiar with the system, it's a challenging scooter dive right now, however, swimming is no more challenging than usual as long as your expectations are in line and you're comfortable in less-than-gin-clear cave.

Visibility is totally sufficient for an enjoyable swim dive, though. And the flow, although definitely up, is not that much more that this spring's pre-flood flow rate. The bit of tannin in the water totally takes the "blue" out of an HID light beam, making it old-school yellow, like diving with a super-sized Halogen light. It's a different cave right now. You're not gonna be able to see or appreciate the bigger spaces like the gallery and Hill 400 dome cause you just can't get the light penetration without too much backscatter to see that far, but it shifts your focus to smaller details. Found myself looking at tiny clay banks or other small details in places where I'm usually looking at the big-scale features.

Did Hill 400 to Double Lines (less than the first half). Vis 30-40', but can see another team's lights from 60-70' away. Didn't see much of a vis difference from mainline to Double Lines area. Flow in Hill 400/Double Lines seemed to drop off more than usual and seemed like the flow coming from the Bone Line was higher than usual (for the current flow rate on the mainline).

I was the lady you met out there last night. :) Nice to meet you! Anyhow, just wanted to say your descriptions are dead on to what I saw and noticed as well. I also enjoyed seeing the blood red to black water over the Eye. It's certainly a different dive right now, and worth checking out.

Nice reports, thanks for the details! So wish I could be there right now!

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Originally Posted by mer

There's river silt way back in the cave (and tons of it in the gallery/cavern areas). Just guessing, but that would lead me to believe that the system reversed. Caverns will be dusty right now. If you're not really familiar with the system, it's a challenging scooter dive right now, however, swimming is no more challenging than usual as long as your expectations are in line and you're comfortable in less-than-gin-clear cave.

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It doesn't have to reverse - a lot of the cave lies under the river and intrusion of river water occurs if the river is high enough or the fresh water hydrostatic pressure is low enough (or both). I think there have been some scientific studies of this by Todd Kincaid or someone like that in the past. Jason Gulley would probably know a lot about this too.

Thanks for the report.

Andy

In a study we did during flooding during Tropical Storm Fay (Sept 2008), where the cave did not reverse flow, we found that only very minor amounts of river water got into the cave (probably less than 2 or 3% of the total flow). Most likely, this water came in through cracks or the aquifer matrix, as the volume of river intrusion was insufficient to decrease the cave temperature or conductivity at several of the points we were monitoring within the cave system (I have a paper on this flood that is being revised for publication in a research journal). I would not be surprised if the Devil's system reversed during this latest flood. The flood was a big one and the aquifer was very depleted prior to flooding. If there is a lot of river silt in the gallery, I'd say that is pretty good evidence the cave reversed flow.

You'd think if it reversed we'd have found not only silt but leaves and sticks and such down in the gallery however there were not any of those items. Just dark water and some silt on most surfaces. The only sticks/leaves I could find were in the eye down at the sign, past that nothing different.

One thing to remember is that the scale of any reversal on the Santa Fe River is going to much smaller than a reversal on the Suwannee River. Large floods on the Santa Fe only increase river stage 1-2 meters at Ginnie Springs, whereas large floods on the Suwannee can increase river stage by >10 m. Larger increases in river stage result in greater hydraulic pressure to push river water back into the aquifers. As a result, a reversal in the Devil's System would not deposit the same kinds of debris as a reversal at Madison Blue.

I wish I had been in the area to install a few sensors prior to the flooding...

The flow did not reverse IMO. I have made 6 dives in there since the flood and have seen no evidence of a reversal of flow.

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Originally Posted by mer

I'd say that's still accurate.

Probably headed back there today, but will be swimming this time. Will be interesting to see if my perception changes off the trigger.

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daylight is clearly visible from the Grim Reaper sign at the Eye. Daylight is visible from the bottom of the chimney in the ear as of 2 PM today ( July 20 )

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Originally Posted by Jim Wyatt

daylight is clearly visible from the Grim Reaper sign at the Eye. Daylight is visible from the bottom of the chimney in the ear as of 2 PM today ( July 20 )

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I dove it thursday and that is what i found as well, no evidence of a reversal from the gallery back. I scootered back to the henkle and then came out through the hill 400 line and the vis was the same throughout 30 feet or less. Back in the area of the mainland jump to the henkle bypass and the henkle iitself there was an improvement to 40 feet or so. Still, as has been said an enjoyable dive and i to wish i had had some sondes in the water as well. Bill

IMO the cave did reverse, if you get off the main line in the front 400 feet, the side rooms that don't have as much flow are full of silt and some debris. I found leaves and small plants in the catacombs as well as some small leaves by the keyhole bypass exit, in the small swim through just past it. I am curious has any one heard of tanic water in the back of the cave before, I don't recall hearing vis dropping past the river intrusion tunnel in the past but I might be mistaken.

John