My “Mill Pond Experience” - Feb 2015
Last week, I ventured away from the usual High Springs/Luraville Cave Country and tried out the mill pond for the first time. I stayed with a group of breather divers from North Carolina and stayed at the Hole in The Wall house & rented boats. For the whole week, we went from house to boat to dive site to Cave Adventurers; rinse and repeat. I had not thought of renting a boat beside for visiting Twin and HITW…but this turned out to be a pretty good way to dive. Leave all the stuff in the boat.
Over the course of the week, I squeezed in 8 dives despite the frigid cold from Canuckistan making its way all the way down to North Florida. At least it wasn’t -30C like back home! Took a day off here and there to rest the ears and lungs.
The dives:
Jackson Blue:
JB was my favorite cave by far (although HITW could take that away if I came at the right time). I was expecting strong flow, which turned out to be lesser than Ginnie. Even in the cavern you can easily hit no flow zones once you move to the big shelf of breakdown rocks on the left.
Dive 1 was to swim up as far as we can on backgas on the gold line and made it past the 2nd tee in 45mins. It gaves us a good idea of the flow and get our bearings. As told by others, the flat area beyond the 2nd breakdown sucks for swimming! Once back in the cavern, I took my buddies stage and went back in with the scooter left at the entrance and boogied back to the hall of the mountain king as I wanted to find the jump to kings canyon (was an easy one to spot) and also track the various jumps along the way for future dives.
Dive 2 we attempted to dive some of the jumps I had previously seen. The first one we tried was at the left on top of the 2nd break down…it turned out to be a failed attempt rather quickly on backmount and turned around. On way back to cavern, we did the marked jumps on “parallel lines” / beanie tunnel. We encountered the sand restriction which reminded me of the diamond sands sand in Jug. We managed to push through only to end up at EOL 20’ later (I hear this passages doubles back in a tight SM passage to the cavern).
Dive 3 was my most anticipated dive to visit King’s canyon. We lugged 2 stages each in the flow. 1st drop was on top of 2nd breakdown and the 2nd drop just before the 2nd tee. At the jump we tied up and went kings canyon; following instructions to go up on that line and not continue straight. This line brings you midway through the canyon which makes it feel short. I came back on another dive from the top of the canyon and noticed it is much longer in length. At the end of the canyon, we followed our other team’s jump to close back onto gold and head up to the traffic light by the way of the upper route. We noticed a jump just before going left and skipped it. We managed to make it to the traffic light and call the dive. The swim to the traffic light was 55minutes. I was quite ecstatic at that point to have made it that far (could have gone further). The return was through the lower passage/rabbit hole. Drifted on out and checked out the place even more. After picking 1st stage, we went back up the line to 2nd tee and drift back down the other side of the passage.
Dive 4 was a leisure scooter run up the gold line to 3600’ to have a look at the various jumps on the way. Took about 48min to reach that distance (I was behind another team and didn’t pass them. everytime they stopped, I explored a bit and then following on).
Dive 5 was another leisure scooter run up the gold line to 4000’ this time. Around 3100’, I tried some of the tees on the right which brought me to a maze of tees. I was not prepared for the mazed and turned back to the gold. Once back on gold, I kept going to 3800 and swam to 4k as the passage tightened up.
HITW:
I only did one dive in this cave and cannot wait to return. the sheer size of the rooms was incredible despite the 20-30’ visibility throughout. After passing the tighter entrance (had to push my stage in on backmount), we went upstream and followed the gold line at a slow pace. We continued on the gold and continued into a smaller tunnel when the gold turned white. Once in that tunnel, visibility turned crystal and water temp dropped a good 5 degrees. 150’ ish later, we EOL’d and turned around. All in all, cool dive and need to go back w/ 2 buddies and strong lights to light her up. Make sure to swim upside down in there, cool ceilings.
Twin Caves:
Dive 1 was a simple gold line swim to complete the circuit by first dropping down the fissure and following the gold and coming back up around the 1200’. on way back in the subway tunnel, I ran into another dive buddy where there is an overhang so I swam right above and boogied out.
Overall, I found this dive to be quite monotonous and a snooze. The fissure crack drop was quite cool though.
Dive 2 since I hated the subway tunnel so much, I scootered it to the bottom of the 2nd drop and parked it there. Went on the left. I was hit by another monotonous tunnel for a few 100 feet. Then things got a bit tighter and more interesting. The restriction forced me to unclip my stage and push in front of me. the room ahead was pretty cool. In the silt mound, there was a deer antler….kinda cool to see in a cave. I proceeded upwards in that fissure crack tunnel which I quite enjoyed. I’m glad I was by myself. I turned around about 50’ beyond the only arrow I saw in a while. Turning around in that passage is kind of interesting …
Lessons learned:
I need to go back to Marianna with a stack of clothe pins and freshen up on navigation !
Come back to Marianna when HITW conditions are favorable.
I need SM training w/ Edd to get myself rigged to explore the jumps off the gold as most of them close up quick
I really wish there were up to date maps readily available for the local caves. I know they exist considering the amount of exploration ongoing. It would likely save me time to pick BM vs. SM tunnels. I also have room in my office for nice large maps (need to be high quality like Hancock’s of ginnie springs)
