New England Cave Divers Meeting

The first informal cave diving interest group meeting in Boston will be on February 9 from 6:30pm. The venue will be Cambridge Brewing Co at 1 Kendall Square. We will grab food and drinks, chat about diving, caves, travel, cartography, equipment, techniques, and anything else that springs to mind. If you are a cave diver or otherwise thinking of getting involved in overhead diving, please join us by all means. If you are a caver, diver, or a regular Earth-walker with general curiosity about phreatic caves, we'd love to have you too. Be there or be square!

What: Cave Diving Meetup
Who: All interested
When: Thursday, February 9, 2017 from 6:30pm on until ?
Where: Cambridge Brewing Co, 1 Kendall Square
Contact: PM me

Is there a featured speaker or specific topics for discussions? Possibly interested in joining in.

Thanks for posting this. I saw (your?) post on Facebook as well. I get back from Mexico on Wednesday but I hope to attend.

Neat! I'll be there.

It's a social, so no specific agenda or speakers. We just want to meet people and see how much interest there is in getting something more regular organized.

Having lived up there for a long time, tell me other then the quarry in VT, what overhead opportunities are there in new england? I looked and never found anything.

Not much cave diving up north, true. The quarry is wicked cold and serious drive from Boston. Thankfully, we travel globally, just like anyone else. In the off time might as well grab a beer and chat about common interests.

Sweet. Have to see if I can make this.

I'm interested but weekdays can be challenging.

I've heard of the quarry previously mentioned, there's got to be a spring or something around? Being originally from Missouri (where?) we had nice cave diving, springs, quarries with tunnels, a cave that was submerged in a lake about 30' underwater. Surely, there's got to be something around New England besides a quarry, it's waiting to be found. I was thinking there would be something near or along the mountains.

As a past 30-year resident of the Boston area and now a cave country local, let me know how I can bridge the gap for Bostonians. I've sent a few emails to some of my past Cave students (and those interested) who are currently in the Boston area.

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Originally Posted by BluDiver

Surely, there's got to be something around New England besides a quarry, it's waiting to be found. I was thinking there would be something near or along the mountains.

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Sadly, there's no limestone in New England - just a lot of slate, marble and granite. They don't tend to dissolve and form caves like limestone does. There are a few (dry) caves in VT, but the largest is only a few hundred feet, and I'm under the impression that it's more a "pile of boulders" than a proper cave.

Here's a USGS map of the rock types in New England. According to the legend, Canada is made out of water - so that's interesting.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2003/of03-225/Fig_2.jpg

The marble mine passages are spectacular.

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Originally Posted by Confuted

Sadly, there's no limestone in New England - just a lot of slate, marble and granite. They don't tend to dissolve and form caves like limestone does. There are a few (dry) caves in VT, but the largest is only a few hundred feet, and I'm under the impression that it's more a "pile of boulders" than a proper cave.

Here's a USGS map of the rock types in New England. According to the legend, Canada is made out of water - so that's interesting.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2003/of03-225/Fig_2.jpg

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Carbonate Rocks include limestone. There's not enough of it to make big springs like in Missouri or Florida, but there are caves if you look hard enough.

All the New England cavers I know go to Western Mass or upstate NY. Or they go to West Virginia.

All the New England cave divers I know go to Boston Logan and fly somewhere with cave diving.

-Jon

Back in the early 90's, there was a club in the Boston area called "MetroWest" At the time, it was one of the largest clubs on the East Coast, if not THE largest. The late Joe Mcgrath was one of the presidents in those early years. Thanks to Joe and his friends, we soon had an ongoing convoy down from the Boston area to High Springs, on a regular basis. I don't know how many me and Berman certified but it was a lot. Back then, those guys either dove the Doria or Ginnie! Time marches on and today, as far as I know, we only have ONE local resident left over from that era and that is "Hydro Dave" A little piece of history for you newbies!

MetroWest is still around. Joe was a great friend and cool person. His hardware/Bands were the standard everyone tried to meet.

8-12" of snow is being forecast for Boston tomorrow, is this social still planning on going on?

We are rescheduling the social due to expected snow storm. Here is the new plan:

What: Cave Diving Meetup
Who: All interested
When: Monday, February 13, 2017 from 6:30pm on until ?
Where: Cambridge Brewing Co, 1 Kendall Square
Contact: PM me

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Originally Posted by ScubaGypsy

8-12" of snow is being forecast for Boston tomorrow, is this social still planning on going on?

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This is why all those MetroWest guys came to Florida!!

Looks like a perfect weekend for some Vermont "cave" diving..

Folks, the weather is not cooperating with us! We are cancelling the Monday social. We will look into rescheduling for March.