Vanity, Humility, Violence, Redemption and a Good Value
Vanity, Humility, Violence, Redemption and a Good Value in Marianna
I stood at the waters edge peering over the top of the entrance to Jackson Blue talking to “T” on the cell phone admiring the beautiful view of the late afternoon sun shimmering off the millpond. Yep, I think I see cave down there, I told him. He said I should get geared up and play in the cavern and try to find the mainline at least while I was there. I don’t know I told him it’s supposed to be over 100 feet inside and all I got are a bunch of 100 foot spools, would be funny for the first solo dive to hog-tie myself splicing two spools together and eventually drown in 20 feet of water for the next 10 hours or so emptying out my 104’s and writing about it filling all the pages in the wetnotes. My vanity wouldn’t let me get in the water. So I hung up the phone and stood there staring down from the diving board when I heard someone drive up to the water. This guy and his wife got out of the truck, and we said hello, and I asked him who he was diving with and said, well I was going to go alone but if you want to dive, that would be cool. His name was Dave M.
This turned out to be one of the more memorable trips to Florida for several reasons. I got to see about 3000 foot of knew passage in two systems I never dove before, I got to dive with seven new buddies, all of them very good cave divers, and I was taught a little lesson about pushing things, and I did learn from it and hopefully it will make me better, or at least as good as I thought I was if I work to improve my shortcomings.
There was supposed to be a CDF social this past weekend at Devil’s and it fell through due to flooding from all the hurricanes ravaging Florida over the last couple of months, so basically a lot of people from cave country and immigrants like myself decided to carry out a CDF anti-social in Marianna which was unaffected by the storms, well at least the caves were basically unaffected, the landscape was ripped up by some really bad tornadoes that blew through the area, I never saw anything quite like it with two foot and up diameter trees cleanly snapped off, and mobile homes tossed all over the place and roofs ripped off solid buildings. Anyway this dude name Herbie started talking about going to Marianna and having an informal unauthorized un-condoned by any agency social, and it is easier to just keep going to the High Springs area and dive the same caves that I am familiar with, or for that matter just say the social got cancelled and sit around in bed with “K” drinking wine and eating brie and watch CSI, and queer eye for the straight guy re-runs in Knoxville. But this was a motivator, having nothing drivable and the promise of meeting new people and getting in JB. So I loaded the truck and got “G” from the “G” and “K” duo to bring an extra light so wouldn’t have to push my weak battery too hard and deploy backups all the time, and I knocked out a seventeen step itinerary on map quest, promised “K” I wouldn’t be too stupid and ravaged her on the hood of the Lexus (OK I kissed her goodbye since the garage door was open) and I set off on a strange new route to a strange new cave, and yes I was going to meet some strange new people and try to get into a Ro-Sham-Bo tournament with Herbie. Well it was a spectacular drive through Alabama, really surprising how beautiful it was on I-431 and I-231, and I really had to be careful cause there was “SPEED LIMITS STRICTLY ENFORCED” although I don’t even know what an Alabama police car looks like, but I kept it kinda slow going through the cotton fields just in case they just shoot you at long range to avoid writing tickets. Anyway I managed to get to Marianna in about 7 hours going slow and that is about an hour shorter than a High Springs trip. I found the hotel on SR71 easily, found the sheriffs office got checked in and got instructions to the park and was standing at JB at 5 pm ready to dive when Dave drove up. Well we geared up and I fixed about three leaks, really need to get the gear wet once in a while, I been lazy not getting the quarry lately but I will change all that. So we got in the water, and decided just to find the mainline and swim till thirds, real conservative, and what was the rush we got new cave all the way for both of us cause Dave never dove it either. Well we found the mainline in the hundred feet with Dave running his reel and he tied in real nice. One of the most beautiful huge caverns I have ever seen and the vis was like infinite. So we progressed up the mainline and dropped down through the first restriction all the time kicking against what I was told was a low flow, but it is persistent and this cave doesn’t have pull and glide all over it like devils so you gotta kick some. Well we worked our way up to the first “T” and went right and called the dive a couple of hundred feet later. It was a good tune up with both of us being in a new system and really a beautiful cave. Dave was very good and had excellent buddy awareness, and probably better gas consumption than me, and I will definitely be calling him on the next FL trip to get some diving in with him. After getting out we headed back to the Sheriff’s office to drop off the keys and Dave pointed out where Ruff Road was that lead to Ed’s fill station and dive shop to get gas in the morning. I called “K” and “G” who were in route and made plans to meet them at JB the next morning, and try to set up a stage dive for them on Sunday. Back to the Comfort Inn on SR 71 and I ate some fast food garbage and drank a 211 and passed out with Orange County Choppers on the cable TV.
I woke up tired on Saturday morning, hotels suck, I ain’t got my 800 thread count Italian sheets and I am definitely not in diving shape in spite of the last months bike riding weight lifting regime, there is nothing like diving to get into diving shape and the last time I was in the water was in Belize. Well anyway everything was charged so I loaded up the truck and picked up my key at the Sheriff’s office and headed up to Ed’s to get some fills. Shameless unendorsed Cave Adventures Plug: When your in Marianna and you need a fill or some gear…go talk to Ed, everyone who has ever been to Ed’s knows he’s a good guy, Ed will even let you drive his boat over to Twin or Hole or JB and the price is right, go see Ed, nothing but friendly professional high quality service over at the shop along the Mill Pond…Cave Adventures, like a gem in the wasteland. End of shameless advertising by SID, but I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t the truth. Well I drove up SR71 and hung a right at the road going up to the park, and then a right at Russ Road and at the dead end where there’s all kind of debris from the hurricane you make a left and Ed’s Cave Adventures is on the right. What a nice place, just beautiful and tranquil with the backyard sloping down to the docks in the back on the pond.
Ed and I introduced ourselves and I was kinda careful (he knew me from the internet and you never know what’s going to be the first exchange in person), see Ed probably lifts a little weight, but it turns out that although he could probably sling my Nissan over his head he is really one of the nicest guys in the world, and he got good gas fill in Marianna. So anyway I am getting my fills and this deviant sinister looking guy leans on the back of my truck and starts leering at me without saying a word. So I figured it was the local village idiot that hangs around the dive shop, and I will just ignore him unless he tries to bite, then I’ll have squeal like a woman at that point and have Ed through him the couple of hundred yards into the pond. Well the lurker breaks into grin and I recognize him as that infamous Herbie Toledo. Well we felt each other up for a while and cracked jokes and when he got me off my guard he smashed his knee into my groin and I doubled over holding my castiles enjoying the endorphic rush of pain trying not to laugh cause it made it hurt worse. Damn that boy can kick. Anyway after spitting up a couple of ounces of blood I managed to stagger to my feet and get the doubles loaded on the truck and head on up to JB where I managed to smash my index finger in the lock on the gate while talking to “K” on the phone while getting in. The beginning of the task loading I guess.
Well this is the part of the story that I hate to write, I always try to be all that I can be but sometimes I don’t do quite as well as I would like, but I have always been honest with all the stories I write, when I do something well I tell about it and when I suck I gotta tell about that too. I have high expectations of others and even higher expectation for myself and I hope I can always be harder on myself than others when they fall short. Well I met “K” and “G” at JB and they wanted to drop full stage bottles up around 1500 feet on the mainline for a double stage they were going to do then next day, a little further than I had swum on back gas the night before. The plan was to scooter up to the King’s Canyon jump put in a jump reel, continue up the mainline a little and drop off the stage bottles and scooters, and then swim to about 2000 feet and jump into the Kings Canyon bypass (think I got the names right) and swim the circuit back to our jump reel, pick up the scooters and maybe do a little circuit near the front of the cave on the way back. Well I was somewhat apprehensive about getting the predator through some of the restrictions and low spots but thought if I didn’t try it I would never know, and they assured me I could call the dive and it wouldn’t be an issue. Well we entered the cave and I felt pretty good in the middle position, and was OK, but not great on the way in. We stopped and started a lot, G making sure everyone was together from time to time. Unfortunately my scootering experience has always been in Devils, which is for the most part bigger and if you happen to stop (we usually just ride continuously) there is a lot more room to correct for buoyancy when you get off the throttle. Anyway G told me later that it appeared I was basically going up every time we stopped and I was using the scooter too much for buoyancy control. Well anyway I sucked especially on the way out, and it may have been do lack of familiarity of the system, not knowing the cave good enough to anticipate when we were going to stop and start, and I had rolled off my drysuit dump valve when K and I squeezed into a crack in the ceiling during the little swim stop we made on the way back which kept the suit inflated (basically a novice should have realized this), and I can think up about 11 more excuses but I think basically I need to practice more on my buoyancy and just suck it down that I am not as good as I need to be to do that dive clean. So I got some work to do. Enough feeling sorry for myself, G and K were very nice about it, sorry for being a little pouty ##### when I was mad at myself, I’ll work on that too. So anyway we went back to Ed’s for fills and ran into some more people and Herbie and Dave again, finally did meet Sludge and SeaGhost (think I got that right) while we were at JB, but didn’t know it was Sludge till the next day.
Wingman and I believe her name is “P” were hanging around and I was in new name as well cave sensory overload, so I hope I haven’t forgotten too many people, Herbie put a good list of the attendants on the board. Well Herbie had a pontoon boat for the day, and since they were getting ferried down to JB, he said we could get a ride back Hole in the Wall while they were in JB. “G” and The MathDoc (DeW) came back in the boat and Dave’s wife rode along and they dropped us off about 50 feet from the dock at Hole, and we did some weed eating swimming over to the dock and actually found the cave entrance. “K” ran the reel through the first duck under restriction and found a huge hole in the floor, which we dropped into and amazingly located the upstream mainline. The cave was spectacular but the vis was about 30 foot on average. We worked our way upstream through spectacular dome room after dome room, there was virtually no flow and I even thought it might be siphoning slightly. I felt a little better because I was swimming a lot better than I had scootered earlier and was almost tuned up for the trip. Funny thing happened on that dive, while we were swimming “K” turned all of a sudden and it looked like she spit out her primary and was going to need some gas, and then she shoved her back-up in her mouth and showed me where the mouthpiece had popped off her regulator, that was probably surprising when she tired to breath water, but she handled it easily. Well we called the dive after about 30 minutes of penetration and surfaced in the dark on the pond with a million stars in the sky. I was really cold and tired, and was thinking they aren’t going to pick us up for another hour as I shone one of “G’s” HID lights across the pond. Then out of the dark I hear this yelling…SSSSSIIIIIIIIIIDDDDDDD where are you? And I flashed the light and it’s Captain Herbie and the Lords of the Underworld (DeW and others) piloting the Mill Pond Ghost Pontoon Boat. Well we climbed up on the dock and Herbie picked us up curbside and we amazingly missed all the stumps in the dark and Ed ferried our gear up the hill to his shop when we parked at his landing. You couldn’t get any better service when you come back worn out and tired. Did I mention that Cave Adventures is the sh*t! So we left our tanks to be filled and I turned down an invitation to go eat, I was so tired and cold and just wanted to turn the heater up in the room and pass out to Orange County Choppers…. fade to black…camera focusing on a plastic cup full of Cabernet Sauvignon on the nightstand in a cheep hotel room on SR71.
The night before on the boat ride back to Ed’s, Herbie said they were going to do a stage in JB, and you know I got to dive with the only man I ever let Ro-Sham-Bo me, so he said meet at Ed’s at 8am. Well old Herbie shows up at like 9:30, right on time and we end up getting over to JB finally and start gearing up. And who do you think I run into? None other than OUTLAW CAVE DIVER himself. OK he was this huge brooding tuff dude dressed all in black wearing a lone ranger mask, had several deep facial scars and was carrying a 12 gauge bang stick and associated bandolier of shotgun shells that he would point in the general direction of anyone that got within a couple of feet of him. Just kidding, he smiles all the time and is the friendliest guy in the world, but he did tell me that if revealed his identity he would hide my corpse in the banana room. Well Herbie rolls up with his SUV behind me and parks in two of the three handicapped spots next to the DOC’s vehicle, and I never seen anything so spectacular. DeW jumps up from the picnic table and runs with a limp towards the parking lot with a blood curdling rebel yell (he’s from Alabama I hear) flailing his cane through the air fast enough to make whistling sounds cracking a sonic boom. He rips Herbie out of the passenger door, throws him across the hood of his truck and flails him into the ground with his legendary stick of justice (God bless it brought tears to my eyes seeing someone deal out justice in these terroristic times, it’s good to be an American) after beating Herbie into submission he drug his limp body over to the handicapped curb stop and ruptured several internal organs with quick lethal jabs to the abdomen, but finally showed some mercy and brought Herbie back to consciousness but dumping some cooler water over his gravel covered face.
Upon regaining consciousness, Herbie apologized for parking in the handicapped spaces and the Doc said he got a little carried away and they kissed and hugged and are best friends again. Then we went diving.
Dave led and I followed, with “G” and Herbie bringing up the rear (go figger, I think Herbie digs my ass). So anyway we staged up to a little before the first T and then swam up past “G” and “K’s” stages dropped the day before and made it to the T before the trash room before we all turned. Great dive. I saw about 300 foot of new cave this time and swimming I was able to relax and finally get in sync with my surroundings, and everyone was really good. So we decoed out in about 15 minutes without incident except my long hose came to life and tried to strangle me, OK Herbie thought it was cute. The DOC let me ride his SS in the basin afterward, he got a nice machine, and maybe I’ll get me a tow behind one of these days.
So it was like 3:30 PM getting the gear broken down and a lot of the people were heading home but SeaGhost and Sludge were going to do another dive, so I invited myself along.
I ran back to Ed’s for a quick fill and while gearing up DOC kept asking me if I would like some hot meat. Guess after making up with Herbie he was feeling really affectionate. I explained that I was flattered and although I am all man I only do that kind of stuff with “K” these days, and then he screamed “I was offering you a hamburger off the grill you fuc*ing moron” and smacked me with the cane in the base of my skull for good measure. Damn he’s agile with that thing all you hear is a whoosh of air then the sound of splitting wood and a thump as you go down on the concrete.
Well we finally got geared up and we ended up going through the LHS of the first T and then circuiting back on the RHS. Sludge and SeaGhost were fun to dive with and once again two more really good divers I’ll get in the water with again. A good final swim through the start of a new system that I am going to get back in again soon. I was finally getting the landmarks in my head pretty well and I had to leave
Well I ran to the store down from Ed’s to get Ed some birthday beer but they won’t sell it on Sundays, so went back to the shop empty handed, no presents at all, and settled up. I told Ed we would be back soon, to rent the pontoon boats and get gas fills and buy some gear at CAVE ADVENTURES IN MARIANNA on the MILL POND, in a month or so, me and “T” already are making plans, that’s how good it was.
Well I think I got it all covered, Vanity, Humility, Violence, Redemption, and a good Value in Marianna maybe in the right proportions. If you ever get the chance to dive with any of these people do it, they are all really good and at a variety of levels. They set the bar high, and I am going to work hard to keep up and keep diving with all of them at every opportunity. Off to the quarry in the next couple of days, I gotta quit taking so much time off from what I love so much, it’s easy to sit around and watch the Discovery Channel but it’s even better to spend some time, money and overall effort to be in the Discovery Channel even if they aren’t there filming that day. As always everyone take care and be safe.
Sid 10-19-2004
