Wakulla, Sally Ward ?

[NitroxWarrior]

Has anybody ever done any serious diving at Wakulla or Sally Ward?

I was looking at some maps and Profiles and I would have to say I could not beleive my eyes. The size of it is incredible, especially "the cube room" at sally ward.

I would really like to hear some accounts of what kind of dive it is.

[CaveFreeDiver]

You probably wont get many replies because the caves are technically off limits, and it would be very questionable to dive in such conditions. Also, "the man" is watching everywhere!!!!!!!
Diepolder, and Eagles nest are two deep caves with VERY impressive sized tunnels/rooms Check out some dive reports on those if you want to read about good dives in big deep rooms. If you already knew that, sorry.

Here is a little story I found online about sally ward

Lamar English:
Here’s an interesting little entry from the log books that Bill Main and I thought you might enjoy: June 27, 1987, (Saturday night around 10:30) Bill, Vaughn Maxwell and I were gearing up at McBride Slough, getting ready for a big dive. (McBride is a little spring just off highway 267, some three or four miles east of the entrance to Wakulla Springs State Park.) Bill’s tanks were already in the water and he had just finished putting on his second wetsuit. Vaughn and I were suited up in full cave gear and ready to go, so that’s just what we did! We climbed back into the van, Bill took the driver’s seat and we cranked up and headed west. (McBride is a decent dive and it’s also a pretty darned good staging area for certain clandestine activities like say…a sneak dive into Numero Uno!)

Time for a little history lesson: Sally Ward Spring, located in the northwest corner of the Wakulla Springs property, was named after the lady who owned the site and surrounding property in the early 1900’s. The first divers to explore the cave were Court Smith and Lewis Holtzendorff on November 10, 1973. They had planned to dive Spring Creek, but somehow Lewis forgot to pack his mask and lights, so that plan was a bust. They decided to go check out the source of blue water that they had seen in that little swamp on the way to Wakulla. Court suited up in his van and Lewis dropped him off, in broad daylight Court went through a gap in the chain link fence and found the spring. He only had 230’ of line on a spool, which he promptly laid through a beautiful little tunnel, down a couple of pits, and then ran out of line just after the tunnel leveled out at a depth of 110’. He returned, quite excited by the find and they switched roles. Lewis borrowed Court’s mask and three US Divers 3 cell flashlights and went to explore further. He laid only 70’ of line when the bottom, and the walls, simply disappeared. He stopped his descent at 170’ and tied the line off, still unable to see the bottom or any of the other walls. Lewis surfaced and told Court that they had found something “tremendous”. Six days later they returned, with Dana Turner, and extended the line to a depth of 280’ where they tied off at the entrance of the upstream tunnel. Lewis named the spring Numero Uno. For obvious reasons, it stuck. End of history lesson.

The plan was for Bill to drop us off at the swamp then go hide the van in the woods up the road a short distance, jog back and join us. This method had worked quite well in the past and we were confident it would work this night. Our excitement and anticipation grew as we neared our turn until we noticed the headlights behind us. This was no big deal; we would just continue on, make a U turn and come back when the coast was clear. Bill decided to turn left on highway 61, as he slowed to make the turn the street lights at the park entrance illuminated the vehicle behind us, a Wakulla County Deputy Sheriff. We took a left and so did he. No problem, we’ll just go slowly and he will pass us. He didn’t. We sped up and the deputy stayed on our tail. This went on for several minutes and Bill started getting concerned. Vaughn and I kept kidding about how we haven’t broken the law, yet, and it’s not illegal to drive around in scuba gear. As we slowed for the approaching intersection, it happened. Another deputy car came in on us from the ten o’ clock position, blue lights flashing, spotlights on, and they even hit the sirens for a little bit. As we stopped, Bill announced, “We’ve got a problem…” Not “this could be a problem”, or “this may be a problem”, he said “we’ve GOT one”. Neither of us ‘rear wheel well’ passengers could see what was happening at the front of the van, but Bill could and they had his undivided attention.
“Turn the vehicle off and throw the keys out the window!”
“I’m slowly rolling down the window, tossing out the keys now…”
“How many are in the vehicle?”
“There are three of us.”
Right about then, I decided it was a good idea to open the back door. If I had known that the deputy in the front had a shotgun aimed at Bill’s head… I wouldn’t have done that…As the door flew open, many things suddenly went through my mind. The first thing, however, was a massive surge of adrenaline, no doubt triggered by the unmistakable sound of a round being chambered into a pump action shotgun. (Adrenaline is some funny stuff, it heightens your awareness to the point that everything seems to be happening in slow motion, everything except brain activity, which goes into warp drive, processing information about six thousand times faster than normal – kind of like Robin Williams on speed.) Gun! Oh ####, Shotgun: Remington model 870 Police Special, pump action, 12 gauge, 3” magnum. Target locked on. Impressive display of weapons handling by the officer. Could have taken down Wyatt Earp and the Waco Kid. Do NOT move, repeat, do NOT move. What happened to “Drivers license & registration, please?” If an O ring blows, I die, just like in Scarface: “Say hello to my little friend”. Will they kill Bill, too? Does it hurt to have your head blown off? Why did I open the door? As I’m standing there frozen like a deer in the headlights, the officer yelled, “Close that door right now!” He didn’t have to ask twice. Just as quickly as that door flew open, it was closed. The whole thing took maybe two seconds, but it seemed like forever. The only glimmer of hope for us that I saw was just before the door latched shut, the deputy raised his head from the gun sights ever so slightly and his expression went from I will kill you, to, what in the #### was that? It wouldn’t have been any clearer it he had said it over the loudspeaker. Something was awry.

As I eased back over to my place on the wheel well and took a seat, I looked at Vaughn and said, “We’ve got a problem.” He just gave me a little “no ####?” look and shook his head. Meanwhile, up in the front, they finally got around to asking Bill for some identification. It was a good thing as Bill was a reserve officer for a law enforcement agency, and he had his badge in his wallet. Things loosened up after that. There was a prison escape that afternoon from the Mayo Correctional Institute and some inmates took off in a 1987 long wheel base cream colored Dodge van. Guess what we were in? You got it. The deputies thought they had the escapees. We thought we were busted. After a little “explanation” about why we were in dive gear. The officers said we had given them a little excitement for the night. We assured them that had given us some, too. After that, they told us to be careful, and then they left. We just sat there for a few minutes composing ourselves, then we headed back north.

With no lights behind us this time, we turned into the park and Bill dropped us off, hid the van and joined us. That water felt so good. We were all about to die from overheating. After cooling off for a few minutes, we made our way through the eel grass to the spring. Slowly swimming down the tunnel we soon reached the balcony and entered the Cube room. The ceiling rises to 85’ in this bell shaped wonder and the bottom is at 290’ directly underneath at the upstream side. Downstream is at 240’ straight across the room some 200 – 250’ away. The walls are snow white and today the water is cobalt blue, we can see the downstream tunnel from the balcony. We drift down, 150’, 200’, 250’ still going, 280’ we level off for a look into the upstream tunnel. Going tunnel as far as we can see, but not for today. We hit the inflators and ascend to 200’ and swim over to the downstream side. Through the restriction at 240’ we entered the second big room for a quick look around. It’s time to go. We turn and head out. At the balcony we stop for one last look. Twenty-five minutes at 280,’ it was a good dive.

[Caver95]

I would like to hear some stories too, I know this one old guy who got arrested at wukulla when Ed ball was still around. maybe he will chime in.

[OFG-1]

I also heard the story about a guy arrested in the mid 1970's when Ed Ball was around Wakulla.

I heard that he and his buddy took a 10' blow up boat (Zodiac) and a trolling motor up the river from the wakulla bridge, put the boat in the weeds across from the lodge, made their dive, and after deco, found a wakulla county sheriff's deputy sitting in a folding chair next to his blow up boat in the weeds. The diver had run a reel from the boat to the entrance so he did not have to even use a backup light for exit or deco.

Mr. Ball was reported to be staying at the lodge that night, and had hired extra security. Apparantly the diver had not checked out Mr. Ball's schedule. I heard that he was really pleasent about the entire incident, if it really happened.

This is obviously just a rumor, cause no rational person that has ever done the river boat tour, and seen all those gators, would consider taking a blow up boat up this river at night with no lights.

One of the two buddies was rumored to wind up working at Wakulla and was a safety diver on the stupid "Airport" movie that was filmed there.

How rumors like this get started mystifies me.

[Caver95]

The W#PeePee should have a test for anyone how wishs to dive these sites, there would be no skills involved just a simple drift dive. all open water stuff, no work just ride the current. You would get in at Sally ward and go to the beach at Wakulla and if you make you can dive when ever you like. This test would be held from may threw august of every year. Anyone care to try?

[normblitch]

This is obviously just a rumor, cause no rational person that has ever done the river boat tour, and seen all those gators, would consider taking a blow up boat up this river at night with no lights.

How rumors like this get started mystifies me.

I am personally aware of the story of two precocious Divers who, in the early '80's, decided to "sneak-dive" Salt Springs one summer's evening...

Deploying at a fishcamp downstream, much to the bemusement of the owners, they geared up in Twilight while being besieged by the Monster mosquitos...after donning full cave regalia, they took a Compass heading on the headspring, and worked their way earnestly upstream towards the vent. Pausing briefly mid-way to surface ala SEALs to verify course, a momentary scan of the shoreline using cave lights revealed (to their horror) HUNDREDS of red dots looking BACK at the team...

The resulting IMMEMDIATE turning of the mission, and rapid return to the Fish Camp, proved that SP Jets COULD put a fully-geared Diver onto step and fully plane-ing in about 5 kick-cycles...

Norm

[rchrds]

This is obviously just a rumor, cause no rational person that has ever done the river boat tour, and seen all those gators, would consider taking a blow up boat up this river at night with no lights.

How rumors like this get started mystifies me.

I am personally aware of the story of two precocious Divers who, in the early '80's, decided to "sneak-dive" Salt Springs one summer's a momentary scan of the shoreline using cave lights revealed shores covered with ravenous weasels...

Norm

How'd we get onto Salt? And what kind of dummy lights up the shore with a cave light when conducting an amphibious infil? har har... Dont ask questions you dont want answers to, if you ask me. The toothie buddies are always out there. A better suggestion might be pick a night with good illum (i.e. better than 1/4 moon) Run the canoe with the motor and lights to the run, switch to paddles, and then gear up past the second bend out and scooter in (no surface cavitation, bottles turned off) with the moonlight. Switch to blue/green filtered backup light (mini-q40) 100' from the entrance on the way out and do deco in the dark.) No gator in his right mind will fiddle with you at that speed. Anyway, you didnt hear that from me.

SW (AKA numero uno) is fantastic- had the opportunity to dive it once (on a permit!) and the view off the ledge at 70 is fantastic- even better if you are heading in with a crew coming or going in the upstream side- really gives you a sense of size- It is almost more impressive coming back to the ledge from depth- almost impossible to see.

I do know second hand- and I'll never say who- of a couple of folks who parked a good ways from the park and tromped through the swamp and went under the road through the tunnel under the road (is it still there?) Was a funny story when I was told it- was a number of years ago though- I'm sure it is still possible, but these guys were hardmen.. har har. Fine line between hard and stupid. You can probably guess which one the wife thinks I am. The funny part about it is I can sucker her into most of those trips. She should have worked SBS

Dont sneak dive... it pisses people off.

J

[Limestone Cowboy]

Dont sneak dive... it pisses people off.

J

Quickly running out of any other type down south here.....

Drew

[rchrds]

Dont sneak dive... it pisses people off.

J

Quickly running out of any other type down south here.....

Drew

It's not much better in the dry cave community- we're on the downhill slope in this regard. Time to move somewhere with less development, or a better sense of cave conservation. Or you can paint all your tanks with rubber coat, buy a black drysuit and go close circuit.