My best dive weekend so far! and the deco bottle mystery

[diveconjeff]

Just finished up one of my most fulfilling weekends of cave diving, so far. It’s not that we broke any records, or discovered any new cave. It was more about a series of dives that were well planned and successfully executed. It was about an incremental step in my development as a cave diver.

Perhaps the elements for successful planning and execution just happen intuitively for some folks, they dive so often the memory never gets too far away, stockpiled experience is more readily abundant, or maybe I just partied harder in my youth. Can’t say for sure. I am simply a more confident diver knowing my team members and I are all on the same page. I enjoy either listening to, or presenting the dive plan in a confident (and correct) manner.

This past weekend was my three-day weekend so I started off by meeting Tom N. from ATL to go for a bit of a swim at Cow on Friday. Never been to the EOL there. Sure, it’s in the back of my head as a “be nice to get there someday “ thought, but for now we were going to enjoy the dive. After gassing up in Ft White and chatting w/ Wayne a bit, I headed out to the spring to meet Tom N. Sunny skies, low humidity, crystal clear basin and the promise of one of my favorite dives were all adding up in our favor.

We discussed the dive in detail then geared up. Diving BM and carrying a stage we left our deco bottles in the basin and went down around under and in we went. Things were sure looking good. Made it through the first two restrictions and thought to myself it seems to get a little easier for me every time. I know that I am more relaxed to be sure and am certain that has a bit to do with it. Once the cave opened up a bit we clipped on the stages and off we went at a nice easy pace. Dropping the stages before entering NMF, we dropped in and continued with me in the lead to about p1600. (Vis was excellent, and the flow easily handled.

I was still comfortably above thirds when I recalled a recent thread on CDF. Somewhere in that post, a white bearded guy that has apparently been diving for a while, indicated that he gets more conservative with each restriction encountered during a dive. Sage advice I suppose. With that thought in mind, I gave Tom the Thumb and we let the flow do the work for us on the way out enjoying a very smooth exit. Once back to the basin, I was again thinking to myself, “The last time I was here, I ended up writing an IRAP report. Is this really the same cave?” Totally smooth, totally enjoyable. Perfect way to start a weekend of diving.
Dive time: 84 min
Vis: 50-60 ??
Temp: 70
Max Depth: 103

Once back at the cars, as Tom and I were breaking down, another diver arrived with something I had not seen before. Keith M basically had a sidemount meg about the size of an Al 80. DISCLAIMER: I HAVE NO HORSE IN THIS RACE. I did think it was interesting and he mentioned that I could checkout WWW.SMREBREATHER.COM if I wanted to know more about it. So can you, if you want.

As the discussion turned towards Saturday’s diving, Tom found that he would not be staying for the weekend. However, **many thanks to Tom for hanging in for the day anyway**

Clay D., also from ATL was arriving that night. We had all been talking about swimming to the Sherwood Split, so once Clay arrived the planning started.

Saturday morning we did a little warm up at Ginnie. Mainline > Mud Tunnel > Maple Leaf > Mainline > Exit. This has sort of become our “Hello Ginnie” dive. No time pressures, just focus on the execution and enjoy. OK, admittedly a pretty simple plan. BG only. But it came off perfectly with nary of poof of silt to be found anywhere. A great start.
Dive time: 82 min
Vis: 70ish
Temp: 72
Max Depth: 97

The next dive of the day we would be leaving our junk in the cave for Sunday. Since we were planning to swim into Sherwood on Sunday we put a plan together for placing a stage bottle along the anticipated route at about p700 on the Hill 400 line. Saturday’s second dive was Mainline > H400 to pre-place a stage> Shortcut > Rollercoaster > Mainline Exit. Once again, good planning followed by sound execution resulted in a very enjoyable dive. Once we completed our deco, we brought our 40’s back into the cave to leave them for tomorrow. (Nothing wrong with that is there?)
Dive time: 81 min
Vis: 70ish
Temp: 72
Max Depth: 96
Now for the big day. We head over to Ft White to fill just before the dive. Hate to leave bottle with that little extra just sitting around. We arrive at Ginnie to check in where Rose happens to wait on Clay. Cheerful as ever, she smiles at Clay and says, “Back again to day huh?”

Clay quips, “Had to come back. We left too much junk in the cave.”

Suddenly Rose’s expression got a bit more serious and asked what we had left behind. We mentioned a couple deco bottles and some stages. (Can you see where this is going?)

Rose asks us to describe the deco bottles, then walks into the office and brings our bottles out for us. Apparently somebody thought, not one, but two divers must have forgotten their stage bottles. These good Samaritans pulled the deco bottles from the water and brought them to the office. Clay, Rose, and myself pretty much were at a loss for words at that point.

Of coarse we would have otherwise found our bottles missing as we began the dive, but what a shear stroke of luck this came out in conversation as Clay checked in.

As we prepared to gear up we reviewed the plan again, and then reviewed it again. Certain we were on the same page it was go time.

Entered the Eye, and thought twice about dropping the deco bottle, but did anyway. Breathing one stage, we went mainline, H400 swapped the stages and head to Double Lines running a single jump from H400 to Double Lines. Continued up Double Lines and switching to BG just before popping up through the sharp rise just before Double Arrow line. We secured our stage bottles then headed up to Sherwood Split. I don’t know what everyone was talking about. It’s not that special up there. Take it from me, no point in going there if you haven’t been yet. (tongue in cheek)

Pretty neat diving up there and I was happy we had a perfect run in the Mud Tunnel first. I would not want to be the cause of unnecessary disturbances to the cave there. Looks like it could get messy pretty quick, specially jumping off the line a bit.

We were at P2000+ when we turned. With Clay now in the lead, we completed the circuit Double Lines back to the H400 and exited H400 > Mainline > Eye. Very happy to find me deco bottle still waiting for us.

Dive time: 165 min
Vis: 70ish
Temp: 72
Max Depth: 97

Talking it over afterwards, there are some small details to reconsider for next time, but what a way to end the weekend!


I also got a great picture of the fire at Wayne's with the full moon in the background. Wasn't sure it belonged here but it'll be on my FB in a few minutes...

[FW]

Those Georgia divers are great, aren't they

Funny, but I had a similar conversation with Rose on my last trip down, but I had left something hanging on the fence, and hadn't even missed it.

[sskasser]

Great report, but a bit scary that someone would have pulled your bottles out of the cave. How would they know for sure you weren't still in there and expecting to use them for your exit?!

[DA Aquamaster]

Great report, but a bit scary that someone would have pulled your bottles out of the cave. How would they know for sure you weren't still in there and expecting to use them for your exit?!

I suppose they could have in someway been psychic and thus supremely confident that they were the only team in/last team out of the cave.

However, even then it's pretty stupid to assume any cave diver, let alone two of them are going to just "forget" an O2 bottle in the cave.

It's a far more probably scenario that they left them in there for a dive in the near future. Divers dumb enough to remove them should not be diving, and if they were cave or cavern divers, that's far worse.

[diveconjeff]

Yes Sir, some of those GA divers are pretty good folks.

Shirley, of coarse you are right on point. Simply put, there was no way to know we weren't in the cave. Furthermore, what are the odds of two people forgetting deco bottles?

Finally, when I got to my bottle after the dive, I was showing 74 min of deco before switching gas. Would have been a lengthier stop for the one of us without a pee valve though.


Jeff
Diveconjeff@yahoo.com

[cavemark]

Sounds like you had a great weekend. I wish I could have been there. It's a shame Rose didn't get the name of the guy that pulled your bottles so you could properly thank them.

[Squirrel Girl]

Great report, but a bit scary that someone would have pulled your bottles out of the cave. How would they know for sure you weren't still in there and expecting to use them for your exit?!

No s***. Makes me think I should afix a label: "Don't touch my effing bottle--I put it here for a reason!" permanently to any stage or deco bottle.

[FW]

No s***. Makes me think I should afix a label: "Don't touch my effing bottle--I put it here for a reason!" permanently to any stage or deco bottle.

Not sure about the permanent part. You would hate to accidentaly leave that on the picnic table labled like that

[sskasser]

Not sure about the permanent part. You would hate to accidentaly leave that on the picnic table labled like that

I dunno, I bet Russell wished he had that sticker on his scooter that he left on the picnic table! Another instance of too much help!

Hmmm, dad has a sticker on his Harley that says "If you value your life as much as I value this bike, don't **** with it!" Maybe c/bike/tank and we'd have a hot seller!

[Squirrel Girl]

Not sure about the permanent part. You would hate to accidentaly leave that on the picnic table labled like that

On the contrary. I can imagine a person wanting to leave something on the table (for a while). And it's a lot easier to recover from a bottle gone missing from a picnic table than from the cave if you were in there!