Cannonball Poplar Bluff Mo July 15 and 17

[deepdiverbob]

On Friday, I went to CB with buddy Chris. He is still working on his full cave class. I hung out with the class and completed two dives, watching the him practice jumps, and just enjoying the cave. Vis was 30-40 foot, and really no noticeable flow. I had to work on Saturday, so we came back home after the dives Friday.
However, Sunday, we was all packed and ready to go again. There was another student this time, so Chris actually had a training buddy. My plan was to hang out with the class again, but to my surprise, Earnie showed up too. So quickly decided to do our own dive plans. During gear set up, I noticed I had a leak coming from my pressure gauge. I swapped it out for my side mount gauge, and we was on our way.

Dive 1, we decided to do a narcosis test. Our plan was a simple one. Drop down the main line until we needed to call the dive. I did this a few weeks ago with Jim, and was able to hit 140. This time, we had a very nice steady 5 minute slow descent, and when I reached 160, I signed that was good, and we turned the dive. We made another slow 5 minute ascent back up to 60, and followed the main line out. On the way out, we planned to install a jump on the first jump on the left after leaving the pit. Earnie tied in to the main line, and tied into the jump tunnel, while I held the main line. We then exited the cave after a 45 minute dive.

Dive 2, we went back in, and tied into the main line, and took the second jump tunnel. I don't recall doing this jump before. It gets a little tight back there, but very manageable. I picked up the jump line that Earnie had installed on the first dive, and we started to take the main line back out. We stopped briefly to check out a hole above the main line. Earnie tied in to explore. I followed behind and when I saw the hole getting smaller, I knew we wouldnt be going much further, so I held my ground, and Earnie turned it shortly there after. Got back to the main line, and we exited the cave. I did an extended safety stop for 5 minutes this time in the lake.

It was a great day of diving, and congrats to Earnie for hitting cave dive number 100. Flow was barely noticeable, and the vis was still in the 30-40 foot range.

[ed pavey]

Don't forget that he had 80 intro cave dive before full cave