Manatee, Epic!

[floridabob]

We dove Manatee yesterday and it was beautiful.

Visibility was 60 at worst up till Friedmans (truthfully, I'm down-playing it....more like 70); 70 at the second sign and 80 plus at the T to Sheck's Mountain.

We spent about 25 minutes pulling out the 2 extra lines that had been run down that 800ish feet of tunnel to facilitate looking at a few leads. Brett went down one side of the T on the end and Matt and I went the other way...the left T that actually runs to The Mountain. Looks like a dead end Brett's way.

The other way looks like there might be passage around The Mountan. Now that extra line is out we can go back.

If any one goes there, we left what we believed to be Sheck's line as a 1' jump to a 45 foot tunnel that leads to a dead end at The Mountain. Just be aware it's now a jump and not a T and we left that line intentionally for nostalgia...despite its a bit older. Still in good shape, though.

We hauled butt out for a total dive time of 4hours 50 minutes. 140 feet per minute in and a bit faster out.

The Magnus would have made it the entire 15k feet, but I switched to a backup about 3200 feet from Friedmans to conserve...rebreather and backup scooter and a butt clipped 80 are some drag.

Scooters were dropped at the Mountain T.

Bob