My “Mill Pond Experience” - Feb 2015

[patpicos]

Last week, I ventured away from the usual High Springs/Luraville Cave Country and tried out the mill pond for the first time. I stayed with a group of breather divers from North Carolina and stayed at the Hole in The Wall house & rented boats. For the whole week, we went from house to boat to dive site to Cave Adventurers; rinse and repeat. I had not thought of renting a boat beside for visiting Twin and HITW…but this turned out to be a pretty good way to dive. Leave all the stuff in the boat.
Over the course of the week, I squeezed in 8 dives despite the frigid cold from Canuckistan making its way all the way down to North Florida. At least it wasn’t -30C like back home! Took a day off here and there to rest the ears and lungs.

The dives:

Jackson Blue:
JB was my favorite cave by far (although HITW could take that away if I came at the right time). I was expecting strong flow, which turned out to be lesser than Ginnie. Even in the cavern you can easily hit no flow zones once you move to the big shelf of breakdown rocks on the left.

Dive 1 was to swim up as far as we can on backgas on the gold line and made it past the 2nd tee in 45mins. It gaves us a good idea of the flow and get our bearings. As told by others, the flat area beyond the 2nd breakdown sucks for swimming! Once back in the cavern, I took my buddies stage and went back in with the scooter left at the entrance and boogied back to the hall of the mountain king as I wanted to find the jump to kings canyon (was an easy one to spot) and also track the various jumps along the way for future dives.

Dive 2 we attempted to dive some of the jumps I had previously seen. The first one we tried was at the left on top of the 2nd break down…it turned out to be a failed attempt rather quickly on backmount and turned around. On way back to cavern, we did the marked jumps on “parallel lines” / beanie tunnel. We encountered the sand restriction which reminded me of the diamond sands sand in Jug. We managed to push through only to end up at EOL 20’ later (I hear this passages doubles back in a tight SM passage to the cavern).

Dive 3 was my most anticipated dive to visit King’s canyon. We lugged 2 stages each in the flow. 1st drop was on top of 2nd breakdown and the 2nd drop just before the 2nd tee. At the jump we tied up and went kings canyon; following instructions to go up on that line and not continue straight. This line brings you midway through the canyon which makes it feel short. I came back on another dive from the top of the canyon and noticed it is much longer in length. At the end of the canyon, we followed our other team’s jump to close back onto gold and head up to the traffic light by the way of the upper route. We noticed a jump just before going left and skipped it. We managed to make it to the traffic light and call the dive. The swim to the traffic light was 55minutes. I was quite ecstatic at that point to have made it that far (could have gone further). The return was through the lower passage/rabbit hole. Drifted on out and checked out the place even more. After picking 1st stage, we went back up the line to 2nd tee and drift back down the other side of the passage.

Dive 4 was a leisure scooter run up the gold line to 3600’ to have a look at the various jumps on the way. Took about 48min to reach that distance (I was behind another team and didn’t pass them. everytime they stopped, I explored a bit and then following on).

Dive 5 was another leisure scooter run up the gold line to 4000’ this time. Around 3100’, I tried some of the tees on the right which brought me to a maze of tees. I was not prepared for the mazed and turned back to the gold. Once back on gold, I kept going to 3800 and swam to 4k as the passage tightened up.

HITW:
I only did one dive in this cave and cannot wait to return. the sheer size of the rooms was incredible despite the 20-30’ visibility throughout. After passing the tighter entrance (had to push my stage in on backmount), we went upstream and followed the gold line at a slow pace. We continued on the gold and continued into a smaller tunnel when the gold turned white. Once in that tunnel, visibility turned crystal and water temp dropped a good 5 degrees. 150’ ish later, we EOL’d and turned around. All in all, cool dive and need to go back w/ 2 buddies and strong lights to light her up. Make sure to swim upside down in there, cool ceilings.

Twin Caves:
Dive 1 was a simple gold line swim to complete the circuit by first dropping down the fissure and following the gold and coming back up around the 1200’. on way back in the subway tunnel, I ran into another dive buddy where there is an overhang so I swam right above and boogied out.

Overall, I found this dive to be quite monotonous and a snooze. The fissure crack drop was quite cool though.

Dive 2 since I hated the subway tunnel so much, I scootered it to the bottom of the 2nd drop and parked it there. Went on the left. I was hit by another monotonous tunnel for a few 100 feet. Then things got a bit tighter and more interesting. The restriction forced me to unclip my stage and push in front of me. the room ahead was pretty cool. In the silt mound, there was a deer antler….kinda cool to see in a cave. I proceeded upwards in that fissure crack tunnel which I quite enjoyed. I’m glad I was by myself. I turned around about 50’ beyond the only arrow I saw in a while. Turning around in that passage is kind of interesting …

Lessons learned:
I need to go back to Marianna with a stack of clothe pins and freshen up on navigation !
Come back to Marianna when HITW conditions are favorable.
I need SM training w/ Edd to get myself rigged to explore the jumps off the gold as most of them close up quick
I really wish there were up to date maps readily available for the local caves. I know they exist considering the amount of exploration ongoing. It would likely save me time to pick BM vs. SM tunnels. I also have room in my office for nice large maps (need to be high quality like Hancock’s of ginnie springs)

[patpicos]

Thanks to Oliver and some of the locals on hints in the cave. Oliver's videos were great to get myself grounded pre-trip. Same w/ "The Mill Pond Experience" dvd

[victorzamora]

In Twin Caves, the passage with the deer antler (I'm fairly sure) leads to a big room called Training Room. When you turned around, was the passage relatively small and made almost entirely of a weird reddish/orangeish clayish stuff? If so, yeah....I was in the middle of 3 in there. I wouldn't want to go back in there with anybody ahead of OR behind me.

Is the colder water tunnel up gold line, or did you jump/T and not know it? I'm not sure, but I think that was the Century Tunnel which would be a T.

Twin Caves is SUPER interesting.....but the ceiling is the spectacular part. The floor isn't. There's also a little alcove with a bunch of really cool fossils in the Subway Tunnel in Twin, off to the right. Most people swim by it and never notice the fossils (I did like 15 times).

I'm very jealous of your JB dives. I've got a bunch of dives there and haven't gotten even an inch beyond the double-arrows at the upstream end of King's Canyon. This is just a reminder that I need a scooter.

Also, HITW house is AWESOME. With the boat from Edd's, staying there is SUCH an easy way of making your trip better. Last time down there was my first time not staying in Marianna Inn&Suites, and I'll never stay there again if I have the choice.

[Garth]

Patrick, I know it must have been weird thinking about staying with a bunch of new people from north carolina but I hope you had fun because i sure as hell did. What an amazing place. I was hoping to meet Rich but will have to meet him another time.

My memorable moment was the night before the last day in Mill Pond. I was returning from an excellent 150 min cave dive during the pitch black of night. It was beautiful. I swim lightly towards the pontoon on the other side of the dam, popping up to see how far away I am... when submerging again I find myself a few feet away from my sudden death by shark attack! Holy Sh*$, oh wait it's just a 4' carp.

Great trip, awesome people, good times.

Garth

[Aotus]

I'm very jealous of your JB dives. I've got a bunch of dives there and haven't gotten even an inch beyond the double-arrows at the upstream end of King's Canyon. This is just a reminder that I need a scooter.

Man, I'm glad you said that. I read this report and went from happy to super jealous in a few paragraphs. I was thinking that I know my sac rate sucks, but man, I've done some thirty something dives at JB and haven't seen the first T yet (mostly Intro dives). A scooter would be awesome, someday, but now that I'm jogging again to improve my VO2 max and slim down, hopefully i can start getting a little further back there on my own steam. this report will be on my mind when i'm running tomorrow.

[victorzamora]

Zach, I definitely get that. I need to start down that same path. However, I've gotten to the end of King's Canyon on one stage and gotten to 2500ft in Downstream HITW before turning due to deco obligation, but having gas left. My SAC rate is good (not great, but good) at ~0.50. The problem is swimming King's Canyon gave me like 25min of deco. A second stage would put me at or over 40min. I need a scooter to reduce deco on dives I can swim to but would rather not. THEN I'll use that same scooter to do dives I have ZERO interest in swimming to/from.

[patpicos]

In Twin Caves, the passage with the deer antler (I'm fairly sure) leads to a big room called Training Room. When you turned around, was the passage relatively small and made almost entirely of a weird reddish/orangeish clayish stuff? If so, yeah....I was in the middle of 3 in there. I wouldn't want to go back in there with anybody ahead of OR behind me.

yeah that tunnel. windy fissure like with very crumbly walls. cant fin much in there. See map. the "tight clay restriction" was because i was BM. would be a non issue in SM and no stages

[patpicos]

Is the colder water tunnel up gold line, or did you jump/T and not know it? I'm not sure, but I think that was the Century Tunnel which would be a T.

I think thats how it went on the map. Basically, the gold line is spliced w/ white line at around 1200' which continues until a deadend. I definitely did not jump as we checked on way out. On way in, instead of continuing to white line, you can drop down to the right and continue on in the cave.

[patpicos]

I'm very jealous of your JB dives. I've got a bunch of dives there and haven't gotten even an inch beyond the double-arrows at the upstream end of King's Canyon. This is just a reminder that I need a scooter.

If full cave, its just a matter of dragging more stages I swam to traffic light on double stages and think i could have made another 300' of swimming to reach the elbow. That dive did require a lot of pull and glide and take it slow. I still prefer to scooter it up though !

The trash room was probably my favorite location in the cave. Seeing trash was a bit disheartening, but, it is part of the cave and in a way kinda cool. Beside the trash, the ripples in the sand are wicked in that area, very short ripples. I would not want to swim in the lower route into the trash room though..

[victorzamora]

The "tight clay restriction"....was that at 100ft before the deer antler, or was that that windy/crumbly fissure at ~50ft? There's a "duck under" (in sidemount) that I understand is pretty tight in BM at about 100ft deep getting to the deer antler. There are actually three "restrictions" that open up into huge rooms but one of them is scarred very badly at the bottom....I'm assuming this is what you're talking about. If so, it's tight to not touch at all but a relative non-issue in 2-tank SM. The Crumbly Tube (does it have a name? can we name it? If so, what?) isn't any fun to turn around in in sidemount, either. Sidemount is so wide that turning around required finding a wide spot to stay pretty. A buddy found a wide spot, I struggled, and the buddy on my exit-side back-kicked about 50ft before getting to a good spot. Being that the shortest of us was 6ft and the other two were 6'4" and 6'6" (and not small in the other dimensions) probably didn't help....but it wasn't my most graceful exit.