That feeling...

[ARY]

Non diving weekend comes and i'm going to spend nice leisure days with my family. An old trailer on a river, overgrown lawn grass, mossy boat dock can always provide plenty of "enjoyable" opportunities to work on: mowing, digging, pressure washing, restoring a cable pipe or fighting with rusted boat lift. When sun finally started to slide down to the west i hopelessly asked: "Hey Grandpa, would you mind to take us for a boat ride not far from here?" My un-suspicious wife and daughter cheerfully support me "Yeah yeah, please, grandpa can we go for a boat ride?". The very next second after the agreement was reached i jumped into my car trunk where always "just in case" are my bicycle inner tube, weight belt with D-s, 2 ductaped together SL4s, Scout, bottom timer, spool and aluminum 40 with doubled second stages. Since second half of the day i already spent in St. Johns river fixing the electric cable conduit i'm already wearing my wet suit, fins and mask.

We are passing Croaker's Hole and i'm trying to locate that invisible boil on a black river water. Oh well next time... This time i have even more hidden location on my mind. We are passing a long line of trailer communities with rotten seawalls, fallen apart boat docks, spannish moss hanging from old oaks and dudes and dudettes staring from a near river banks on us. I'm stranger here. The land surrounding the spring cove is a gated community of "sportsmens". Snowbirds do not share my passion for diving the hole. It is a hole where they accidentally drain their old leaking septic tank and discard household waste. My attempts to rich it by land already failed due to my bad communication skills with landowners. Those who intrude that private spot from the river are usually "fishermens" whose fishing secrets include a lot of Budwiser stored in their inflatable ice boxes. The black marker is turning right and finally left to its GPS target. Bulletin 66 doesn't sound very promising about this spot but long time ago i noticed two strong blue boils at the end of this little cozy lagoon. Although land access is blocked from the road the actual spring cove is surrounded by forestry reserve of untouched cypress tree jungle. Boat can not go any further and i jumped into a dark water leaving the promise not to keep my family bored for more than 15 minutes.

Suddenly cold and brown tannic cocktail is gone and crystal blue and warm 74F water is everywhere! Several manatees are playing in a mud (perhaps Blue Spring far upstream have got too crowded for them). Depth is 6' when i see a column of water blowing from the hole in a bottom. Two boils are from a little depression that suggest to my sick imagination - there is a connect room beneath. But... The bottom of a spring is 6-10 feet thick mess of dead tree branches and a garbage of all kinds: beer bottles, cans, toys, fabric etc.. covered with sandy mud. I wonder if there is a sinkhole nearby or it was just siphoned in when the river was up? I continued my way in. The flow is strong. The wood has a slimy coat of bluish fungus or maybe weeds - that makes it feel different from the "wooden grates" that divers need to pass in Little Devil system. Water has a slight sulfur smell. Finally i'm able to see the lime rock beneath a debris - it has brown tint and the same bluish slime on it. At 12' of cleared garbage the large log stopped me. I would need a saw or camelon to pull it or break it in halves. Looking down behind the log my lights spotted a huge trunk of sliced cypress log or stump, and more of wooden debris to be removed, and ...tight but doable passage! Just like a year ago when i re-discovered one hidden cave i felt that wonderful rush, that excitement of seeing a place that is might be not seen by anybody for many years! However promised 15 minutes are over. If i would just be able to clear that debris, than break the log, then pull out the big cypress stump... And then who knows: maybe be i can see another 10 feet, or room, or just another dead end like in a similarly smelling spring (upstream) on St. Johns river. It is OK to leave now but someday i'll be back for my next doze of that feeling.

[tomhauburn]

Sounds like a nice find ARY. Finding something that new is nice and even though you could not get in it right now is almost better than getting in a system everyone else get to dive. I not sure how you move that tree though. Anybody have any heavy heavy duty lift bags? Or an underwater chain saw?

Also getting to see the Manatee's was nice nice second. It used to be you could dive Blue with them there but you had to avoid them. I hear it closed now. Getting to do that dive and watch and how curious they were of us was really neat

Tom

[JE]

Andre-!

We need to go diving-!!
I enjoy your creative writing skills. Maybe you could help with Narco Adventures-! I'm planning to eventually script the adventures for a film production. Dive safe buddy, thars gators in them holes-! Let me hear from you sometime.


Jack 8)