Upper Santa Fe River caves
Over the last couple weeks, I have noticed much better than normal water clarity on the upper Santa Fe, (observed from 441 down to Rum Island). I was just curious if anyone had had occasion to check out any of the river caves along that stretch that are usually fairly tanic?
...And is willing to report conditions.
I checked out Alligator Rise by the boat launch just outside of High Springs on Hwy 27. When I found the cave there was maybe 2ft of vis and when I finally found the line there was no point in continuing as you couldn't see anything but the line which was buried in places. I maybe went 200 ft. I think if you stay out of anything that has rise in the name and stick with the springs vis should be OK.
Originally Posted by TracyN
How long ago was that? I thought it was 'Gator Hole Spring' right across from the 27 boat ramp. I was wondering if the improved river clarity might help out caves like this one that seem to pull in river water from somewhere.
I was thinking of taking my kayak out this weekend and might take a closer look.
It was a week ago. The siphon is right up from it about 200 ft
That stinks! I was hoping there might be some way to predict when it might be divable. I did not know there was a siphon that close to the spring. Right at 1 mile up river is 'Such Hole' that is a pretty strong siphon. With the level this low, I can hear the water there swirling from across the river. In my kayak, you have a paddle pretty hard to get out of the swirl. Seems like I heard a comment that this fed into Gator Spring, but I can't validate that.
That doesn't sound like anything I want to attempt! Lol! I know tge flow coming out of Gator was raging. It was hard to get in running a reel and grabbing onto whatever you could for leverage. Not much to grab onto but loose rocks
I give you credit for the effort! I know some have found lucky windows where viz and flow were tolerable. Too bad that's not more common. Its pretty much in my back yard, so I was hoping to take a peek in there at some point.
I relined part of that cave years ago with Richard Dreher, from the entrance to the sink. A couple weeks later I returned to continue surveying the system, but the visibility was so bad I couldn't finish surveying it or putting distance markers in. Did you run across a small red cave arrow on the line by chance (initialed SOD)?
I was lucky to see any line at all let alone line arrows! Not even sure at what point I hit the main line. The line was still in good condition, just buried in places.
Gator is a resurgence. The syphon is a mile or so up Santa Fe so most of the water resurfacing is the same river water sucked in a mile up. In that cave however we have a clear spring water infusion. In a dry year winter you could observe better viz in system than in a river and the water is warmer in one section of the upstream (way past the sinkhole). This cave goes forever. Rumor was the Dive Rite team did a partial survey from the syphon side diving into vortex of Gator Suck Hole using ropes. The photo of syphon is attached, it is actually a very cool spot - you can hear water roaring down into vortex and sucking small logs and other debris, kinda like the syphon in Oleno we dove years ago with CB and AlanH using ropes (which is on the second photo).
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