Madison Blue - The Courtyard Dive

[Gregthecaver]

Been to Madison Blue before and have always wanted to do this dive but never have.I dont have a map of the system.Wondering which jump you take off the mainline to get there and What is max depth and distance of this dive? Will me and my buddies need some stages?Also is it as beautiful a dive as I have been told before?Where can I get a good map of the system and has it been walled out? I know its alot of questions thanks in advance for all replies.

Greg

[Jordan]

There's more than one way in. Take your thick undergarments, you're in for a long swim dive

[Kelly Jessop]

Been to Madison Blue before and have always wanted to do this dive but never have.I dont have a map of the system.Wondering which jump you take off the mainline to get there and What is max depth and distance of this dive? Will me and my buddies need some stages?Also is it as beautiful a dive as I have been told before?Where can I get a good map of the system and has it been walled out? I know its alot of questions thanks in advance for all replies.

Greg

wow-a lot of questions

The easiest way to the courtyard is through potter delight. This can be a challanging dive,and better attempted by more experienced cave divers or with somebody that has been there several times. There is a small section called Rocky Horror that won't allow you to turn around if you have a problem,and you don't want to meet another team in there. In fact,we used to put a slate on the line at the beginning of Rocky Horror to let those that missed the obvious jump line,that there isn't enough room for two teams. I have done it on backed mounted tanks,but a stage left at the mainline could provide a safety gas in case you have problems in Rocky Horror or blow out Potter Delight. There is a map,but it has not been made publically available,which there are several reasons why which I won't elaborate on. Has it been walled out-I've never been to EOL,but I've been told there are some going areas. Madison has some really crappy,nasty side passages that have potential,but it has baby powder fine silt. Is the courtyard a great dive...depends on perspective. It is okay,but not my favorite. My fear is that it will become a goal oriented dive. For example the well casing,the heinkel,the grand traverse to name a few have become goal oriented dives that everybody wants to put in their log book,but some dives are really dives that the whole populace needs not doing. Just my .02 worth.

[Gregthecaver]

Thank you Kelly. How have you been?

[Kelly Jessop]

Thank you Kelly. How have you been?

Any better I couldn't stand it. Hope we'll see you sometime.


Hope you get to do the Courtyard sometime in Madison,especially before the tropical season gets full blown.

[DeWayne]

I have always felt that RH was the best part of that dive 8)

If you don't log it, does that eliminate the possibility of it being goal oriented?

[Gregthecaver]

A couple of friends & I are probably heading down over the fourth.Hopefully Madison will still be diveable then"Crosses fingers".

[CaptainSpeleo]

Greg:

Go down the main line and through the "Half Hitch" restriction until you reach the 1350' mark. The jump is to the right. It's then a 350' swim to the entrance of the "Potter's Delight/Rocky Horror" tunnel. Once you make it through this tight, silty, twisting tunnel, it opens up into larger tunnel with enough room to turn around in easily. A short distance ahead is the hole in the floor and the vertical drop to "The Court Yard" tunnel. Max depth up to this point is about 70', but then it drops to about 120'.

The last 2 times that we made this dive, it took 60 minutes to hit thirds in "The Court Yard" at about p3300'. It then took 48 minutes to return to the "Horse Shoe Room". The first time that we did it, we used Air and had 102 minutes of decompression. The second time that we did it a year later, we used EANx 32 and had 5 minutes of decompression. We never used Air on a cave dive after that.

I would highly suggest that you make the 1700' swim to the entrance of the "Potter's Delight/Rocky Horror" tunnel, then take a couple of minutes to get a good look at it and get a feel for how much gas you'll need and if you can physically handle the dive. You do NOT want to commit yourself to negotiating this tunnel the very first time that you see it. Unless you're using a scooter to get there, carry a stage bottle and drop it either before going through the "Half Hitch" restriction or before making the jump.

Frank

[MikeH]

Go down the main line and through the "Half Hitch" restriction until you reach the 1350' mark. The jump is to the right. It's then a 350' swim to the entrance of the "Potter's Delight/Rocky Horror" tunnel. Once you make it through this tight, silty, twisting tunnel, it opens up into larger tunnel with enough room to turn around in easily. A short distance ahead is the hole in the floor and the vertical drop to "The Court Yard" tunnel. Max depth up to this point is about 70', but then it drops to about 120'.

IMO, the best way to get to the Courtyard now is to enter at Martz, jump to the main line, then proceed up from there. It keeps you out of the flow until you get to the main line, and is a bit shorter.

Of course...this dive was much easier when we could scooter there. I've scootered to Potters many times, and swam from there....and also towed scooters through Potters/Rock Horror several times and scootered the courtyard. There was also one attempt made with Moonfuzzy that ended in us dropping the scooters in the middle of Rocky Horror because her scooter was too heavy, with "new and improved" batteries, as I recall. After swimming into the courtyard a ways, on the way out my HID failed...and had to exit on a backup(actually 2 of my 5 - I carry 5 since I dive solo a lot - held in the same hand) on the scooter. What a fun dive! If you want the play by play, look for a trip report that Moonfuzzy wrote....I believe it was about 3 years ago.

Mike

[John L.]

I agree with Mike. Go in Martz, hang your 02 on the main line and go upstream to the first jump right. On the way back, pick up your deco bottle and go out thru the main entrance and deco by a submerged platform.