whats a straz?
Welcome to the Cave Diver's Forum.
whats a straz?
Good questionOriginally Posted by stairman
He even looks like a straz.
If cave diving were Star Wars, who would be Yoda?
We're at CE and are now headed to LB, where I will have my revenge!
Dove it friday with jeff. 5-10 ft viz. seemed to get even worse
near stephans.... Rangers will be glad to see a car in the parking lot.
of course this is of little help because your there right now.
Report:
Entered in at the headspring, swam under the natural bridge and ran a line into the main spring opening. Line is to the right, among the remains of several catfish. Some kind of biomass is all over the place, reminds me of a wreck dive - line looks like its 1" thick, but you shake it and it returns to the expected dimensions. Short swim to Snake Sink, we ran the gap the whole way with a primary reel. We swam from there up to Green Sink. Did another gap across Green Sink. Swam upstream a ways and then turned the dive.
Vis was 10'-15' throughout, the line is very well run, the PVC stakes that raise it above the silt floor are great, very easy to keep track of the line in the low vis.
So my final impressions as a spoiled rotten Ginnie diver are that it is not something I would be especially interested in returning to unless the vis improved to 30' or so - there are huge rooms in there that I would love to see - at some parts you are hovering above the line and you cannot see the ceiling, the floor, or walls - just this muck covered line running ahead into the darkness. Was this cave always like this? If not I think everyone should dive it at least once, if only to get an appreciation what pollution can do to wreck a cave...
We saw all the catfish parts and pieces as well.I was thinking it was turtles leftovers.I first dove it in 85.It had the dingy darkness it does now.I agree everyone should try it once.But with so many more much better systems,yea us Floridians are spoiled,I probably wont return anytime soon.
The unfortunate thing is the Ginnie,Peacock,and Madison's are generally the exception to the rule,there is far more cave out there that looks like that. Visibility will get into the 30-40' range when the aquifer is well charges and the system has flow-actually the place normally has fairly strong flow.
Kelly, is visibility usually any better after 4th sink upstream? Would you endorse a scootering behind 4rth sink?
A year ago or maybe its already two years (last NACD cleanup) we had a greatest viz i ever seen there , something like 30-40' (on the way in though). It was such a great chance actually to see walls of the cave. Tons of trash was removed too.
Visibility will fluctuate depending on where you are in the system because there are a lot of spring vents. I have a detailed survey of the system and have identified a lot of areas where the visibility improves because of these vents. Usually you can count on this: Viz will become poor during heavy rain,especially since there are 23 sinks draining into the system;and visibility will be best in the 30' area when the aquifer is well charged and there is strong flow. I wouldn't encourage scootering in this cave with 15' viz since sometimes the line will disappear into the silt or I have measured side walls at 80' apart in some areas,so one distraction could take you way off the line.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks