Turner-Wakulla Traverse

[curtschu]

We go through this same arguement every year the WKPP makes sometime of push.
There was a good arguement that the WKPP and the folks they had working with them (Bill Stone) were the only ones that could mount a private effort that required the technology to dive several hours at 300 feet. But this was the 80-90s. Well alot has changed in the last 15 years. Nitrox is the norm and is banked in cave country. Rebreathers and Trimix are very common and the decompression science has been opened to us all. It just does not make sense with the training and technology we have for the state to keep us out of OUR state park resource. The FWC needs to buy more land they are the only reasonable ones to deal with. Hell they let people run around with guns on their property us cave divers are nothing.

Just my 2 psi for this year

[phishfood]

So are there any updates as to the dive?

[SuPrBuGmAn]

According to a thread on another forum, they completed the dive. I'm sure an official report will follow shortly.

[rblackburn]

I've been trying to stay out of this...

Keep in mind we have worked together to get access to Wakulla. You, providing requirements met, can dive the system now. You have to use the Emerald entrance to the Wakulla-Leon Sinks Cave System, but you can dive Wakulla! Work with the non-profits that got the door open. If we can prove we are responsible, they may allow diving in other entrances to the system.

[FW]

From another site:

On Saturday 12/15 the Woodville Karst Plain Project completed an underwater traverse from Turner Sink to Wakulla Springs. WKPP divers Jarrod Jablonski and Casey McKinlay began their record-setting cave dive at 1:20pm, arriving at the Wakulla basin at approximately 9pm.

Their seven mile journey through the Florida aquifer at depths of up to 300ft below the surface created a decompression obligation that requires Jablonski and McKinlay ascend very slowly through the night. They are expected to surface at 8-10am Sunday morning.

This weekend's dive was supported by forty WKPP team members and volunteers, who staged gear at strategic locations in the cave system and attended to decompressing divers throughout the approximately 30 hour operation.

- Todd Leonard, WKPP Project Coordinator

[Line Squirrel]

I've been trying to stay out of this...

Keep in mind we have worked together to get access to Wakulla. You, providing requirements met, can dive the system now. You have to use the Emerald entrance to the Wakulla-Leon Sinks Cave System, but you can dive Wakulla! Work with the non-profits that got the door open. If we can prove we are responsible, they may allow diving in other entrances to the system.

Well said Richard.

I would like to congratulate the WKPP divers and their support team. No matter what some of you [not directed at you Richard] or I might think about the politics involved with access to Wakulla Springs, it's still one helluva dive they pulled off!

[JE]

Well said Richard.

I would like to congratulate the WKPP divers and their support team. No matter what some of you [not directed at you Richard] or I might think about the politics involved with access to Wakulla Springs, it's still one helluva dive they pulled off!

Logistics, training, & the proper gear all relate to a successfull dive of this magnitude. Please give the GUE & WKPP team members their proper due. I for one admire their accomplishments & could only dream of such an achivement-!

JE