Madison Blue Spring

[Jim Wyatt]

Madison Blue Springs Report

As most of you know Madison Blue Spring was closed for a few weeks due to the flow reversing. The spring re-opened over the past few days and today (April 2)I made two dives there.

Many newer cave divers have not been around after one of these flooding events and may not expect the conditions in this cave as I found it today.

Visibility was a maximum of 40 feet up to the half hitch and to the Godzilla Room. Several sections the visibility was significantly lower than this.

Flow is very high; I would guess it is almost the same velocity as Devil’s Ear at the entrance. Flow remains high even in the Godzilla Room. I made it to the half-hitch (800 feet) on thirds of my 104’s. I was making it to 1500 feet on that line without hitting thirds.

The lines have much debris on them, leaves, twigs and where the line is wrapped the line is not visible nor can you easily feel the line in some of these places.

There were several places where the line was buried in newly deposited sand. In one place it was buried as deep as 3 feet, maybe 4 for a linear distance of about 20 feet. Following this line with lights out or in zero vis would be more challenging than normal.

There were several sections where the line was buried and we cleared it in the sections we saw. I am not sure how long these lines will stay above the sand.

There were sections in the cave between Martz Sink and the entrance that I did not even recognize due primarily to the volume of sand on the bottom coupled with the lower visibility.

I suspect there are many other places in the cave where the line is buried and I caution divers to not simply swim over those sections to where the next section of visible line is. I also caution divers to use care freeing the line from the sand mounds considering the possibility of breaking the line and the certainty of zero visibility.

We zeroed the visibility several times freeing line, however the flow moved it out of our way quickly. Divers downstream of us would have experienced this drastic lowering of visibility without warning.

Other than the lines and the Godzilla doll, there was no evidence of divers being in there. The cave was flushed clean.

If you go there to dive please be aware of these conditions and do not necessarily expect to see the same cave conditions or line placement as you saw earlier this year.

Jim Wyatt
NSS-CDS Safety Officer

[Jim Clark]

Thanks for the update, Jim, and for the great advice.

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Thanks!

[sem824]

We dove Madison for the first time Wed so it was interesting to learn that it doesn't always look that way. Running our line to the mainline we saw how the mainline disappeared into the sand before the warning sign. Thanks for the tips/info Jim. We made it in about 400ft on 6ths. We thought the vis was not bad. The cavern zone was a bit worse, but Jim told us it was because of him clearing the line. Overall very good dives. Look forward to seeing it again when it clears out more.

[tomhauburn]

Jim I am really happy its open again but was really looking forward to diving in the Court Yard again. The way you talk about the flow that might not be in the near future.
Madison has some out of the way spots that might be interesting to dive since the flow is up. Wonder if some of the sand moved out of those spots?

[DogDiver]

I bet that "man hole" on the right hand side just after the start is filled in. There is an old line in there that someone said goes to the crossunder tunnel. Jim, was there much flow comming from the crossunder tunnel?

[Cantey]

just wanted to see how she's blowin...hows the vis? I might be skipping out on some class tomorrow.

[ajimmythekid]

Bobbi & I dove there 4/10
As Jim said there is ALOT of sand in there now. Our dive was to just check out all the jumps we could. At stop sign water is not tannic but has allot of particles vis 20' /Godzilla jump vis> 15' and allot of very sandy (fine) covered the pull rocks- Banana room jump > 20' - Martz Jump (we did not go in but vis was up in this area to 25-30') We went up the main line another 200 or so seemed to hold at 30'. We had a nice float out / the man hole in the floor is 1/2 filled in / (flow is way up) and checked out the 1st jump past the stop sign (it runs Parallel to the main) , removed twigs, dug out line 0'ed the vis & repaired line
Cavern vis 15 - 20 (greenish) could not even see light from the rabbit hole.

It's like a new dive, with all the new sand dunes

[Line Squirrel]

just wanted to see how she's blowin...hows the vis? I might be skipping out on some class tomorrow.

Why? get-r-DONE!

[Cantey]

Why? get-r-DONE!

sorry, should have given a report. I ended up going, and man are they right about those damn skeeters! vis was 20-30 at best, but I can only comment on the cavern as thats as far as I went. On our safety stop we were greeted by some type of snake, maybe 4-5ft long, not sure what type it was though. It looked like it was on the prowl for some food or something, as it was gliding in and out of rocks at 20-25ft.