New Video of Ricks Spring Cave System

[wendellnope]

Hi Y'all,

I have just uploaded the newest video of the Ricks Spring cave system to my website. It is a continuous video from the Entrance to the first Dry Cave (P1300'). This was shot with the new video system I have put together just for this cave, as conventional systems are too bulky.

Anyway, I hope y'all enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it. Go to the web page listed below, scroll down until you see the photo of me looking mean ... I didn't mean to have a sour face when the pic was taken ... I was just getting my mind right for a big dive. A link to a large and a small version of the video is available.

www.wendellnope.com/scuba3.htm

[FW]

Wow, impressive. Very clear for a cave outside of sandy Florida. That entrance looks like fun

I suspect a lot of Fl divers wouldn't do very well in that "liquid snow"

[jackass]

Looks fantastic!

[Arctic Mike]

Some excellent videos! Thanks for sharing.

[tmcdonal]

Very nice pics and video. (and very jealous.)

-Tom

[phillip1]

Wow really cool looking cave, how much do you have to climb/walk to get to the second sump?

[giles45shop]

Great video! Thanks for sharing. The colors and formations in the cave are amazing. I especially like the hard-edged look of the rock compared to FL limestone, and the very clean look of a lot of the sections, where it looks like a mine tunnel that's been swept clean of any rock debris on the floor.

[Marc Bryan]

Thanks Wendell!

[Randy Thornton]

Thanks for posting the video Wendell. Glad to see that the new camera is working out! I look forward to seeing the video of the next section!

Regards,
Randy

[wendellnope]

From the point where you surface into the first dry cave to the point where you submerge again is just under 300'. It is challenging carrying tanks along this route AND preventing damage to the dry cave. It is also a careful effort since you have just done a 1300' cave dive. This is an environment where you don't want to get bent from strenuous activity.

We typically offload our tanks and walk around admiring the dry cave for a while, just to give our bodies a chance to recover from the dive. This is also a warm-up period, since the water is typically 41F-43F, depending on the time of year. After a half-hour or so - which goes surprisingly fast when you're looking at stuff - it seems OK to move tanks. I know some of the young guys carry both tanks simultaneously but I'm an old bull ...!

The next video will be exclusively about the first dry cave. I'm not going to take the chance of opening up my camera system and risk getting moisture in the camera, sand in the o-rings, etc. My camera uses an SD card which only holds 45 mins of video at a time.