Cave Diving Sites?

[BluDiver]

What cave diving opportunities exsist around the Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia region?

[Sh0use]

I can't say a lot for Ohio or West Virginia, but there's quite a bit for KY. Mostly low viz, cold temp caves scattered throughout KY. A lot of it is knowing the right people and having land owner permission. I recently joined my local grotto and have gotten pretty involved with them in an effort to hopefully push some leads they know of. May be something for you to look into, but I see you're from MO, so it might be helpful to get in with the local grotto up there and see what they know.

[FW]

I don't know about Ohio, but I agree with Sh0use about Kentucky. I have dived several sites in WV. Just be aware that the water is colder, and lower visibility than in Florida. Not to mention there are no sites that you can dive without landowner permission. I assume you know about diving in Missouri.

[teqdiver]

Ohio has many springs in the far north of the state around the Castalia area. So far, my friends and I have not found any going passage from any of them, but there is a massive amount of water moving underground in that area. There are even blue holes out under the bay in Lake Erie. Blue holes we have dived in that area appear invitingly blue on the surface, but quickly turn to inky blackness with visibility in the inches. One blue hole we dove, we hit a semi-hard bottom at about 40 feet, but we dropped a plum line down through the undulating bottom to about 135-140 feet. We never got that weight back....

There is one diveable cave in that area, but it is a sump. Interestingly, it was a former show cave with the dry portion well lit with colored lights and now has a house directly on top of it. The cave has two entrances, one through the 3rd level of the home owners' basement. The other is an outside entrance in a gated courtyard in front of the house. The house itself is an unbelieveable showcase home too. It's worth the visit just to see that. The dive though is shallow, short and cold. It is sidemount only and not for the faint of heart. It has been fully explored and mapped with a max depth of around 20 feet and only a couple hundred feet of passage around what's really just a couple rooms. The vis is perfect until a diver hits the water. The first diver will wipe out the vis for anyone else. Also, there are obstacles as the homeowner takes the water from the underwater cave for their geo-thermal heating system. The tubing gets in the way. A long dive in there would be around 25 minutes.