Little River 2/21/09
Did my first solo dives at Little River on Saturday. The park was empty almost all day, when I was getting ready to get in the water, Lee (Diverlee) pulled into the parking lot. We chatted for a few minutes and I headed down the stairs to do my first dive. The plan was to do a double stage but I borrowed an AL80 and the way it was rigged did not allow me to attach/detach it to my sidemount setup easily, so I left it in the cavern with my deco bottle.
On my first dive I headed down the mainline to the first T. I made a right at the first T headed towards the Merry Go Round and made the jump in to the shortcut tunnel. At the end of the shortcut tunnel I jumped back on to the mainline and continued upstream. The vis was good and I seemed to be more observant on this dive and really saw a lot of the Florida room and looking at the ceiling formations. I hit the end of the FL room which I believe is where the ceiling goes from a bigger jagged typed circle tunnel to a the bedding plane which is a flatter and wider tunnel. I continued upstream to the 1400' marker and then followed the line down the steep slope but did not notice a double arrow marking the 3 way split, I continued about another 5 minutes so about another 200' past the 1400' marker. This part of the tunnel is low with soft silt bottom and between the 3way split and the dome room.
On my way out I took my time, really enjoying the solo dive and just me my light and the darkness. When going back through the Florida room I swam on the wall adjacent to the line to see the cave from a different point of view. I hit the 1st T on the way out, picked my stage bottle up, and headed out through the Serpentine Tunnel. At the 400' mark I started taking mental notes on the different jumps that I wanted to checkout on my second dive. As I reached the top of the chute I saw Lee and her dive buddy heading in. My BT was about 83mins with a total runtime was 105mins average depth 88'.
On my surface interval I just transfilled some tanks into my SM bottles and got ready for dive 2. While changing stuff over, Lee and her buddy finished their dive and we chatted in the parking lot. They packed up their gear, gave me a zip into my drysuit (Thanks for the zip) and left. So it was back to just me and the parking lot again. My plan for dive 2 was to checkout the different jumps in the front part of the cave since the only one I have done so far was the mud tunnel.
For dive 2 I headed into the system, reached the sign and continued on in. Not far from the sign, I jumped to the left in a SM passage (Wormhole) which was a nice little passage that headed upstream and the line dumped me out on the gold line in the top of the chute. After hitting the end and making it to the goldline I headed back in to the wormhole tunnel to go get my jump reel but when I reached my reel I noticed the jump was tied off a little farther downstream and had a downstream section. Heading downstream along the jump I went about 50' and turned since I new there would be silt following me from taking the wormhole downstream.
Heading back to the mainline a retrieved my spool and headed upstream on the mainline passing the first set of double arrows (two white arrows I believe) that marks the mud tunnel on the left. Continuing upstream I reached the next set of double arrows (red & white) which marks the crossover tunnel from mainline to mud tunnel. Jumping off the mainline (left) I headed towards the mud tunnel, but instead of heading to the Mud Tunnel line I made a right and the tunnel parallel’s the mud tunnel line until it meets the end of the Mud Tunnel line. After reaching that point I turned around and reeled in my spool. When getting back to the goldline I jumped to the other side of the main passage and followed the tunnel downstream until I reached a PVC post, where I tied my spool to. Continuing downstream it is low and silty and part of the line was buried and I believe there was another PVC post that was also buried. I reached a split in the line, marked with an orange line arrow. One route was to head left and the other downstream. I continued another 30' downstream and turned around, while exiting I had to just stare at the line on the way out until I reach the orange arrow and the vis cleared up again. I reached my spool, continued back to the mainline and headed upstream.
I reached the 3rd set of double arrows which marks the end of the mud tunnel on the left but I jumped to the right and tied into a line. The line went upstream (left) and downstream (right), taking the upstream side first I followed it maybe 50' and it ends at the mainline. I then turned around headed downstream reached my spool and continued downstream for a little but hit thirds so it was time to go home. I got back on the mainline, shut my main light off and exited on my backup from about 400' just for practice. Upon reaching my deco bottle there was a team entering a system, then about 10 minutes later another team entered. I finished up my deco and swam out only to find another team gearing up and 2 cavern divers entering.
It went from an empty cave and me all day too four different teams all entering in about a 20min span. Sorry to those divers if the vis was a little crappy in the first 400'.
All in all it was a great day of diving.
I have to check the new map but don't have it at this moment but I have a few questions about some of those jumps. If anyone has any experience with those please let me know. Looking for names, distances, points to turn around, etc.
Welcome to the Cave Diver's Forum.
Reply With Quote
Semper Fi, Cameron David Smith, my son, my hero. 11/9/1989 - 11/13/2010 
Originally Posted by SuPrBuGmAn
Bookmarks