My Awesome Weekend Cave Diving
What a great weekend I had. A bunch of excellent dives, met some nice folks, missed most of the pop up storms, and got to see some cave that was new to me.
Friday’s dives at Ginnie with Al kicked things off wonderfully. Dive one was Eye > Lips Bypass > Mainline > Mud Tunnel and reverse with a skip up H400 and quick peek into Parallel Lines an exit out the ear. I kind of like doing the mud tunnel up and back to kick off the weekend to confirm I am operating in a proper “poof free” manner.
Time 74 min - Avg Depth 64 - Deco 4 min
With all the pieces coming together and the stars in alignment, Al and I set off to dive Parallel Lines. Hadn’t been up that way in quite a while and wanted something fun without a stretch as it had been a long day with the drive. So off Al and I went. Ear > Mainline > H400 > Tied into the jump for July, but ran the line to Parallel lines instead of putting in two gaps. Almost like I planned that the dive before! Well if Al could have spoken he would have said “Nice job Jeff”, but he doesn’t say very much.
Parallel Lines was turning into an absolute joy. Nice and slow. Keeping focused. And then it happened. I decided to release some of my hydration, and suddenly felt a warm spot growing around my valve by my leg. My dry suit was becoming a wet suit from the inside. I found out afterward the balance valve became dislodged allowing for significant internal seepage.
Let me tell you, when I hydrate, I do not mess around. When a damn breaks open, it generally drains without stopping. It would ultimately turn out to be quite the effort to restore the spring time freshness to my gear. Anyway, I finished the dive keeping my mind focused on the pleasures at hand, and not what lay ahead. Cutting the dive short I went right at both T’s and head back the H400 pulling my line and exiting the Eye.
Time 55 min – Avg Depth 64 - Deco 6 min
After the dive I said Hi to a couple divers and met the infamous “Hill 400 Thief”. (see his post als0 in Trip Reports.) Great chatting with both you guys.
Saturday Al took the morning off and grabbed my dry wet suit instead of my wet dry suit and dove wet for the first time in a while. I was joined by CaveDiverWayne and some other guy that claimed to be a cave diver. But he’s never been on the forum! Could he possibly be a real cave diver or was he a fake? No screen name? What do I call him?!?!? So turns out Wade (gotta get a screen name dude!) is a fine cave diver and we had a great time at P1. Mainline > Crossover > Peanut. My trim was a bit off with the switch in the suits, but nothing a couple lbs. on the shoulders couldn’t fix.
After lunch, Al showed up and said he wanted to join us on a dive to the Crypt back at P1. After a short discussion (or maybe not so short) with that amiable gentleman at CE about the best way to approach our dive, off we went. Mainline > Olson > pin before surfacing and a 10 minute time out > Continue on > Duck under jump right > Jump left (getting a bit poofy in this neighborhood) and on to the Crypt. You know, I don’t think anybody had a focus problem after we left the mainline. We saw a bunch genuine of cave artifacts (certainly not trash…) in there and turned to leave. As we prepared to exit, the ever vigilant CaveDiverWayne (CDW.. too much typing) noticed what appeared to be an alternate exit and thought he would take a peek. The line headed straight down and appeared to duck under through “a really tight hole” as he described it. Deciding not to explore any further, he came back up and we began to exit. 20 or 30 feet on down the line, I noticed another line coming back up from the same general direction as the one CDW had checked out. Looked to me like they might connect. I could take a look next time I am there with some extra time, or maybe someone might care to enlighten me…
We began the exit and got to the first reel and (No Screen Name YET) was kind enough to retrieve it as he was playing caboose with that super bright light of his. When we popped up at Olsen, we realized it was 4:30, none of us had scooters and we needed to book back. No time to commune at Olsen so we were on our way. After a proper deco stop we surface at 4:59 so as not to tarnish the good name that we cave divers strive for. High fives, Fist bumps and smiles all around
Total time 108 min - Average Depth 49 feet - Deco 5 min
Sunday is Beef day, so off CDW and went to join the masses at Cow. There must have been 52 people in about 16 teams there! Well maybe not quite that many, but the most I have ever seen, on the surface. We geared up and off we went on a mainline tour. My first time in there SM was a real joy. Made it to about 1500 and turned. I am always spellbound by the beauty I see in there and choose to leave my focus there. One more cave dive made 5 out of 5 cave dives the way cave dives are supposed to be done this weekend.
Time 77 min - Average Depth 64 feet - Deco 6 minutes
Great dives, got to say Hi to a lot of CDF members in person, (not Pink Arrows though, apparently she doesn’t like that face to face thing)
GREAT WEEKEND !!! Thanks to all that participated.
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Originally Posted by JerseyJersey
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