Conditions in Devil's System Week of 11/4/2012

[stickydeco]

Folks: Jackie, Jeff H, Bad Boy Bill Huth, and I dove at Devil's all this past week. I am sorry to report that the overall clear condition that I am used to seeing is just is not there yet. While the "greenish tinge" is gone, there is still a hazy, milky white water column at just about every place in the cave. At close up, the viz looks fine (in most places), but as you look out at a distance, it starts to degrade a bit.

Obviously, the cave went thru a traumatic experience with the flood; for example what would normally be very white limestone walls in the upper elevations of the Berman Room are walls covered in fine slit dust. And get a load of this...we were going to do some more filming in the domes on the Insulation Room line. Going left at the T, everything was OK until we popped over the rise into the first dome. At that point we are met with a wall of absolute black water. I don't mean "tannic" or "dark", but absolute black. The reason why the insulation bacteria does so well in there is because of the little to no-flow so who knows how long that nightmare will be hanging around? After we came out, we did not go to the right, figuring it would likely be just as bad. So don't waste your time with the Insulation Room for now at least.

The clearest part of the cave was Double Lines, Sherwood Split, and the North Canyon line. That whole area is less affected.

[diveconjeff]

Thanks for the report. See if I can't put it to good use this coming weekend.

[MDiver429]

Areas like the sweet surprise and mainland are looking beautiful now to

[mdax]

Most places back by the Hinkle are great. We followed the line around the left in the insulation room through the muck and it cleared up near the whale bone. The right side was much clearer, the darkness was settling in that high spot in the passage. Things have actually cleared up compared to a month ago or so...