Ginnie Springs Open for Diving

[Gary]

I took a tour of Devil's this morning and vis is "not terrible". The spring run is clear and the water is just a little foggy. About 80'-100' in the Gallery, 60'-80' main line back to the Hinkle maybe 40'-60' Bone Line, Hill 400 and 30'-50' in Double Lines, Double Domes, Mainland, River Intrusion and Spill Tunnels.

Flow is down a bit. Depth is about 3-5' deeper then normal. Expect to spend a little less air getting where you are going and then a little more on the trip back - then spend a little longer on deco due to increased depth and bottom time.

There is fresh sand down on the path to Devil's Eye. Turkey Roost and a lot of the camping areas are still under water. Little Devil platform is roped off and surrounded by water. The mud near the picnic tables is still a little slick.

There is dark tannic water over the Ear to about 20' depth.

[Jay]

Hey G!!

What is th status of GS?

Jay

[Gary]

I last toured Devil's Friday morning early. Vis has improved by 10' across the board and has probably improved even more since then which should make most of the system pretty good. However someone would dove it this weekend or Monday should be able to say better.

How was the Nest?

[pdoege]

Very nice. Water is still very high on the stairs. Maybe 5 feet higher than normal?

There is debris in the run from Little Devils to the Eye, so it is probably best to enter at the stairs near the Eye.

Tannic water down to about 20 feet or so in the Ear.

Flow was down, and I was sharing the cave with about 5 other people.

Very nice dive.

Peter

[Jordan]

Vis is great except in river intrusion tunnels. I did The Wonder Tunnel Sunday night and had about 10' vis in there. I also noticed that the flow was down.

[MikeH]

I should be able to do a dive there Thurs afternoon or Friday morning....I'll update everybody with the vis if I do. I have to get up there for trimix fills, so I may as well get a nice dive in! Anybody care to join?

Mike

[Gary]

I dove Devil's this evening. The water is down a foot or more from last week and Little Devil's platform is open. There are a number of tree branches down in the run to avoid on the swim up/down the run.

There is medium tannic water over the Ear to about 10' depth. Flow is still down a bit. Depth is about 3'-4' deeper then normal.

Vis is "adequate". The spring run is clear and the water is just a little foggy. About 70'-90' in most of the system back to the Hinkle. Worst area I saw was probably Bone Line (maybe 40'-60') though I don't know why since the Expressway seemed good. Hill 400 and Double Lines, seemed slightly worse then main line but not too bad. Most areas that were foggy last week are almost up to main line vis and some places out of the flow may even be better.

[Gary]

Just a last few impressions:

Flow is back up to near normal and the water level is still up about 2 feet from normal (down very noticiably from over the last week or two though).

Visibility is coming along well in most of the system. Tiny bit of fog - not unusual.

Main line and Big room were good. Expressway is OK. Hill 400 is OK but not as good as main line.

The Wonder Tunnel looks less then exciting and the vis in the White Room was fairly poor. Bone line on the downstream of the White Room wasn't very good.

I don't know how long it will take the last few places to clear out. The temperature actually dropped enough for my computer to notice on the top of Hill 400 and in the White Room - but only in the White Room (and Wonder Tunnel) was the tannic extremely noticable.

I expect by next weekend the system to be close to normal depth and vis with higher then normal flow and most of the corners cleared out.

Ta ta...

[Gary]

Lots of divers at Ginnie today (Friday) - it'll probably be packed this weekend.

Vis is still pretty good but I thought I'd mention that there seems to be a vent letting a small amount of tannic into the system at p1800' on the left wall just past the stage bottle rock. Seems like vis might have been a tiny bit clearer upstreamof that.

Odd place to see that kind of thing especially when the flow seems up, the other usual sources of tannic are flowing clear at the moment and clear water on all sides of the vent. Maybe the Dome Room might be getting some also but I didn't check.