Great Dives in Little River 31-JAN-2008
Saturday turned out cool and clear...perfect for diving Little River. When I arrived around 9:30, the only other folks there were Lamar and his CCR class, Dave and Ken, and TonyDCaver. Lamar's group decided it was a bit cold (they'd been diving A LOT this week) and left it to us. There were a few non-divers in and out, having a look, but not many. Dave and Ken hit the water ahead of us and came back with good reports, and a flooded light (sorry Dave!).
Did I mention the weather was PERFECT? It was just cool enough to make suiting up a pleasure, but not so cold as to make gearing up a PITA. I even ended up with a bit of a sunburn on my face. I was thrilled that there was no rain today...as it was the first day back diving out of the Mustang.
As Tony and I hit the water, Jeff and Leanna made their appearance. Leanna's sidemount rig was looking good, as was bubbleless-Jeff's pretty setup. He's pretty sneaking in that thing, with no bubbles giving away his presence! It sounded like they had a good dive as well.
The water level is low, but not as low as I've seen. Most of the rock is covered, beyond the water's edge...no islands sticking up. The water in the basin is crystal clear, sparkling with a tint of picturesque green. Lack of swimmers has allowed the algae to grow long and graceful, swaying toward the river. The boil is obvious and large. However, the flow, once beyond the cavern, is just about perfect. It wasn't too hard to swim against, but yet there is plenty for a nice ride out. The flow inside the cavern is pretty strong down the middle, but as always, there are plenty of places to get out of it to work on drills and skills.
Tony and I had a good time playing in the cavern, working on fine tuning our "stuff" and just checking out all the cool nooks and crannies. I realized how much of the cave I've missed by skipping over the cavern to "do the dive". We finished with the cavern and Tony ran the reel to the gold line. We had a nice, leisurely dive down the main line. Ahhhhh...Little River...I've missed ya girl! It was great to be back in here. Visibility was good. There was a bit of particulate, more noticeable in my pictures than during the actual dive. I'd read reports of lots of ick still needing to be cleaned out. The flow seems to have done its job, as everything looked clean and "back to normal".
There were a few catfish in the basin, and one particularly large, non-catfish fish (no clue what it was, just that it was BIG!). All in all, now's a good time to get to Little River!
Here's a couple of shots:
Dang, she's purty!
Tony in the foreground, Jeff in the background, at the mouth of the cave.
Dave and Ken, ready for their dive.
Welcome to the Cave Diver's Forum.
Semper Fi, Cameron David Smith, my son, my hero. 11/9/1989 - 11/13/2010 
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Squirrel Girl
FW
Bookmarks