Signs of Life

I got this link to a photo set from the Signs of Life book from a friend. It is a collection of photos depicting graffiti responses to last year’s Hurricane Katrina tragedy. Being a person naturally predisposed to depression, when I see someone exhibit strength and hope in the face of adversity, amid the chaos and turmoil, it breaks through my negative shield to remind me that it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m thankful for the inspiration.

today at River Sink

Today I dove River Sink (downstream) for the first time. It was a really easy, super cool, fun fast dive. There were three of us on the dive. We all just took a single stage and a single scooter, planning for no more than 35 minutes in (70 minutes total, keeping us well within scooter burn time). The cave heading downstream from River Sink connects a series of close sinkholes, and is visually and structurally reminiscent of the caves at Natural Bridge, where we had been exploring last month. Riding through there with a single stage and single scooter was so fun and such an easy dive, it was like a breezy cruise through the country mountains on a motorcycle. We turned the dive just where the cave begins to drop deeper as it heads over towards Turner Sink. We would come back another day for that one. A post-dive rope swing was a fun way to finish the morning. Then Mark headed off, back home to Canada, and we went to meet Todd Kincaid and Tim for lunch. Although I was sleepy, that was both educational and entertaining. I love listening to scientists and engineers talk – one should be able to earn partial college credit just for hanging around with some of these people. There used to be this one guy on the team, Bill Mee, from whom I would learn something really obscure and cool every time I was around him. John Rose is like that as well. The WKPP really is a talented, intelligent and honorable group of people. It is such a joy to be involved with them. I will post a couple pictures taken at the surface at River Sink here, including the post-dive rope swing fun, once I upload them from my camera. It was a great weekend. I had a really good time.

yesterday at Sullivan

wow. What an amazing dive. It was Zen. We took three stage bottles each, plus deco gas for 70 ft and oxygen and two scooters each. The borrowed scooter was balanced perfectly this time. I rode that one first, so I knew right away. Getting in through the log jam entrance restriction went quickly and smoothly this time and it was full speed ahead. I was so calm and so happy; the cave was as blue as could be. We had so much extra gas with us that we were able to see every bit of the upstream cave that was accessible with back-mounted doubles. We went down every branch of every T along the way. The back of that cave is one enormous room after another. One branch off of a couple Ts to the right ends in a spectacular dome, and every part of the cave was blue and clear, with maybe 100 ft of visibility. I need to save up for a video camera so I can get some footage of this amazingly beautiful place. On the way out, when picking up the stage bottle we had dropped at ‘The Maxiblow’, my primary light failed, at only 58 minutes burn time. It must have either a faulty connection somewhere or it flooded (this turned out to be the case). No big deal, even though we were way back in the cave when it failed. My scooters were perfect, I was calm and happy, we had a ton of gas, the water was perfectly clear and it was soooooo beautiful in there. I deployed a backup light and the way out was just as wonderful as the way in. Our speed on exit and my mood and comfort on the dive was unaffected by the primary light failure. Total bottom time was around 100 minutes, with a total dive time of 150 minutes, every minute of which was wonderful. Max penetretion distance was, I think, around 5500 feet. To top off an already perfect dive, when we surfaced, team members Mark Garland, Jim Miller, and Kell Canty were there to support. They carried up all our bottles and scooters for us. Thanks so much, guys; that was awesome. We owe ya one. What a great day. Life is good. Thanks to for taking me on this awesome dive. Thanks to Mark Garland, I have a couple surface photos.

Saving Wakulla Springs

We will be diving at Sullivan this afternoon. Right now I am at Wakulla Springs with team members Todd Kincaid and Christopher Werner to represent the WKPP at the ‘Saving Wakulla Springs’ event here today. the following information has been taken verbatim from the flyer that the WKPP was handing out at the presentation. All of this information can be found on the WKPP website The Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP) has been actively exploring the underwater cave systems of North Florida since 1987. The WKPP is a non-profit affiliate of Global Underwater Explorers (GUE). The mission of the WKPP is to explore, survey, connect and protect the flooded underwater cave systems of North Florida’s Woodville Karst Plain. Wakulla Springs Cave System Quick Facts:

Average depth in the cave system is 300 ft.
Explored cave passageway exceeds 10 miles
Direction of the main tunnel is south
Average discharge is 250 million gallons per day and peak discharge over 1 billion gallons per day
The Wakulla Cave System is over 10,000 years old
Ice age animal fossils have been recovered from the spring including 3 somplete Mastodon skeletons
There is 1 main tunnel and 7 smaller side tunnels
The main tunnel is wide enough to fit a 4-lane highway and is 30-50 ft high
World Record Cave System – the longest penetration into a flooded cave system * 19,100 ft. by the WKPP

* the publication is slightly outdated – it is now over 20,000 and exploration is still underway

on the way to Tallahassee, Sullivan tomorrow

I’m on the way down to Tallahassee to go diving. We are going back to Sullivan Sink tomorrow (that was where we dove two weeks ago Sunday, where I had mentioned that it was the most beautiful cave I had ever dove in this country).
I had promised to write more about it later but am just finally getting around to it.

Anyway, Sullivan Sink is amazing. On the outside, from the surface, you would never suspect its wonder and beauty. It’s a tiny, smelly sinkhole, no more than 10 feet in diameter. Even though it is by itself in the woods, it’s not very pretty at all. Looking in from the surface, the water is muddy, dark, and filled with a bunch of broken trees. Inside, however, is an entirely different view.

We took 2 stage bottles each (AL80 bottles containing what we call ‘190 gas’ – a trimix mixture containing 18% oxygen, 45% helium, and the rest nitrogen). Our back-mounted doubles were also filled with 190 gas, though we did not ever plan to use that as it was for emergency use. Since the planned depth would be 150 feet(can’t remember for sure, will verify later), we also took a small bottle of 50% O2 to leave at 70 feet and another of pure O2 to leave at 20 feet. We brought 2 scooters each. Since I only own 1 scooter, I had to borrow 1 from another team member.

Shimmying down to the opening restriction through the mess of logs with all that gear on took me longer than I would have liked, but it will be easier the next time. Shortly after dropping off our deco bottles I began to realize the beauty of this place. It is tricky scootering with a lot of ups and downs and turns, many of which are in an area not very tall, but the beauty of the cave more than makes up for it.

Scootering there is somewhat reminiscent of scootering Manatee Springs, except that this was beautiful, the water was clear, and the walls of the cave were white like at Indian Springs. I was in awe.

Due to having spent too much gas at the entrance restriction, we had to turn the dive shortly into the beginning of the really cool section of the cave, about 55 minutes in, where it really turns into ‘Tallahassee Power Cave’. The rooms got ENORMOUS. At least I got to see some of that before we turned around. This was truly beautiful. I was wishing that we had brought another stage bottle with us so we could have gone in further. I wanted to see more.

As it turned out though, it’s a good thing we weren’t any further in, and it is a good thing that I so enjoyed the ride IN to the cave, because the ride OUT of the cave was tough… really tough. When we turned the dive, I switched to the borrowed scooter to burn the batteries on it for a while and save some reserve on mine. I did not expect to find that it was balanced completely differently than mine and that it had the center of gravity shifted offset, whereas mine is perfectly centered. As soon as I switched to it I knew I hated it, but decided to tough it out anyway. That was dumb of me because it wore me out physically and psychologically. I decided to switch back to mine when we got to the next stage bottle; but, getting back there seemed to take an eternity, and I became more annoyed, more tired, and more stressed with each tiring maneuver of this heavy and strangely balanced scooter in the twisty curvy cave. I was PMSing anyway and was way deep down into the rabbit hole of self loathing, crying in my mask out of self-hatred for not having worked out my rear deltoids in far too long. That is the muscle that you use most when scootering.

Thankfully, after switching to my scooter when we picked up a stage bottle on the way out, the rest of the way out got easier. But I had already driven myself into negativeland and fatigued my under-developed arm. I decided right then and there that I needed to also go back to doing more cardiovascular exercise. If I would have been more physically fit I would not have been so fatigued. That was the bottom line.

I have been through a similar experience before, when Trey’s Magnum scooter flooded on me in the beginning of a triple stage dive in Manatee Springs. It was all too familiar, but the other time had been about 5 years ago. Everything happens for a reason. I’m sure that I needed to go through that. ‘Trial by Fire’ seems to be the way I learn and evolve.
Tomorrow it will go much more smoothly. I already know about navigating through the logs. I am not PMSing. I ran 15 miles last week. I already know about the twisty curvy small parts of the cave. I will check the borrowed scooter first so I will know what to expect from it.

Sunday, however, we are going to dive another place I have never dove before – River Sink. I will write more later. I’m almost to Tallahassee now and I need to start winding down so I can get some good sleep.

Have a good weekend everyone. I intend to.
…and, sorry about my voicemail being full. I will clear it out sometime this weekend. I freaking hate voicemail. Text messages or multimedia messages are sooooo much better.
-peace-

Avis’ new side project

My friend Avis has a new side project and it is freaking awesome (Trip Hop). It is available on iTunes. Saltillo on MySpace Saltillo web presence and, in case you didn’t know about the other one, here it is: Sunday Munich on MySpace Sunday Munich web presence It’s too bad Allegory didn’t continue on as well – that was something completely different, but I liked it a lot. I keep hoping he will change his mind and release the other songs.

Sizes.com

I was meandering along, reading this or that about numbers in general and 23 specifically and all sorts of other random silliness, because it is the 23rd of the month, I suppose, when I found the Sizes.com site.

It’s wonderfully useful and blissfully simplistic.
It contains sizes, grades, units, scales, calendars, chronologies; all things quantifiable quantified.

Let the fun begin.

WKPP Emerald/Cheryl Sink Cave System Clean-Up & Reline

I went with CW and DD to reline the Black Abyss loop and T into main line. Place all upstream Cheryl arrows

This was posted to the WKPP team list, the DIR Quest list, and the GavinScooters list. Summary by Anthony Rue, GUE. Clear conditions in the northern section of Leon Sinks over the past month– in addition to a few weeks off waiting for Wakulla to clear– allowed time for WKPP divers to replace almost 5,500ft of guideline upstream and downstream of Cheryl and Emerald Sinks. In advance of the proposed recreational access through the Wakulla Springs State Park, the Emerald advisory committee and the Florida Department of Enviromental Protection agreed on the replacement of the existing guideline. The old line(s) were intact but needed to be replaced and routed in such a manner as to avoid any sample tubing and delicate cave structures. Directional markers would also need to be replaced and the number of arrows increased to confirm distances for recreational cave divers accessing the system. The reline, re-arrow and video work is complete. All lines are “T’d” and marked for the closest exit. It is my understanding that only Emerald Sink will be open for access into and out of the system with the other sinks being “emergency” exit only. Given the additional requirements for cave diving access into the system, all lines are continuous with no gaps even across the sinkholes. Existing sample tubing remains in place for future trace work but should not pose a problem for divers accessing the system. A full report on the re-lining project was at http://www.gue.com/Projects/WKPP/Updates/emerald-reline2006.html but now is up online: Dive Report We also have posted a gallery with extensive images of the Emerald cave system which was originally at http://www.gue.com/Galleries/WKPP/Leon/cheryl_august06/index.html but has since been moved to this: Gallery