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.

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-