Tag: wkpp

Wakulla Springs support dive

Things were a little behind schedule at Wakulla since they had hired a film crew and interviews were taking a little time. I was glad to have time for a little nap before my long support shift. I was paired up with KC, which is always a pleasure. We took 2 stages each and a scooter of our own. Our first trip was to take the deco rebreathers down to the trough at 120′, to take a couple bottles of air down to the troughs and fill them all, and to take food tubes to the habitats. We dropped off the food tubes and our extra stage first and then headed down to drop off the rebreathers. The flow was ridiculous. As we got near the 120′ trough our speed slowed dramatically, due to the added drag of carrying the deco rebreathers, which were _very_ heavy. KC helped me unclip mine, which was highly appreciated. Carrying those things in is no easy task, that is for sure. Every time I do it, it gets a little bit easier, but it still is really rough. We filled a trough and headed back up to meet and greet DR and JM, pick up their extra gear from them and the cave radio, and get a note from them about their time plan; they were at around 90 ft at the time. DR was listening to his Oceanic mp3 player while on deco. He passed it to me and I was amazed to hear how clear and how loud it was. WOW. I want one of those 🙂 We headed back to the surface. I had the (deceptively heavy for its size) cave radio and KC had their scooters and bottles. We didn’t bother doing any O2 on this trip up. Once at the surface, we grabbed another air tank to fill more troughs and headed back, grabbing our other stage at the habitat on the way. We had to retrieve the drop weights for JJ’s deco harness and take them back down to 120 to clip them off with the rebreathers. We filled a couple troughs with the remaining air and headed back up after a few minutes on O2. On our third trip we were to go down to meet and greet team 2 (JR and MG). We got a note from them. KC took all of JR’s gear (3 scooters and 3 bottles) and I took all of MG’s gear (same). We met up with the next support diver shift at 30′ and exchanged notes to relay what was going on to them. We had now done 3 repetitive, high-exertion dives with max depths in the 120′ to 160′ range and we had been in the water for about 3 hours toal, so we ascended slowly to 20′ then did about 10-12 minutes of oxygen there and then surfaced slowly. We had gotten a lot accomplished. All in all, I think we pulled a great support shift. It was exhausting, but very satisfying. It’s good to be a part of the team.

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-

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

further exploration

Today’s dive plan was to proceed at full speed until we got to the reel that was clipped off at the end of the line. We went in on a double stage and picked up the bottle and scooters that we had left clipped at the line that goes off into the new tunnel to the left. My scooter seemed really slow on the way in, despite being turned all the way up and despite my bottles being clipped off in good position and despite being fully stretched out behind the scooter. It didn’t make any sense for it to be slower – I will have to try to figure this out later. We dropped the first stage at the newly named and properly identified “first stage drop” which was at the big rock on the floor shortly before the end of the line. Heading onward from the end of the line was very exciting. All of us were hoping that this tunnel would just go on and on, continuing big and continuing with a lot of flow for a really long ways. Several leads along the way gave options for alternate passages should this one not hold up to expectations. There was one in particular up and to the right that I really wanted to check out, even though it looked smaller and siltier. I maintained an even position between CW who had the reel and JR who was taking the survey, checking tie offs and watching the line for slack along the way, conscious that tie-offs in this place had a tendency to disappear from crumble, and not wanting the line to bury itself deep in the silt. Just beyond a duck under restriction heading downward my light failed. I just held there while I clipped off that light and deployed my other primary light, thankful that I had one to deploy since we were still on the way in. All I could think of was that the bulb had dislodged again. By the time that I had switched to the other light, JR had caught up with me. I told him about having switched my light and we moved on. Shortly past that I dropped my second stage bottle where I saw the other one on the line, then moved forward to wait for him to catch up the survey to there and drop his stage, then moving on. After a short ways on, we turned the dive. According to CW it was getting low and wide, and continuing on when we were almost at turn anyway would leave us exiting on the line in poor vis. Having buddies who are safe and conscientious is so key to cave diving safely. We turned and headed out, picking up but not switching to our dropped stage when we got to it to save time and for extra safety, since pressure on the bottle we were breathing was the same or greater than the one we had staged. Ahead of that a bit, I found myself stuck for a moment. I stopped to try to figure out what was caught, trying to not move much while figuring it out. Just as I realized that it was the second stage from one of my regulators on a stage bottle that had come free of the stowing rubber band, it came free for me and was restowed for me, courtesy of JR’s attentiveness as a buddy. I had done the same for him the day before, except that he had not become stuck when I saw it hanging and restowed it. I had gotten a friend request and message on MySpace some time ago from a guy with a chip on his shoulder who asked me “why I would restrict myself” to cave diving only with team members, implying that I was somehow missing out by doing so. People like him will never know what they are missing out on. Having a TEAM of divers that are all on the same page makes all the difference. We did extend the line by about 700 feet but it didn’t keep going in the same fashion after that. Hopefully that means that we missed the main cave and subsequent dives on some of the leads we found will continue on. That will have to wait for later, as tomorrow’s dives would be focused on completing the basin surveys needed for ‘s report for the landowner.

yeah! found THE cave

Maaaaaan !!!!! Today was FREAKING AMAZING 🙂 ok, so we went in with 4 stages, plus the O2, scooters and 2 tow scooters… The idea was to _find_ the real cave – where the flow was higher and the cave was bigger and went on. We dropped the O2 and headed in, with me on the line and a diver on each wall, searching for the way on. Once a lead was spotted, we clipped off the tow scooters and the extra bottles and ran a line to check it out. It was a smaller passage, with a lot of silt on the bottom and silt on the ceiling and walls. It was small enough that, even without touching anything and just having the prop-wash of the scooter, the silt became *ridiculous* immediately. I could see the cone following behind the person in front of me, the black silt ghost stirred up from prop wash and particulate from the ceiling heading towards me ominously. I got on the line, which was right there anyway, in preparation for zero vis. did I say zero vis? I meant ZERO VIS!!! I continued forward in the diminished visibility until it got so bad that I thought my light had failed. I could see absolutely nothing – not my gauges, not my light (which would have otherwise been very bright)… nothing. I stopped and waited for a moment to see if it would pass but it only got worse. I stayed still, according to plan. After waiting a bit and seeing no improvement at all, I began to ease backwards, realizing that there would be no surveying going on in this scenario, and also realizing that would be heading back towards me soon and I should make way slowly. I eased backwards, an inch at a time, until I got to JR – only identified by his hand on the line that I was following. He took the signal and also inched backwards and I then held his place and continued to wait for a short bit, then also proceeded backwards. We all had PLENTY of gas and knew what to do. It was no cause for alarm – just follow the plan. I made it back to the tie off right at the entrance to the rabbit hole tunnel of no vis while maintaining tension on the line that had become slightly slack, then confirmed that JR was on the main line at the bottles and scooters and all was OK. Shortly after made it back to the tie off and we got back on the main line, dropping the stage and continuing in with 3 – looking again for the way on. A ways up we found a new lead off to the left and again dropped the tow scooters, switching to a full stage early so we would have full power to check this out. This was AMAZINGLY COOL. The cave was huge bore tunnel, with considerable flow. It was ON. We were all stoked! I was laughing in my regulator – this had more than redeemed the aborted rabbit hole tunnel excursion in blindness. Man, I knew we were all wishing we had brought that other stage too. Oh well – this ROCKED!!! As the person in the middle, I had to keep everyone together, so I had to hold back from pressing on full speed ahead, even though I badly wanted to rush and see what was around the next corner. Eventually we got to turn pressure and clipped off the reel. It all worked out really well because now we are totally set up for tomorrow’s dive. There are tow scooters, a full stage each, and a half empty reel in the cave waiting for us in the morning. THIS, MY FRIENDS, IS WHAT CAVE DIVING IS ALL ABOUT. what an awesome day 🙂

ticks

ok, daucus_carota had posted something today (it was filtered, sorry everyone else) that promped me to comment with this, but I was gonna post it anyway so I had to put it on my journal too – it was too funny to not record…

today, after the dive when we were leaving, geodynamo told me to be sure to check for ticks before we left (we were in the woods.)

I was like “I have never found a tick on me.”

He then told me he had picked two off before he put on his suit and said “ya hang out with me long enough, you’ll have some ticks, girl.”

whaaaaaat? I busted out laughing 🙂 too funny.

anyway, this morning I caught up on some much needed gear maintenence. today’s diving consisted of some basin surveys and connecting two sinks – all went very well. It was so cool when we got out because, just when I was remarking that we should have brought a hand truck to help carry the gear back to the vehicle, the landowner showed up with his riding lawn mover and a cart on the back to help us bring the gear back to the VEHICLE (I had accidentally written “car” on first pass – but was unmercifully corrected.) Too cool – again, “Diving Disneyland.” Way awesome and great timing – overall, a really laid back and easy day.