CCR Cave Course - Florida

Pulling the Jaw Out of a Deer
By Dr Mike



So Where Should I Learn to Cave Dive?

Mexico caves are stunning – but the shallow depths and up and down profiles would perhaps make it less Rebreather suitable than say Florida? Names such as Ginnie, Peacock, Eagles Nest, were as famous to me as names like Britannic or Doria. The attraction for diving at these famous sites, just to see them for myself, was a factor as much as anything. The RB friendliness of the area and the fact I had a business trip to the US that happened to coincide with the time that I wanted to go – clinched it. A good thing about Mexico is that the water is warm – Florida is (despite what some will say) dry suit-required diving.


The Preparation

Living in Asia I am used to diving in water temperatures from 26-30 degrees C so a dry suit is never something I had used. Realising that there are sites in cold water that I would want to dive one day I looked around for a dry suit. Dry suits are not something that you ever see in any of the dive shops around here, there is just no market for them – however there had been one hanging up as a window display for years in a local shop. I decided to chance my luck and asked the shop owner if it was for sale and if he would let me try it on. Amazingly, it was a perfect fit. He was highly amused that anyone would want to buy it and I picked it up for the equivalent of US$350. He explained, through bouts of laughter that it was a custom cut made by Bare for a customer about 5 years previously, the customer never came to collect it so he put it in the shop window as a display curio.

The Neoprene suit was new so it was in perfect condition apart from the neck seal, which had perished; I bought a new seal over the net and made a right mess gluing it in.

Next step was to learn how to dive a dry suit. Just donning the heavy dry suit was not easy in the tropics. There is a local swimming pool that is open in the slightly cooler evenings and I thought that would be a good place to get into the suit and try some basic dry suit skills Id read about in a book a friend lent to me.

So here I am at 7:30 at night in a swimming pool full of OW students and their instructors and I’m stepping into a dry suit and strapping on a MK15.5 rebreather to my back and a wearing a full facemask. To say I got some funny looks from the OW students and instructors would be an understatement. I brought my wife along and gave her two simple instructions. If I end up with my feet in the air and I stay that way fro more than 1 minute –alert someone, if I stop moving for more than 1 minute – alert someone. When I come out of the water UN ZIP ME QUICKLY!

It took deep control of my breathing and slow actions to get all the gear on and my rig sorted before stepping into the water. The temperature was stifling. Despite being 7:30 pm, the air temp was 30 degrees C and if I hoped the water would help to cool me down, I was to be disappointed – it was also 30 degrees C.

I was pleased to note that the dry suit was dry. I took some weight with me and placed it at the bottom of the pool then holding it with my hands I inflated my suit and inverted. With all the air in my feet, I had no problem turning over the right way. I also practiced slow horizontal ascents. Half an hour was more than enough to convince myself I could handle the dry suit at least enough to do an OW dive in it.

Climbing out of the water, I really started to heat up. I struggled to get out of my rig; I struggled to get over to my wife and frantically requested she unzip me. I really was close to blackout I was cooking inside.

My first dive using the dry suit was the following day, 68m for 45 mins on a local wreck.

I got better (read faster) at suiting and un-suiting in the tropical heat to the degree that it was no longer an issue. I also learnt the importance of not kneeling on sea urchins whilst wearing a dry suit. The wreck is one we are searching so I busied myself laying permanent lines but the penetration depth was sub 55m so I couldn’t really judge how I would find doing the same tasks in the shallower depths of Florida caves. Time would tell.


The Instructor

When choosing an instructor for any of my previous classes I have always tried to choose one that is doing the type of diving I want to do and using similar equipment. I wanted to do a CCR cave course – so that limited it to an IANTD (or ANDI) instructor who was also an active CCR diver.

I did my homework and came up with Martin Robson. He is a cave instructor for NACD, NSS-CDS, IANTD and TDI and does some interesting (read deep and nasty) CCR cave dives. He appeared to be well respected and liked and over our discussions on the phone, he didn’t strike me as a bullshitter. I explained that I wanted to do a cave course and then afterwards do some ‘fun’ dives.

There was to be another student joining us, Steve. Steve was already trained (by Martin) OC cave and MOD2 CCR, he wished to do his MOD3 CCR and, by doing it in a cave, could transition from OC cave to CCR cave under Martins instruction.


Getting There

As I loaded my heavy gear cases onto the weigh in scales at the airport for my flight to Minneapolis, I was glad I was flying business class with the extra weight allowances that affords. Despite being 70Lbs over the limit, I wasn’t asked to pay any excess so I was happy. I had taken the precaution of removing the tank valves from the Acme bomb like spheres that the MK15.5 uses. I had also attached a note on the unit explaining what it is and that the tanks are empty-valves removed.

I wasn’t surprised when I later unpacked to see a note from the airport saying they had inspected the box.

After finishing my business meeting in Minneapolis, I drove north 20 mins or so to meet Ron Benson at Goingunder dive centre. I had corresponded with Ron previously about a trip to dive in Lake Superior. At Rons place, Chuck was going to replace my neck seal and swap the neoprene wrist seal s over to latex (my skinny wrists led the neoprene ones to leak a little)

Chuck did a great job on the seals. I also bought a few items such as condom catheters (glad to see not everything is bigger in the US) and a 7mm neoprene wetsuit for use back home – or for use in Florida if I found I just couldn’t handle the dry suit buoyancy in caves.

The next day I was at Minneapolis airport checking in my gear for a short flight down to JAX. Interestingly the x-ray machine is next to the check in so I could hear the customs staff talking. They didn’t like what they saw on the screen as my Rebreather box passed through. They opened up the box and I could hear them laughing as they read my ‘dear customs person’ note explaining what it was and about the tanks being empty. They swabbed it for explosives and at that point, it crossed my mind if my EOD rig had ever been used in EOD or if any residues from the dozens of munitions I have handled, disturbed in wrecks had lingered. Apparently not.

I wasn’t as lucky in MSP with the excess to the acceptable sum of US$50.

When I landed in JAX I found myself being somewhat disappointed that everyone wasn’t walking around in T-shirts with cave diving logos or carrying dive bags around with them. The nice lady at Hertz gave me the keys to a very nice Korean copy of my old car back home and I set off into the fading evening light on a 3 hour drive cross country to Luraville.

Monday morning saw me at High springs at Extreme exposure buying line arrows and a pair of the world most expensive dry suit gaitors (I figured the duct tape I had used previously just wouldn’t look cool enough for Florida caves where I half expected to get verbally abused by GI3 himself on my choice of strokey dive apparel)

A quick stop at Salvos just down the road then I headed to Luravillie and Diveoutpost that was to be my home for the next two weeks.


Diveoutpost

When I met Cathy at Diveoutpost, I immediately liked her. She is a lovely friendly lady who also likes a good mickey take. She set me up in one of her trailers and introduced me to John a great bloke and an accomplished side mount diver whose dive skills are only dwarfed by his modesty.

Martin and Steve wouldn’t be arriving until late that night so I busied myself getting my gear ready. It was at this point things started to go horribly wrong. I had been diving the hell out of my rig for months and it had proven indestructible – here now, the day before my cave course starts and things are not looking good. I don’t think there was an o-ring anywhere on the rig that wasn’t leaking. The biggest problem though was dil leaking out of the Whitey valve that many have fitted to MK15 series to turn off the ADV and/or plumb in off-board gas. The leak was coming out of the stem of the valve so if I couldn’t fix it I would not be able to dive the rig (without finding some stainless steel tubing and swage lock fittings to bypass it – and that would be very unlikely in deepest darkest North Florida)

I stripped the valve down and was happy to find that the shaft seals were not proprietary shaped seals but in fact were just plain Teflon washers. Tightening up the seal collar a bit was all that was necessary…I breathed a sigh of relief.

With my rig set up, scrubber and tanks filled, all I had to do now was calibrate the unit. At this point and baring in mind I had been diving the unit every week right up to this trip, I was somewhat frustrated to see one of the cells had just died – dead.

Luckily I had a new one in my spares box (which now also houses a piece of stainless tubing and some swage lock fittings too) a few moments with the soldering iron and the rig was back in fighting form.

Cathy had lit the bomb fire and she called me over to join some fellow divers for an evening meal beer and chat. One of them was a nice chap called Paul Heinerth. I asked Paul what a typical cave dive was on a cave course – he answered about 45mins long. I was soon to find that things are a little different on CCR cave courses.


The Course

I woke momentarily some time in the early hours of Tuesday morning when Steve and Martin arrived but soon went back to sleep. The next morning after introductions and a trip to see the ladies at the Luraville country store for breakfast and coffee we were loading the car and heading off to Royal springs for a try dive.

My first thought when I saw the spring was yuck! Are we really going to dive in that hole in the ground? It just seamed so wrong. No beach, no rolling waves – just pondweed and turtles sunning themselves on dead branches sticking out of the water.

We entered the water and on the surface Martin instructed us on how to go through our pre-dive safety check drill. Bubble check, Bail gas donation, primary and back up lights, Reels, arrows, cutters etc. We also verified our dil and O2 pressures and noted what our turn gas pressures would be.

I assumed that the purpose of this dive in the spring was to give Martin the chance to evaluate my general diving ability before going into an actual cave (Royal springs has nasty silty cave but mostly nobody goes in there). Prior to the dive I asked Martin what set point he would want me to use (The MK15.5 higher set point is not user changeable underwater) He suggest 1.3. At Royal Martin explained that he just wanted us to swim around an old pallet that was lying at the bottom. Easy enough I thought until I got down there and realized it was only 9m deep (set point was 1.3 so the solenoid will be firing a lot and that wont help buoyancy).

Things started to go pear shape immediately. I just couldn’t do it. My buoyancy was all over the place. I guess I was varying up and down about 1m. My HUD was shinning blue (low ppo2) the whole time so I was manually injecting trying to bring it up, whilst trying to precision swim around this pallet in only 9m of water, with the solenoid firing constantly. The solenoid wasn’t getting the set point up enough before I would be blowing out the loop because I was ascending for some reason. The solenoid being open all the time trying to bring the loop ppo2 up didn’t help my buoyancy. I also seemed to be putting gas in and out of my wing continuously. Not being used to diving a dry suit didn’t help my buoyancy – but it still didn’t explain why it really was as bad as it appeared to be? It certainly appeared far worse than the dives I had done dry in Asia before I left. I was VERY frustrated and angry with myself.

I guess out of pity Martin decided to stop the humiliation and he tied some line across some submerged dead tree branches and got us to practice following the line with eyes closed both alone and in touch contact. Before doing this drill I stopped and did an O2 flush. This pushed the ppo2 above set point so the solenoid wasn’t firing all the time and that made controlling the buoyancy easier – but it still was inexplicably bad.


Dive 1 Royal Springs
Max depth 9m
Duration 49 mins

When we left Royal I was fuming mad with myself. When it comes to diving I am my own worse critic. I rarely have what I would call a good dive. I expect a lot from myself and the fact that here I was supposedly starting a cave diving course and I felt that I had exhibited the basic buoyancy control of a first day OW student!

I imagined Martin thinking to himself ‘what have I got here, I can’t take this guy into a cave!’ I half expected him to cancel the course. If he wanted to I told myself I would just have to dive wet and then there would be no issues with buoyancy (just with hypothermia!)

As we drove back to Diveoutpost I expressed to Martin and Steve how badly I felt about how I had performed. They were gracious and didn’t say much but I felt bad, and somewhat confused because my buoyancy really had been all over the place. As we drove back Martin said that perhaps the fact that gas was poring out of my inflator button might not have helped – He explained that I had been, at times, loosing gas from my wing inflator – With the tunnel vision that often comes when someone is doing a drill on a course I hadn’t even noticed the bubbles. As he was telling me this I had to strain to hear him over the sound of my wing OPV opening in the box next to me and gas rushing out. My wing had self-inflated! So could it be that my buoyancy was so bad because of my self-inflating wing – or am I really that crap? That night after a vinegar soak, scrub, new o-rings and reassemble of the inflator valve I knew that tomorrow I would have no excuses.

The next morning after breakfast we spent some time between the trees at Diveoutpost running lines, following with eyes closed and touch contact. Martin explained to us all about line arrow and non-directional marker use, how to tie a jump line, a primary and secondary tie off etc.

Full of anticipation and excitement we set off for the 5 min journey down the road to my first real cave dive site - peacock.

After carrying out our pre dive safety checks and noting our gas start and turn pressures Martin indicated the dive order.

On the dive in Steve was to lead, then me and Martin was to follow. Steve tied in the primary and off we went down the chimney. I immediately felt different. My buoyancy was fine – no different than when wet. It was a complete reversal from the day before.

I couldn’t believe how interesting the cave was. Every bit was different – no 2 parts the same. No straight lines, the water Gin clear. As Martin had explained to us every once and a while and especially at or after change points Steve would signal to me with his light and I would respond. We swam, and swam and swam. I soon began to realize one significant difference between cave and wreck diving. Unlike a wreck in a cave you keep horizontal trim from the moment you get in the cave to the moment you exit. At first this was tiring. Another exhausting thing is the fact that you have to focus the whole time on buoyancy trim and position in the cave – you cannot just switch off for an instant. This can make a cave dive as mentally exhausting as physically if you’re not used to it.

I REALLY was having a blast on this dive. We seamed to be swimming for ages. Up clay banks, through restrictions, all the time through gin clear water and within sight f the gold permanent line.

We jumped onto the Olsen line went past the offset T at Pothole sink and before I knew it we were coming up a stone lined incline and I could see light. We were at Olsen sink.

As we started to ascend the incline I checked my comp for deco. This is another difference between wreck and cave the fact that in a cave you often deco in the cave so you have to be aware at all times of your depth and deco obligations.

As we surfaced at Olsen I had a huge smile on my face! I was happy – I was hooked. I knew then that Cave diving was for me. We couldn’t climb out easily from Olsen sink, we just stayed in the water wings inflated and Martin debriefed us critiquing our performance. We needed to improve our light signalling and I had a tendency to swim too close to the bottom (I always have done in wrecks too) I needed to get used to swimming higher in the cave. One funny thing that happened during the dive was that I replied a few times to Steve’s OK signal with the signal for Slow down. I had found the pace doable but as I didn’t know the cave I would have felt more comfortable a little slower. Three times during the end of the dive when he had asked me OK I had replied slow down, and each time it just seamed to me that he was speeding up more! Martin explained that because of my proximity to the bottom of the cave my hand movements when I was doing the slow down sign was enough to waft the water and stir up the silt below me, something I wasn’t aware of from my vantage point. As we discussed it we had to laugh when Steve said he saw my signals but each time he mistook my slow down signal for a hurry up signal! He said, he kept thinking, each time he sped up, that I must be some kind of speed freak – and just how fast do I want to swim!


Dive 2 Peacock Springs
Max depth 21m
Duration 40mins

Once we had finished our pre-dive safety checks including checking our gas pressures and confirmed we had not reached 1/3rds we descended for our journey back. This time I was to lead. The head cold I had been developing now blocked my sinuses to give me some pause on descent, so I took of slowly down the sink into the cave.

This was to be my second cave dive but with my buoyancy issues greatly sorted and the fact I knew the cave a little and could judge the going I was very very much at home in the cave. In many ways it felt safer and easier to me than many of the wreck dives I’m usually doing because they are in deep confined very silty narrow wrecks often working in low visibility.

I set off feeling confident and really enjoying myself. This is what it was all about; this is why I came here. My Rebreather was performing 100%, I was feeling pumped, the cave conditions were terrific, this was the best. I checked back as instructed regularly with the OK light signal, Steve returned it - OK. I followed the gold line back, Steve clearing the jump reel behind. I paid close attention to Martins instructions and critique at Olsen and made sure my position was higher in the cave. When I got to near the entrance where I thought we had tied on the primary I couldn’t see it. I was a little confused as to which way to go; even though the gold line continued vertically up the chimney I was looking for the tie off. I asked Steve where it was and he pointed up the chimney. It seams obvious now but at the time I am not sure why I didn’t see it. Guess I was too focused looking for where I thought the primary was. When we did get to the actual primary tie off Steve removed it and we ascended. When we exited at Peacock I knew I had had a truly great dive. I was smiling even more widely than I was at Olsen.

I was therefore somewhat taken aback when Martin started scolding me.

He asked me how long it had taken us to get from Peacock to Olsen – I answered 45mins

He then said, how long has it taken us to get back with you leading? - I checked my computer….22 mins! Opps!

Basically I had swam at my normal (I’m having fun here this is great) swimming pace on exiting when I was leading, and both Steve and Martin were complaining that they found it too fast a pace. Steve is such a nice guy he commented that he found it highly amusing that on the first dive I had been requesting he slow the pace and yet on the second dive I had, as he put, it ‘shot off like a scolded cat!’

Martin complained that at that pace he had nearly cooked himself in his thick under suit. He then went on to explain the two problems with this pace. The first obviously was that it is important to develop a correct team swim pace that suits all. The second point was that speed in a cave could lead to more silt disturbance. So for me more than anything the lessons learnt from the first two dives is team pace setting, positioning and light signalling?

I was relieved that my buoyancy issues appeared to have been cleared up with the servicing of the wing inflator. As well as being my first real cave dive this dive was also the first time I used a pee valve – successfully as it turned out.

We headed back to Diveoutpost to prep our units and grab some food.


Dive 3 Peacock Springs
Max depth 20m
Duration 29mins

We went back to Peacocks the next day for a much longer dive. This time we went along the Peanut Line, through the breakdown room, past the cross over jump (on the right hand side), along and through the peanut restriction (high bank of mud and duck under), we put in a jump onto the Olsen line and turned left to Challenge Sink. The surface interval was spent like before in the sink where Martin debriefed us and critiqued or performance. We were close to 1/3rds O2 so it was fortunate that we had made it to Challenge. Again we staid in the water in the small steep sided sink during our short surface interval.


Dive 4 Peacock Springs
Max depth 16
Duration 86 mins

Our next dive was the return dive from Challenge sink. This dive seamed much faster than the incoming dive because of the current. As we exited from the peanut tunnel at about 400’ from the exit Martin gave us a simulated primary light failure drill. In pitch darkness and using the touch contact techniques Martin has taught us the previous morning at Dive outpost, Steve and me made our way along the gold line through restrictions twists and turns all the way to the cavern zone. Being used to bad viz I rather enjoyed the exercise and felt relaxed. I think because of the humming he could hear coming from us that Martin felt that we were not taking it seriously. We were just coming to where daylight was penetrating when my HUD display indicated low ppo2 (because we had been ascending). I squeezed Steve’s arm as instructed to indicate halt and brought my hand back to inject a bit of O2, whilst the other hand stayed in contact with the line.. When I felt for Steve again he had gone! It appears that he had mistaken my halt signal for a sign that we could stop the exercise because we had enough light to see. Martin was not amused and we were informed we had to redo that drill again.


Dive 5 Challenge -Peacock Springs
Max depth 17
Duration 83 mins

The next day we set off for Ginnie Springs.
Once we had cleared security, and we were all sporting a little pink paper bracelet, we geared up for the first dive through the Devils Ear. The flow out of the ear was really fun and made dropping down and putting in the line a lot of fun. A misunderstanding had me tying in the primary at the wrong place and running the line in the wrong position crossing the cave, but that was soon remedied and off we went. We followed the gold line in the ceiling using the pull and glide technique out of the high flow and on until The Lips. I felt and probably likely looked a bit like Spiderman suspended upside down clinging to the roof of the cave as I pulled and glided along. Passing through into the Junction Room, along the left hand side of the big block. We took a left jump onto the Hill 400 line, and pushed far down that line until we passed The Bats. We had talked to a lady whilst gearing up who had said her husband was doing a dive to the Bats and back and I assumed at that time the Bats was some kind of rock formation. Turns out the Bats are, well, bats. Someone has strung a load of black plastic bats along some line inside the cave. We continued along on to the Hiller line when I received an alert light signal from Steve and I turned to see his primary light had failed. We had to turn the dive and exit. We were at 2000’. This was a great long (150 mins) dive and Ginnie; I think I enjoyed it even more than Peacock. I had however also enjoyed a gargling loop all through the dive. I cleared it a few times but it came back. I suspected a leak, but the negative test was fine. I would have to live with it until I get back to Diveoutpost tonight.


Dive 7 Ginnie Springs
Max depth 30m
Duration 150 mins

After a crap take away lunch from the shop we got ready for out next dive at Ginnie. This time we would go through the Devils eye and Steve was to lead. The current was really blowing. Steve was struggling to lay the line, and was taking flack from Martin. At one point he had managed to get himself on the wrong side of the line he was laying whilst being tight up against a tight area of the cave. He appeared to be battling with his stage tank and unclipped it to bring it and himself over the line. I could see from my vantage point behind that it was a struggle. Once the primary was tied in Martin swapped our positions and I took lead. The going was great and the cave beautiful. We were pulling and gliding and in areas it was blowing. Just after the lips I got an attention signal from Steve, I turned to see him come off the loop onto OC! After a couple of breaths he went back to the loop and signalled OK. I asked him to wait a moment and we stopped there for a while to get his breathing rate normal and make very sure he was 100% that he was fine to continue. We continued but I slowed the pace right down. He felt at the time, and clearly rightly, that it was a bit of CO2 retention from the struggling against the flow and the hassle of the line laying in the current.

At a restriction we stopped to allow a couple of exiting scootering divers pass and then we jumped from the Junction Room onto the Mud Tunnel then Expressway, Bone Tunnel and back onto the main line. We then reversed the circuit out.

My loop was gurgling nicely, but it was manageable. I would really have to find and fix the leak tonight for sure.

After our dive at Ginnie we attended the NCAD social/BBQ gathering.


Dive 8 Ginnie Springs
Max Depth 29m
Duration 98 mins

That night when I squeezed the water from the well-soaked moisture pads in my unit my hands were burning from the caustic cocktail. Clearly this was more than a minor leak and I had to trace it. Half the scrubber was soaked, but I hadn’t noticed an increase in WOB. On investigation I discovered that one of the barrel o-rings in my BOV was half missing. This was letting water into the exhale side of the loop and into the scrubber base. Fortunately Martin (and Cathy) came to my rescue with a new set of o-rings from Cathy’s large collection of various o-rings she stocks. The damaged o-ring because of its position was not showing up in a negative vacuum test.

The next day we took a day off diving to attend the NCAD annual conference where I met some old faces and some new.

The next morning a short car ride brought us to the beautiful setting of Little River. Fighting the current we laid line down to about 12m, where we tied off and followed the main line until the main tunnel. Jumped left into the Mud Tunnel then later back onto the main line. Pull and glide was the propulsion method we most commonly used in the tighter high flow areas. The cave is beautiful with twisty dark red coloured corridors and smooth stone lined planes.

Further on, we jumped onto the Shortcut (once I had found the jump after swimming over it the first time without noticing) from the Merry-go-round and Serpentine line junction. Briefly we entered the Florida Room before turning back and reversing the route. At one point as we were exiting Martin commented that after turning we were both going through the cave with the flow like sea horses – not nearly horizontal enough.

We had a blowy exit from the cave, deco-ing mostly under the shelter of an outcrop at 7m in a tight spot before the head pool. We died earlier on this dive again because we let go of the line when we were pulling out a jump and things got a bit messy in the strong current. After the dive Steve slipped off the bench in his rig and had to be helped up... I would have helped naturally but I was busy taking pictures.

Something hadn’t seamed right on this dive and it took me a while to realize I t was the complete lack of gurgling in my loop. I realized then that the BOV leak must have been around for months and getting progressively worse. I had assumed I was just drooling more, as I got older.


Dive 9 Little River
Max Depth 30m
Duration 91 mins

To get into Cow Spring we had to collect the key from Cathy. It’s a small spring and less developed that the more popular peacock.

It is a beautiful site though, surrounded by trees, and apparently snakes.

We went for a short swim in upstream Cow mainly to focus on skills.

I took the lead in laying the primary line. We swam as far as we could go given the size of the cave then turned. Martin brought us back to the primary and sent Steve to the surface before taking me back into the cave. We went back some 300’ or so and he took me away from the line and asked that I turn off my primary light and perform a line search as he had instructed us to do earlier that day.

With both our lights off I was in complete darkness. I knew, because we had been following it, where the line was positioned in the cave. I knew it was on the floor and not in the ceiling or high on either side for example. I felt around where I was and found a lump of rock that would be good for a tie off and I tied on my search reel. Then positioning myself to what I felt was 90 degrees to the cave direction I slowly moved forward whilst gently feeling for the line. After a short while I found it and secured the search reel to it. I then, as Martin had previously instructed, had to place a non-directional arrow on the main line to indicate the exit direction. I ran my hands gently across the floor of the cave looking fro scalloping that would indicate flow direction but I couldn’t find any, so I brought my hand up and held it in front of me to see if I could feel the flow. As we were diving in a siphon once I knew the direction of flow I knew the exit direction. I placed the marker on the line and turned my light back on. Martin was happy. I exited the cave and it was Steve’s turn. Whilst Steve was doing his drill I was on the surface of the sink in darkness surrounded by unspeakable monsters – it was a scary place to be in alone ant night.


Dive 10 Cow Spring
Max Depth 11m
Duration 45 mins

The next morning we drove to Madison Blue.
Madison is a really nice cave with a small entrance you have to practically crawl on your stomach to enter. Steve took the lead and we dived along the left hand side of the cavern onto the main line. Went a little beyond the Half Hitch around 800’ before turning.

On the return trip Martin indicated we were to do some stage removals and air sharing drills. He placed us some distance apart in the cave over the main line. Steve had to close his eyes, bail off to OC, take and hold one breath from OC then swim towards me with his eyes closed. Upon reaching me with eyes closed he was to locate my OC reg on my stage start to breathe from it and ten swap it with his stage. Unfortunately I was in the habit of setting up my stage tank with the 2nd stage on the inside where its kept clear of sharp rusty wrecks or silt. Steve, expecting the reg to be on the outside of the stage tank had trouble finding it. He said afterwards that he was close to having to go back to his unit to take a breath before he finally found it.

When it was my turn I found Steve’s reg and as instructed turned to exit the cave whilst breathing from it. After a few breaths thought the gas stopped flowing. I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first then I realized Steve had turned his tank valve off – sweet revenge I guess


Dive 12 Madison Blue
Max Depth 21m
Duration 86mins

I took the lead on our second dive in Madison Blue we jumped to the right off from the main line, heading towards the Banana Room and Godzilla Room. It got lower and was a lot of fun pulling and gliding through the cave. Steve had recently changed his trim weights and that was giving him some buoyancy issues so we turned the dive.

Steve had also managed to flood his dry suit in this dive. As we were taking our gear off he asked Martin to help him pull off his dry suit by the feet. The scream of shear agony alerted me to the fact that Steve had forgotten to detach his condom catheter. I would have helped but I was too busy taking pictures of the event


Dive 13 Madison Blue
Max Depth 18m
Duration 48mins

The next day we would be diving Morgan sink (60m) so we needed some Trimix. We went over to see Bill Rennaker at Cave excursions and passed him dil and stage tanks to fill.

After collecting our gas from Bill and analyzing it we set off for what was to be a long search for Morgan sink.
The instructions we had were a bit vague but eventually we found the location of the sink which ended up looking like it was in the middle of someone’s private land.

Morgan was a deeper dive and the water was considerably colder than we had seen so far. The visibility in the head pool was low leading to a very silty vertical chimney dropping out the bottom of this chimney led to a cool tunnel at depth of 55m. Once out of the chimney the visibility improved but still was not as clear s Ginnie or peacock (but still gin clear to my eyes). We followed the cave passage for a while before the growing deco obligation prompted us to turn back. Coming back up the chimney was interesting as it was too narrow for all of us to deco at the same depth. We had to be careful not to cause debris s to fall down onto Martin who was decoing below us at the bottom of the chimney.

Once into the head pool and at the 6m stop the cold really started to bore into me. After 40 mins I was shivering violently. I upped my deco ppo2 to max to shorten the hang and got as much air into my suit as possible without floating up to the surface – but I was still painfully cold. Once my deco was clear I indicated I was ascending but Martin called me to a halt signalling that it is best practice that the team stays together on deco until every one is clear. I indicated I was cold he-understood-I surfaced.

I have never been so cold before in my life. I sat on the steps with violent shivering spasms running through me. I soon warmed up, but knew that before tomorrow’s deeper longer dive at Eagle nest I would need to get some extra insulation.


Dive 14 Morgan Sink
Max Depth 55m
Duration 87 mins

This was what it was all about. This was why I was here. I wanted to dive Eagle nest and I was going to get my chance – I could hardly wait.

Whilst driving around the forest looking for the right track to take to Eagles Nest we came across some hunters and Martin and Steve jumped out to ask them directions. Here’s this guy dressed in camouflage gear bristling with an array of weaponry, hands covered in blood, mouth full of tobacco (and T-shirt covers in tobacco drool) –and I’m thinking…I’ll stay in the car!

Martin asked him what he was doing and he replied “Just pulin the jaw outa this deer” Which I presume was what the blood soaked bolt cutters were for.

Eagle’s Nest is in a beautiful setting even the thick pondweed covering it could detract from its beauty. After our normal pre-dive safety checks we descended with Steve leading. At the bottom of the sink is a small chimney barely big enough to get two divers in vertically. Dropping down through the chimney it suddenly just opens out all around further than my HID light could penetrate into a huge room. At the bottom of this room is a debris cone at around 36m. We dived upstream to the Super Room area. The cave is spectacular. It would be possible to drive several double Decker busses through it in places. Swimming under huge towering arches of rock I wished I had brought my video camera – or for that matter any camera. All too soon we ran out if time turning the dive just under the drop to 80-90m.

The 6m stop on this dive was 46min but I felt no cold with the additional thermal protection I was wearing (My thick fleece jacket over my Polartec)

We almost hit a tree or two on the way back through the forest trail when we lost traction for a moment on the dry dirt surface. Screams of “We are all going to die!” and much nervous giggling followed.

On the 3-hour drive back to Diveoutpost we all agreed we wanted to come back the following day and dive upstream Eagles Nest. We dropped our dil tanks off at Rennakers for collection in the morning.

That evening Cathy had organized a special party and we got back to find the fire burning and food being laid out on the tables. It was a great way to end a great day.


Dive 15 Eagles Nest
Max Depth 78m
Duration 114 mins

At Eagle’s Nest this time Steve led us to the Lockwood Tunnel. I was just rubber necking the whole time taking in the beauty of this huge cave. I was brought to a sudden halt when I saw graffiti carved into the roof of the cave. What kind of a person would do a dive sub 60m in a cave just to write ‘I woz here’ in the soft limestone? I don’t understand people. We turned the dive at the rocks that lie at around 60m and rise to 55m. Shortly after turning Steve indicated my secondary light was on. I tried to turn it off but the head of the scout light wouldn’t move. The batteries were in need of replacement anyway. We had another long deco hang, the last stop being around 56mins long.


Dive 16 Eagles Nest
Max Depth 70m
Duration 135 mins

This day was a bit of a treat as we were going to dive in the less visited Alachua Sink. To dive here you need to go with guide. We were fortunate that Cindy Butler was happy to take us. She dove in her side mount gear and took us down through the tannic brown water out if the silty head pool and upstream to the start of Dana’s Room (needs to be verified). The water was really silty and tannic for the first 20-30m opening out into clear visibility cave with beautiful mud banks. Steve led the dive followed by Cindy then me. Steve turned the dive when it became too tight. After the dive we took Cindy for lunch to thank her for her time and she entertained us with stories of her diving experiences.


Dive 17 Alachua Sink
Max Depth 48m
Duration 68 mins

We had planned on doing a mega dive today, a double traverse from Peacock but alas when I checked my flight time we realised we didn’t have time. Instead we did a short dive in Orange Grove Sink. We went up towards Challenge Sink and turned when Martin indicated that both of us had headaches and shortness of breath from high CO2. We both bailed to OC to take some sanity breaths before going back to the loop and running semi closed. We were about 200’ from the exit, I was leading still running semi closed when Steve’s attention signal alerted me to the fact we had lost Martin. Steve started giving slow attention signals with his light back into the passage behind us. After a few moments with no success I clipped on a non-directional marker to the main line (to indicate our start point for a search, and noted the time my gas pressures and scrubber usage time in my wet notes) we then, whilst still running semi closed, began a lost diver search. Steve led the way and I was scanning the side passages for signs of silt disturbance. Steve took us beyond the point he last saw Martin and stopped, placed a non-directional marker on this line and turned back towards me. I was a little surprised, as we hadn’t spent more than a few minutes searching. As we came back to the search start point I saw some silt suspended in the water at the entrance to one of the small side passages so I signalled to Steve, tied on a search line and ran it across to the passage, still running semi closed. It was a dead end. When I returned to the main line Martin was there waiting for me. We exited the cave and made our way up into the cavern where Martin wrote on his wet notes “The general idea is to actually find the lost diver – but congratulations you have passed”.


Dive 18 Orange Grove
Max Depth 21m
Duration 66mins


Summary

I really enjoyed the course. It was probably one of the best trips I’ve done. I learnt a lot from Martin and enjoyed his and Steve’s Company. I met some really nice people and dived some great sites that I probably never would have got to do ordinarily.


What Did I Learn Most From the Course?

• For sure one cant help but improve ones buoyancy and trim if you spend 21 hours continuously doing so in the tight confines of a cave.
• Light signals, team diving and general line laying skills were certainly improved.
• I learnt that caves are more beautiful and more interesting than Wrecks
• I highly recommend Martin Robson (eau2.com) to anyone who is thinking of doing a CCR Cave course.
• I will certainly be heading back to Florida next year, if anyone wants to join me, or if we could organise a group to go together many costs (such as hire car, accommodation etc) can be shared.

Many thanks to Steve Walker for the dive details I always forget to record.


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