I haven't been to Florida for a year which is longer than normal but life sort of got in the way - or rather trips to Scapa, France, Holland and Mexico did!

Having timed our trip to coincide with two WKPP weekends, we were rather disappointed to learn prior to getting there that conditions in cave country were difficult. In addition to Wakulla and the other WKPP caves being undiveable, flooding meant that Manatee, Peacock and Little River were out too. It looked like Ginnie would be the mainstay of our trip. How wrong could we have been!

Day 1 Ginnie Springs - Berman Room

We arrive in High Springs and take the RBs to Halcyon for their service. They have done 150 or so hours now and needed Corey's attention. Bumping into Casey, he asks what our plans are for the week and then offers to come for a dive as he has his gear in the van outside and it’s a Friday which is definitely a dive day. We're certainly not going to say no although we have to pop back to EE to get scooters as Casey isn't particularly known for his attraction to swimming.

 

We had heard that flow had stopped for a while in Ginnie but it was back to the normal 50 million gallons a day by the time that we arrived in Florida. Gearing up was easy as the evening had started to cool - and I'd found a Sherpa too.



We went back to the Berman room beyond the Hinkle with Casey doing a great job of navigating blind. He has shipped so much his primary gear to so many places where the WKPP have projects that he had nothing left. We've all had new mask fogging issues - but 3400 feet back in Ginnie on a scooter by memory is a feat which is impressive if not to be recommended. I eventually persuaded him to take my back up mask and found that he could manoeuvre the scooter even more slickly when he could see

Day 2 Ginnie again - Ice room

We go to EE in the morning and chat to Paul and Bryce about where to go in Ginnie for a longer swim dive. We decide that two bottom stages is about the limit of what we want to swim in as pulling those plus an o2 bottle in through the ear is rather challenging and this is supposed to be fun. Paul mentions the Sherwood split and we plan to go there but just as we are finishing off he mentions that if we want to, we can go to try to find the Ice room on our way out - but 'no-one finds it on their first attempt'.

We go in slowly, pulling into the flow in the cave and head down the Hill 400. We jump off at around 900 feet and again quite quickly on to double lines, where we drop our first stage, We then head north past towards the siphon tunnel and the Sherwood split. It's a bit low in places and very silty so I'm glad we have lost one stage. Reaching the jump at 1670 feet though I decide that I would prefer to look for the Ice Room and, on asking Al if he is happy to keep swimming, he realises what I'm up to and agrees.

We press on and to be honest Paul's directions make it very easy for me. I spot the rock that he mentions in the floor at the 90 angle in the line turning right and look up to where he said that the jump line would be. It is not immediately apparent but I'm adamant that I'm looking in the right place and sure enough up high there is a line, hidden in a narrow horizontal channel.

Al puts the jump in and we drop our remaining stages at this point. The line back here is quite busy, we navigate past two Ts, each going off to the left, which are marked with permanent arrows so I'm quite happy not to drop cookies but press on straight ahead. Then into the Ice Room itself. We're quite pleased to have found it so easily - although it is Paul who takes the credit for great directions - we simply followed them. Al leads out and I see that he has cookied the two Ts - which makes me blush. I remind myself to be less sloppy in future.

On deco, tucked in the little alcove I like above the Eye, a mad sidemount diver swims past and shakes my hand. Uh oh - another loonie.
Al gestures to me that I have company. An RB diver has come up behind the ledge and tucked himself neatly into the space besides me. He starts piling up stones to see if he can block the bubbles from below - something to do whilst on deco. I have to go forward to Al at one point, can't remember why, and then try to manoeuvre back again. fat chance - three bottles and double 104s - back kicking against the flow of Ginnie. Bugger - that was a comfortable hole. Then I feel the RB diver pull on my fins and he pulls me back onto my ledge - what a gentleman!

The sidemount divers come past again. The mad one shouts and waves at me again too. They are very odd here in Florida! Finally we clear deco and drift out. We carry gear back to the truck and I suddenly realise that the mad starting eyes of the sidemount diver may have looked slightly familiar. I trot round to the other car park where I find that they belonged to Kevin Jones - Caver Kevin of DIR X who was taking Cris (Rubis) on her first sidemount dive. It was really good to see them both and we talked about going diving later in the week.

Day 3 and 4 - Jackson Blue

In the absence of a GUE class in overhead scootering, Al and I have been mentored through the development of our cave scootering. Scooters should not be underestimated for their ability to get you where you shouldn't be in a cave and I did my first cave scooter dive in Ginnie two years ago having swum it almost 100 times first. I'd done maybe 100 open water scooter dives too at that point - yet the flow and the cave was a harsh critic and I learned a lot that day.

Scootering with Any Kerslake, John Grogan and Jarrod, as well as a long list of others, gradually going further and deeper, has helped us to improve our skills but we still felt that we needed to address things formally in a way which would highlight anything we had missed. The GUE Overhead DPV class is still awaiting launch so I contacted Edd at Cave Adventures and asked him to set up an advanced cave DPV class for us - with the aim of covering scooters formally as well diving Jackson Blue which is a cave that I have not dived as much as I would have liked before.



Vultures await us

Nick Leone met us at Jackson and I quickly discovered that whilst Jackson was quite quiet the last time I dived it, flow is up rather a lot. Ginnie moves about 50 million gallons a day. Jackson was down at 30 or so million when I last dived it with Jarrod two years ago and is now a massive 120 million gallons a day. A scooter is needed as well as knowledge of the cave which on my second only dive in the system I did not have. It was hard going.

Al managed to keep his reputation as the scooter killer, getting through three scooters on day 1. None were actually his fault but it made for some very funny events and remarks underwater.

Nick was solid to dive with and great fun. We tried a few different things, a method of towing a dead scooter attaching the nose leash of a dead standard to the butt D ring of the guy with the live scooter. This was quite effective and I think I would use in a real failure although not when gas sharing as things get too tight.

Day 5 - Springboard

We went diving the Edd on Day 5. It should have been Indian but conditions meant that we had to head elsewhere. I still want to go to Indian but Springboard was a worthy dive - a great little cave in a swamp which a canoe or a 4x4 was needed to get to.

We went off road and found a sign which stated 'Trespassers will be prosecuted.' I mentioned to Edd that it was a relief that it wasn't 'trespassers will be shot' to which he replied 'Round here it is kind of the same thing'

After a long check for alligators we entered the water and strapped on two stages each and some O2. The cave was not that deep - average depth 20 metres or so but is was going to be quite long. There are essentially three sections to the cave and we pretty much did it all - Edd worked out afterwards that we had swum around 8000 feet. The main tunnel is a fissure crack which is at least 15 metres deep in parts and made up of bright white, very, very soft limestone. Swimming high up, able to see the drop off below was very cool indeed.



Al lead down one tunnel and found that in its undived state the damage from percolation was horrendous and quickly turned reasonable viz to almost none. Low areas were hard to navigate but rare - in the main it is quite big cave and stunning to dive. It is like a cross between peacock, telford and twin - for those of you that have dived those caves. White, tall and studded with sea fossils - what more can we want!

Day 6 - Day off. Well - a day getting gear back from Halcyon, having lunch with Jarrod, building RBs and resting up for the rest of the week actually. It is supposed to be a holiday you know!

Day 7 - Ginnie the Hinkle and two sails.

Al and I have to test the RBs after their service before we consider whether to press on with our plans later in the week. We would have preferred to take them to Peacock but it is closed and so Ginnie is the only real option. We decide that scooters are non negotiable for a dive with the RBs there due to CO2 issues and press in.

Getting comfortable was very hard indeed. the flow would catch the top of the unit and press the rest of it on to your lower back, forcing you out of trim and becoming extremely painful after a while. So painful I wondered if I had developed a kidney infection at the end of the dive until Al said his back was killing him too.

We made it to just before the Hinkle where the plan was to go and see mainland but frankly we had had enough. Coming out removed some of the pressure from our backs until my unit decided to catch the water and head in a different direction to my spine at one point. I've done more comfortable dives.

We headed back to EE and bumped into Mark Messersmith who laughed and said his first experience in Ginnie in an RB had been equally awful. It should not put us off - just highlight what a pain high flow can be in gear which is not particularly drag efficient. Oh well - more experience I guess. Every time I think I'm getting that cave it finds another way to whip my backside.

Day 8 - Alachua

Back to Open Circuit for a dive at Alachua Sink. Alachua is a guided only dive (100 cave dives post-full certification required) due to the extreme low visibility of the site and the depth. Access to Alachua is strictly controlled by the NSS-CDS as they are responsible for managing the property to protect the resources. We've not dived it before but had arranged to go diving with Bill Main (yes - Bill Hogarthian Main - the grand daddy of cave diving - and he offered to take us to Alachua. I thought all my birthdays had come at once.



The philosophy that we know today as DIR had its genesis in the Florida cave diving community throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was during this period that early cave diving pioneers and explorers such as Bill Main along with others, laid the underpinnings of DIR. Both Exley and Main began to understand the necessity to formulate a simplistic approach to equipment configurations when cave diving. The apocryphal story has it that originally this style was named Hogarthian after Bill Hogarth Main. The Hogarthian method referred to the equipment configuration only rather than procedures although the donate from the mouth principle is enshrined with it.

Going diving with Bill was a joy, an education and a humbling experience. This modest, unassuming guy who was diving in the year I was born had so much to tell. Diving Alachua was a pleasure too. It's bent rather a lot of divers due to the steps up from the dive, the extreme saw tooth profile and the depth. Not a great combination. Because the cave is not that often dived and policed quite hard, the beautiful stratified clay banks are almost untouched - despite their massive vertical profiles stretching perhaps 15 or so meters in depth.



We swam upstream almost to the end where the cave got smaller, siltier and more like twin cave in Marianna or the back of Ginnie. Deco was slightly interesting given Bill's choice of gases but we all exited without issue and steeled ourselves for the climb back to the cars. Bill mentioned that his main regulator is older than Alastair - which made for much merriment and then another diver who had arrived with his guide to dive the site came up and simply asked to shake Bill's hand. A living piece of history - but with very much emphasis on the living part - Bill is still doing dives which are beyond many and still loving every minute. An honour to dive with you Sir.

Day 9 - Eagle's Nest

Having stopped hating my RB after Ginnie mainly through being away from it, and reflecting on the fact that the dive in the Nest would be more like the conditions we are used to in the UK and France, we agreed to go dive Eagle's Nest after Kevin Jones invited us to join him.

Some agencies say that if you have never seen the Little River well pipe, done the Peacock Grand Traverse, and hit the Hinkle restriction, all on a swim dive, then you probably should not be diving here. We've done all three so I guess it's time. Except....

It's funny. The only map I remembered seeing of Eagle's nest is the one in Sheck Exley's book. It shows a pit with a short tunnel and a debris mound - and it is where Sheck got his first deepest cave dive world record. For this basis, I've never been that interested in diving it. I'm not into depth for depth's sake - only if there is something to see and a pit with a debris mound is not worth the effort in my view. I said as much to Kevin when he asked us - and he laughed.

"There is 2,250 foot of cave upstream" he said "About a 40 minute scooter round trip. Cave that is big enough to drive 4 large trucks side by side, boulders as big as buses." "You don't want to see that?"

Erm.....



So, predictably I guess, Saturday found us heading to Eagle's nest. Eagle's Nest is a large cave system on Chassahowitzka Wildlife Management Area property about the woods near Weeki Wachee.

The good news is that a good road has been provided all the way to the sink and a wooden deck and staircase have been installed for easy access. The bad news is that the sink is now 12 miles from the current access even though it is less than a mile from the closest paved road. Getting to the nest can be as hard as the dive and it is best to go with someone who had been there several times before since the hunting roads can become an incredible maze.

We geared up with Kevin and Freddie - Kevin's buddy - who unfortunately had a scooter failure prior to the dive so did not end up coming along. It was very, very hot. 100 degrees at one point which saw Kevin towelling off before the dive.

We headed in, Al and I on RB80s, Kevin on a KISS, each with 3 deco gases. We dropped O2 on the log that Kevin pointed and headed down. The trip down the shute was fun - Kevin headed down fast but after a solid week of diving we were protecting our ears and took it a little more slowly. Our eyes adjusted and we followed the line down to the top of the debris cone at around 38 metres where we dropped both our O2 and our 35/25. We had dropped down on 35/25 so had to switch to 15/55 for the dive which took a minute or two and then unpinned the scooters.



There is little chance of going wrong at Eagle's nest. The lines are almost idiot proof and the huge oversized line arrows even have upstream and downstream written on them. I guess it was designed for the deep air divers who explored this cave.

We headed down and down to the duck under at about 85 meters, maybe five minutes or so into the dive. This is where Sheck's record breaking dive, and therefore his map, had ended. We had only just begun.

First the super room - and my god it was super. A huge, huge room which the three of us managed to light by distancing ourselves abreast on the line. The tunnel loomed ahead, huge and blue with slabs which were the size of family cars lying about on the floor.

King's challenge was another huge room, although it could have been hard to judge where tunnel ended and room began such is the scale of this place. Al's light caught the ceiling and I stopped, marvelling at the sight of the scalloped cave ceiling so massive a force of nature had been required to make this wonderful place. I then caught sight of my gauge and saw it was 75 metres or so and stopping was maybe not that bright.

After 20 minutes of bottom time I thought about turning the dive. A 40 minute dive at 80 odd metres is quite a burden for decompression. I moved over to the line to read the distance and saw we had a bare 100 feet to go to the end of the line. Impossible. This huge cave cannot end in 100 feet.

But it did. Like someone had slammed a door shut. There was a small crack low down which if where they are looking to extend the cave line a little further but it pretty much ends as dramatically as it started. Kevin hollers like a redneck and scooters round in a neat loop - although a barrel roll would have been far more flash and we go out.



I'm supposed to lead out having been in position three on the way in but I don't want to. I'm selfishly enjoying the way that the others lights light up the immense space and am jealously guarding every minute, trying to commit it to memory.

About half way out Kevin starts to slow down. I look back and his scooter is stopping and starting. Hey ho - time to try that new way of towing I think - when I realise that he is fossil hunting.

A rock as big as a bus full of sand dollars, another full of shells and urchin spikes. We are at 75 metres, 30 minutes in to a 45 minute bottom time and we are fossil hunting. I check my gas and I've used 20 bar. My rebreather becomes my friend again.

Deco. Long. Worth it.

Deco from 36 to 21 is in the cavern roof - we find nooks and crannies to peer into and it passes quickly.

Deco from 21 to 15 is in the shaft. Not fun with so little room to move - we are stacked like pancakes. Kevin and I have a conversation via wetnotes with him on his back - cheeks puffed out like a hamster.

Deco at 6 is long. Very long - but they have at least installed a very large catfish in a hole in a tree trunk for entertainment. Kevin tries to attract it to his light head - and it bites it.


I ask Al for his wetnotes - and I write...

Don't want to dive tomorrow. Want to do something else. Can't top this.

He nods and I know he feels the same way.

Thanks to

Extreme Exposure - especially Paul who bent over backwards to help us.
Halcyon - Casey who is a pleasure to dive with and could not be more encouraging or helpful and Corey who again did all that he could to help us go diving.
Cave Adventures - Edd it was a pleasure, you and Stacey are the only way we want to dive the Millpond - you are a credit to the diving community.
Kevin - a good laugh and a very solid buddy who was a joy to have along. can't recommend him as a driver to get you home though

We can't wait to come back.