Peacock Springs - Aug 28 - North FL Cave Trip

[scububa]

Dove with terrapinken and DDB. Drove all night. (Okay, I rode all night, they did the driving :-) Checked in and we went over to the spring.

We got into the water about 9:30 a.m. to dive Peanut. It poured rain as we geared up. Overall a nice dive. The basins are a bit murky. Once in the system, not bad at all. Bob led, then Ken and me. we went back to about 1450'. I turned the dive just short of thirds. A couple of cramps going in, didn't want to suffer coming out. 62 min. Max 55', avg 38' 71 deg water. 78 deg air. Rainy.

Nice long interval. Back in at P1 for a dive towards Olsen sink. Got in about 12:34. 42 min, Max 67', avg 50' water temp 71 deg, air up to 86 deg. Sun came out and humidity dropped to 50%, very nice. I led, Bob, then Ken. Dove to thirds with remainder of first set of doubles. About 850' back. (We were conserving tanks, I guess. We only brought 26 cylinders!

Great day of diving. Fills, showers, dinner and grocery. Oh, of course a couple of drinks.

More to follow. Plan is to dive thru Sept 5th.

[b1gcountry]

I will be at JB on Sunday and Monday, where are you guys going to be?

Tom

[DeepDiverBob]

We will still be in Luraville...wont be to JB until Friday and Sat.

Further reports to follow...just stopped in for fills.

[theskull]

Keep the reports coming, dudes.

Dive safe,
theskull

[DeepDiverBob]

Keep the reports coming, dudes.

Dive safe,
theskull

If you insist...

OKay, Day had us over in Orange Grove. The plan was simple, just run the main line until thirds. Ken ran the primary, and did a very interesting job of it, and I will leave it at that. The pool at OG was very tannic. Reminded me a lot of the lake at CB. However, as you dropped down closer to the opening, the water cleared up and was crystal clear on the inside. We ran the line as planned, and turned the dive when one team member hit thirds. We left the primary line in for a second dive. Run time was 75 minutes, 67 max depth.

Dive 2, we dropped back down into OG, and this time made the jump into the distance tunnel. Not sure how, but we was able to run this tunnel for a very long run, I would estimate a good 300-400 foot further that we was able to run it last December when we was here. The tunnel was very dusty, and you could tell it wasnt used very much. We turned the dive slightly before thirds, just to play it safe. We knew we would be coming out in vis a little less than what we went in with. Excellent dive, 95 minutes run time, max depth 68 feet and we did pull the main reel after this dive.

Dive 3, we went back to Cave Excursions, and got some more gas, and headed back to Peacock for one more dive. We wanted something somewhat short, and easy, but still wanted to practice running lines. So we agreed to I would run this dive, running our way towards Olsen, but making the jump to the cross over tunnel, then the second jump over to the peanut tunnel, and exiting. Dive went as planned, and we left the jumps in over night, knowing we would be back the next day. Run time was 60 minutes, max depth was 67 feet.

[DeepDiverBob]

Sunday, we decided to head up to little river. After a few map accidents, we finally arrived on site. There was another team getting ready to go in on rebreathers. We talked to them, and they gave us the okay to cookie their line, since their dive plan was over 2 hours, and we was there just for a quickie. I led this dive, and not knowing what the flow was going to be like, and also since this was Jims first time there, we decided to be conservative, and just do the merry go round circuit, and coming back the serpentine tunnel. The flow was down from normal, but still there for sure. Dive plan was executed perfectly with a run time of 45 minutes, and max depth of 98 feet.

We finished the day with another dive in Peacock. We just reversed the course, and picked up my reels from the previous days dive, so we started in Peanut and through the cross over. We decided that we wanted to go up the line at PotHole, just to see what it is. I was able to go up to about 28 feet, and I saw the opening to the outside. Good to know in an emergency, that is an option to reach the surface. I will let the person who picked up the reels gived their version of what happened. All I will say is one of the team members said he could very clearly hear me laughing.

[DeepDiverBob]

Today, we ventured down to High Springs to pay a visit to Ginnie Springs. I had heard about a really cool dive there, going to the White Room. So we decided to give it a try. IN order to get there, you need to take the first jump to the right, and take that back to the bone room (I think its called, map isnt in front of me at the moment.) The main line makes a sharp 90 degree turn to the left, but to get to the white room, you need to tie in a primary line, and run it almost dead ahead for a good ways, and it dead ends into the white room. Anyway, Ken ran the primary reel in, and that is no easy job at Ginnie, going down through the eye. Once we finally made it back to the 90 degree turn to tie in the spool, we had to call the dive on thirds. We exited the cave with a run time of 56 minutes, max depth of 89 feet. Biggest lesson learned was that it is probably easier to drop to O2 bottle a little closer to the exit than it is to carry it all the way down to the tie in.

Now we decided to go for the big dive. Our plan was to dive a stage to 1/2 plus 500 (which turned out to be the same thing as thirds on a 3000 pound fill), then switch to back gas and dive them until hitting thirds, turn and coast out. All of this was staying on the main line, to see how far we could push it. Dive went according to plan. I had joked that we would probably just use the stage bottle to get us through the lips. Turned out, that was just about right. We pushed it almost 1500 feet before turning, and slowly drift diving our way out, enjoying the beautiful rock formations. Run time was 78 minutes, max depth was 98 feet, maybe 10 minutes deco on 100%.

Dive three, after a very long surface interval, we decided to go back in and try for the white room again. This time, we was able to get to the 90 degree turn, tie in the primary and run it back a few hundered feet, and found the white room. The bottom is covered in white sand, and the ceiling is a dome, and looks like what you would expect the inside of a golf ball to look like. Very awesome dive. Upon exiting, we gathered up the primary reel, and safely exited the cave. Run time was 57 minutes, max depth 88 feet.

Tomorrows plan is to relax at Peacock tomorrow, and get in a few more circuit dives.

[theskull]

Beautiful!! Awesome. I'm so jealous. Glad you're getting some great dives.

theskull

[DeepDiverBob]

Beautiful!! Awesome. I'm so jealous. Glad you're getting some great dives.

theskull

As always, we wish you was here too. But rest assure, you are mentioned often...and in a good way.

[sskasser]

Great stuff! I'm glad "our" caves are showing you a good time!

[SLIM]

Great to hear about them awsome dive you all had. Sam as Skull, wish I could have made it but to many things conflicted. Got a few more classes in while you all were gone and had to cancell one. Conditions at RBD changed form awsome to less then 10 feet in 3 days and then back to awsome in 3 other days. But there was a slight rain fall the first day I was there. The habitat is up and out of the way.

Have a safe trip home and hope to see some you all on the 19th and 20th.

SLIM

[b1gcountry]

I was at Cave Excursions yesterday too. Must have just missed you guys. Working now.

Tom

[DeepDiverBob]

I was at Cave Excursions yesterday too. Must have just missed you guys. Working now.

Tom
We was at Ginnie all day yesterday...how long you going to be in the area? We are here another 2 days, then headed to JB for 2 days.

[b1gcountry]

I'll be in PENSACOLA until Friday morning, but working 10-12 hour days all week.
Tom

[scububa]

After yesterday's dive at Ginnie, we came back to Peacock to do a couple of 'easier' dives. Weather was overcast, humid, typical. We had the place to ourselves.

First dive was up thru a jump on the Nichalson tunnel which none of us had been to before. It was a nice dive. The tunnel was very dusty when we jumped off the main. It was kind of creepy to me. After about 30 minutes, I was a bit uncomfortable and almost at thirds, so I turned the dive. Probably about half way between the Wishbone jumps. Was a 67 min. dive. Bob put in two jumps and the dive went as planned.

Next dive we decided to push up the Peanut to see if we could hit the Peanut Restriction. It was somewhere beyond a 1700 ft. run. We went thru nicely. We were not sure it the line was T'd in or what it would be there. Turns out it is a gap and right after the restriction there was a spool run over to the main line. As we hadn't discussed that and I was about 200 short of thirds, I saw no since in running our own spool and then having to turn right away, so we all took a look and turned the dive. So the Peanut line appears to terminate and there is a jump marked on the main. Who's spool? No one else was around, so it was in there awhile. 70 min dive. All went smooth.

Two moderate dives which was our plan between a Ginnie day and a Little River planned day.

[theskull]

Excellent reports, guys. Keep 'em coming so we can dive them vicariously. I did dream about diving the white room last night and I have never been on that dive!

theskull

[DeepDiverBob]

Excellent reports, guys. Keep 'em coming so we can dive them vicariously. I did dream about diving the white room last night and I have never been on that dive!

theskull

I cant wait to show it to you sometime. I have to thank Becky Kagen for the suggestion on that dive...all her idea. Dinner at the Brown Lantern was also in your honor.

[jclifton]

Sounds like a great trip. Diffidently living vicariously especially since I'm stuck here as a cube rat.

Safe diving.

Jason

[theskull]

. . . Dinner at the Brown Lantern was also in your honor.

I do feel honored indeed! Dive on!

theskull

[DeepDiverBob]

Okay, heres the report for today...the good, the bad and the REEL ugly.

Dive one today was back at Little River. Ken was leading the team, with Jim playing middle man and I was bringing up the rear. The plan was to go down the serpentine, and then take the main line and push it to thirds, and coast out. Flow was a little less than normal, so we had high hopes to push 1200 feet or better. Things got really interesting right from the start. Ken did his primary tie off on the stake, then proceeded to do his placements down to the gold line. As he started to tie it in, he took it back off and started back up the tunnel. Not sure what was going on, I noticed he had forgot his secondary tie off, and was trying to make up for it. There seemed to be some confusion amolng the team, so I gave the thumb, and figured we needed to talk about it, and try it again. This has officially been dubbed the Hokey Pokey primary..you know,m you put the red reel in, you take the red reel out, you put the red reel in and you shake it all about...anyway, secoond attempt went a lot smoother. After dropping O2 bottles at 20 feet, and getting tied in to the gold line, we proceeded down nearly 1400 feet before turning the dive on thirds. After nearly 15 minutes of deco, we surfaced and talked for a bit before packing up and heading back to Peacock. Run time was 94 minutes, max depth was 106 feet.

Dive 2 was at Peacock. We wanted to try something new, so we decided to try to Dark Water tunnel after looking at the map, and realizing we hadnt been there yet. I led the team this time. The jump isnt marked, so I layed line arrow, and ran the jump. After tying in, we proceeded down a very silty tunnel, before seeing the line disappear into a really small tunnel that we had no business even trying to fit into. So I turned the dive, and exited the cave. Since I was the last guy out, as I was waiting my turn to ascend the great wall of Peacock, I looked to my left and noticed what appeared to be a tunnel. I flahsed ken and showed him too. After surfacing, we decided we wanted to drop back down and take a look at it. Jim decided he had enough, so just me and Ken dropped down to what turned into dive 3.

I wasnt expecting this to turn into anything. Anyway, we dropped back down the wall, and I tied in a jump reel, and headed for the tunnel. It was a tight fit, and I'm sure a little silt was stirred up. However, I was excited to see an actual tunnel appear. I laid out the jump reel, until it came to an end. Because the tunnel went further, and me and Ken was REALLY curious at this point, I tied in another jump reel to my first jump reel, and procceded down the tunnel. To my amazement, and pure joy, a main line appeared, and we tied into and proceeded to follow this line. It came to a point where it dropped straight down. We descended the line, tro a depth of 81 feet, and proceeded to follow the line. This tunnel appreared to be a slight syphon. We had told Jim we would only be 30 minutes max, so at 15 minutes, I turned the dive and we exited the cave, picking up the jump reels. I have to say, finding something like this was pure joy for me, and you could not knock the smile off my face after we surfaced. Run time on this dive was 33 minutes, max depth 81 feet.

I should point out that last night, the Luraville area got 3 1/2 inches of rain, and the Peacock system was very milky today, vis dropping to about 20-25 feet in most areas.

Tomorrow, we check out of the trailer in Luraville, and plan on hitting Madison Blue on the way up to Marianna, where we plan to dive for a day and a half. Stay tuned for more dive details.

[theskull]

Beautiful! I like the Hokey Pokey reel comment. I'll use that.

theskull

[sskasser]

Great stuff! Now I'll have the Hokey Pokey stuck in my head all day, but I'm grinning, so it's all good! Keep 'em coming!

Peacock is just full nice little surprises, eh? :D

Shirley

[DeepDiverBob]

More trip reports to follow shortly. We just got settled in to the trialer at Cave Adventrues in Marianna. We had 2 dives at Madison Blue before coming over. Details on MB are coming...trying to find the words to explain what took place on dive 2 there.

[DeepDiverBob]

Okay, got a few days to catch up on here...lets give it a try.

We checked out of the trailer, and headed up to Madison to dive Madison Blue. Our first dive was another simple plan, just dive the main line until thirds, and then exit. Jim ran the main reel, and tied in going through the big cavern entrance opposed to the rabbit hole. We made it past half hitch, and turned the dive about 100 feet from rocky horror. Exited the cave with a slight flow to aid us. Run time was 70 minutes, max depth was 72 feet.

Dive 2 is where all members of the team had what we called a very sobering dive. Our plan was to make the Godzilla jump, and turn the dive on thirds. Ken was leading this dive, and everything was going as planned. Made the jump, and made it through a few tighter spots, until we saw where the line made a sharp left by a big rock. After descending, the line made a sharp turn to the left again. I was the third team member, and as I got to the bottom of the line, I noticed Ken wasnt proceeding any further, but was ina very tight spot. Silt was starting to get kicked up pretty bad. I was getting ready to thumb the dive, when Jim beat me to the punch. Dive was turned, and we started to ascend the line, with me in the lead. As I got to the top of the line, I noticed the line came to an end, and was tied off around a rock. I cant tell you what thoughts was going through my mind at this time. I stopped, and retraced the line up to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing. I noticed there was another line a few feet away, that was marked with a double arrow. I assumed that we had made a jump with out realizing it. The double arrows was pointing in the direction I was sure we came from, so we began to exit the cave. After gathering our jump reel, and exiting the cave, we all had a good healthy talk about what went wrong, and realized we was all to blame for this since none of us caught it. These are the kinds of mistakes that kill people, and there is no room for complacency in this sport. Take nothing for granted. Lesson learned. Run time was 43 minutes, max depth was 81 feet.

After packing up, we was on our way to Marianna.

[DeepDiverBob]

We boarded the boat from Cave Adventures early Friday morning, and motored our way up to Jackson Blue. After tying off the boat, gearing up and swimming to the opening of the cave, I ran the primary in against a decent flow. Since this was my first time there, I dont know if this was a high, low or normal flow for the cave. The water clarity was amazing clear. After tying in, we headed up the main line on our traditional first dive just diving thirds. I came to a tee in the line, and for no reason, chose to take the left line. After following that a little longer, it came to another tee, with arrows pointing out out on each one. I figured this was just a little circuit we could have taken, but didnt what to take any chances, so we turned the dive there, and floated back out. Beautiful cave, with crystal clear water. Run time was 75 minutes, max depth 98 feet.

Dive 2, decided to head over to Hole in the Wall. Our plan was to take the down stream tunnel. Jim was running the reel, and tied into the first gold line he saw, which turned out to tbe upstream tunnel. I have no regrets about this decision. This tunnel is lined with fossils on both sides of the wall, and ceiling. This cave had huge caverns and dome rooms. This was with out a doubt the most awesome cave I had ever seen. I was in awe this entire dive. We turned it about 1500 feet in, and exitied the cave leaving the primary reel in place. Run time was 63 minutes, max depth was 84 feet. This has moved to number 1 for me on my list of favorite caves.

Dive 3, we went back into hole in the wall, and moved the priimary reel from the upstream line to the down stream, and checked out that tunnel. This was quite as stunning as the upstream tunnel, but still a nice cave. We called the dive on thirds, and exited the cave taking out the primary. Run time was 79 minutes, max depth was 83 feet.

[DeepDiverBob]

Our last day in Marianna, we decided to motor up to Twin Cave. When we got there at 7:30 in the morning, there was already a jon boat with a dive flag tied in. We cruised up to Jackson, just to take a look. We decided we didnt want to fight a flow, so we decided to head back to Hole in the wall. We decided to check out the upstream tunnel again, but this time take our time and check out the walls, and all the fossils. I ran the primary reel, and had a great dive. Some huge sanddollar fossils, and other creatures from days gone by. I turned the dive at 700 feet, not on thirds, but deco was racking up rather quickly. We exited the cave, and ran back up to Twin to see if we could get in there. This time, the jon boat was gone, and it was replaced with a pontoon boat. We decided it had been a great trip, and headed back to clean up and head home.

[scububa]

Great notes, Bob. It was a blast diving with both you and Ken. The dives where all group planned and enjoyed. Bob sort of took the lead at being sure that no one 'sat out' on the planning decisions. All dives were executed on plan or turned. Naturally, the way it should be.

Yeah, we had our share of mishaps. Most of them are pretty normal things that are going to happen if you dive enough. The key is to handle them, not let them snowball, and react accordingly. We had several things happen that we did not ignore, but called the dive and started again or just came on out. We were all consistently on the same page with this. I'll go into a bit of detail on them later, as they all feel into the category of interesting and good to know the team was able to handle them per training standards.

As Bob mentioned, the Madison Blue event was a real eye opener. An interesting note is that just a couple of days before this, we had a nice long visit with Bill Reneker. Amongst the other interesting tales, questions answered, and diving philosophies...he talked about jumps that were too close and how easy it was to miss. Especially when taking for granted the direction run of a line thru silt. Then within two days we had the same thing happen to us. And, as Bob pointed out, all three of us fell for the same mis-read. Of a couple of good things, one we all were aware at about the same time that we weren't where we thought we should be. Bob and Ken had been there before and I was going per the briefed descriptions. When Ken was stirring up things, I said, well, if we can't get thru here with out making a mess, we shouldn't be here. I also didn't know if I was making as big a mess as Ken and knew if I was, Bob didn't have a chance. Ken was realizing he wasn't where he was last time he dove here. Bob was both realizing wrong spot and big mess. So, even though I made the call first, they were a half second away. Coming out when Bob picked up the line and dropped it, I got a big sinking feeling and said, this ain't right. EWven after seeing the 2x arrow jump, I wasn't too relaxed. Within 40 ft. I recognized the way in and saw a 400' arrow and relaxed. We were a very somber group coming out of the water. We realized we had let ourselves and each other down big time and were very fortunate we able to feel that way. Further back, an equipment failure, etc. things could have been pretty ugly.

I know that this was my first serious "Oh, Sh-t!" moment.

[theskull]

Thanks for the trip cleanup report, guys. Glad you handled the mistakes with finesse and learned from them.

Now I have to dive Hole in the Wall again. When I did before the vis was so poor I never saw much other than the guideline.

theskull

[SLIM]

Hole is a awsome dive. From some of my buddies down there they are saying that JB is in a low to normal flow.

Great system isnt it? It can be one to truly test your skills.


Hey Jim, did you have to wait at the main line to tie in, LOL LOL.

SLIM

[scububa]

JB Flow is said to be low now. Since I had the lowest gas volume, and was in a dry suit, I pulled and glided as much as possible. We made it to the back side of the first big T'd circuit. I think it was about 1400'. I used about 1/4 of the gas on the way out as on the way in. So, even in low flow, you have to work the eddies to maximize distance. I thought we got back about as far as I can on 95's.

No, no waiting. We were the only ones in there Friday morning. Sort of like when we were there. It was funny that the only 'crowd' we ran into was at Twin. Oh, and the gold line comes all the way out in Twin now (according to Edd), so you don't have to run a reel there. But, you do have to run one down the chute at HnW.

[scububa]

Thanks for the trip cleanup report, guys. Glad you handled the mistakes with finesse and learned from them.

Now I have to dive Hole in the Wall again. When I did before the vis was so poor I never saw much other than the guideline.

theskull

You could see the line near the floor from the ceilings of all the rooms. There were so many fossils, the sand dollars alone seemed like wall paper pattern. And the speleothems, were like big rusty chandeliers against a near white ceiling. The only sad thing that is even with no contact (so big that it should never be a problem) percolation alone causes things to dislodge. One little nautilus shell floated in front of me from the lead bubbles.

[steve2281]

Nice reports. Sounds like a good trip with many good dives. Much jealousy.

[scububa]

My totals are 22 hrs 7 mins logged dive time.

We had about 3 dives in the 1.5 hr range. The one at Little River put us a close to MOD and had the most deco. We had tanks topped with air to allow us to get 115' MOD and the dive was 106'.

Most dives ran in the 1 hr range. Some statistical anomolies occur from a couple of short dives that were restarts. (Hokey Pokey and Nutless Wonder)

Some of the other events that happened...

On the first Hole in the Wall dive - I ran the reel in. As I dropped to 80' in the chimney and added air to my wing, I got more and more lopsided. I got to the gold line, tied in and reached back to see what was up. Nothing felt right. I got Bob's attention that something was 'askew' (as Lewis Black would say). We called the dive, left the reel, and went back up. There was no wing nut in the lower bolt. (While gearing up, as I analyzed a fresh filled O2 bottle, the flow restrictor got stuck in the valve because it wasn't relieving pressure. I got so distracted that I sat a bag on my wing nut. So, like the hokey pokey dive we got a short dive before the dive. We'll call this one the Nutless Wonder dive. Several lessons here - don't get distracted when setting up gear. Also, analyze your gas where you can do something about it. We had gotten complacent about picking up fills and not analyzing until we set up. In retrospect this generates a situation where you are open to identifying a problem, but not being able to do much about it.

On the Little River dive - we racked up the most deco, due to time and depth (all planned.) We got to the O2, picked up, deployed and got to deco depth. After a couple of minutes on O2, my low pressure O2 hose started to spew at the 1st stage connection. It was not a total failure, but forceful enough to lose gas before the full stop was complete. I immediately move over and got Bob's attention (he was closest.) He acknowledged and I began to address the problem. First thought was to shut off the valve, but immediately decided I'd get as much out of the bottle as I could. I immediately grabbed the fitting and tried to tighten by hand. Seemed to make a bit of difference. Then I noticed I had an o-ring oozing out of the connection. I removed my glove and was able to fiddle around and get it to stop. This took about 2 min. Was able to complete deco. The alternate would have been to switch to back gas and then when Bob and Ken finished deco, I would have used their O2 to finish my deco. It turned out to be a minor incident, but could have been significant. Even then, the options were covered. Lesson learned - not much that could be done before hand. Once into it, follow protocol. Alert the team so if it escalates they are prepared. Stop and think about actions/options. Work it out. We did this as trained.

Concerning O2 - even for our initial dives were we were not going to get close to deco, we talked and made a decision to keep an O2 bottle in the truck for emergency/saftey purposes. For the most part, we tried to haul only the tanks we planned to dive from site to site and left others at Cave Excursions or the trailer.

On the second HnW dive - Bob had a primary light failure. He was the third man and we were on our way out. He had just purchased new backup lights from Edd. So, he deployed a backup. As he did the bolt snap came off. He had tie wrapped the snap on as a temporary conection. It evidently broke. We all saw it and lit it up. He descended in a very controlled manner while we hovered and lit it. He picked it up, clipped it off and we continued the exit uneventful.

On the first attempt to the White Room at Ginnie, we got to the hard left turn indicated on the map to deploy a primary. No one had brought a second primary. Ken came back to me, the 3rd man, and I didn't have one. Since we couldn't execute the dive as planned, we turned the dive.

These are the more minor things that happened that we dealt with during the trip. The rest of the team might recall a few more.

[DeepDiverBob]

Most dives ran in the 1 hr range. Some statistical anomolies occur from a couple of short dives that were restarts. (Hokey Pokey and Nutless Wonder)



We didnt even get into the ricochet rabbit reel run at Orange Grove...lol