Apprentice Day 3

...There is chamber after chamber, Legolas; hall opening out of hall, dome after dome, stair beyond stair; and still the winding paths lead on into the mountains' heart. Caves! The Caverns of Helm's Deep! Happy was the chance that drove me there! It makes me weep to leave them……-- Gimli the Dwarf from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers

I am tired of being wet all the time, I am tired of bouncing like a rubber ball as I dive and looking like it’s my first time in the water, I am tired of not getting it right.

We arrive at Orange Grove and suit up to go into the water. I have my primary light back, not that there as any fault in the one I had borrowed up til now. I have dry clothes, not that I am diving dry in my dry suit. And Orange Grove has duckweed. Nuff said.

We enter the water and slip below the blanket of tiny little plants and hover below them performing a respectable imitation of an S-Drill. Moving on down to the jumble of branches marking the front of the cave I shine my light as Lee ties in and follow on behind him to the start of the gold line.

The line wends its way along through tunnels of lacey rocks and fine silt blanketing the floor. We move on and on as we pass line markers heralding the distance we have traveled. 300, 500, 800…… and I am trim and level and diving as I should. As I know I can, as I usually do….. Life is good again.

We move along from high domed rooms to low rocky openings and turn corners and run up and down hills in a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. At one turn the rocks narrow into a long vertical passage opening up into a low wide tunnel.

We are past the 800 foot marker when we turn and make our way back out. I am leading now and stop to run my finger through a long glittering puddle of air on the cave ceiling. I shine my light from side to side taking in the colors of white walls and jagged edges, black sediments of goethite and soft fine brown silt so beautiful to look at but dangerous if stirred.
We fin along the rolling hills and berms occasionally rising up and over and accidentally flicking fin tips in the fin floor covering. But over all…… we done good.

I spend my hang time chasing after little catfish hiding in among the rocks. I am sure no one else pokes them as they get quite the shocked look on their face when I do.

As we rise above the surface of duckweed I struggle with the suction of my fins. I need some silicone spray…… and a freaking DRY dry suit….. but not much more than that.

We are calling it a day. No more dives today but the review sheets, dive logs and final test are still to be done. I have been working on mine…. Lee has not….. I stayed up and pored over the book while someone went to dinner and got his beauty rest…… I am not letting him copy off me…… well maybe… if he carries my tanks….. hmmmmm……

Apprentice Day 2

Two things: 1) Replace safety / jump reels with spools - they are the right tool for the job
2) Your skills will never suck more they do in a cave diving class. Whether it is stress, task loading, a prying instructor's eye causing stage fright, etc. Don't get too down.

~Frank F, Wreck Valley Divers

Today is a cow butts day…. I am about to be blindsided with it as there are no cows out to view but it is definitely a cow butts day.

We are diving at Peacock Springs and I stop at the Dive Outpost and pick up my light, cannot thank Forrest and Fred enough for getting me back in my own gear.I also pick up an elbow and 12inch corrugated hose……I never changed the pull dump on the new wing and it was time…..many thanks to the staff at dive Outpost for getting that changed out for me.

I head on to the park and meet up with Lee and Jim and proceed to put on my dry suit, still wet on the inside from yesterdays dunking.

Our interpretation of an S-Drill is still giving Jim nightmares and we move on down to the cave opening and tie in.

My buoyancy is suffering even more today as I feel the legs of my dry suit filling with air and fight to keep from launching myself places I shouldn’t be.

As we make our turn to exit the cave I am have a communication /buoyancy gaff and find ourselves off the line and on the ceiling. I shine my light down and the line is not there. It is several seconds before we locate it……not a good thing. I am leading and have not gone far when I turn a corner and note that 2 lights are not following me. I see the ends of their light beams flashing in the dark corner and wait…. As I go back to look there is a look as apparently “my buddy was out of air” and I did not get back in a timely fashion to provide some. In real life I would be diving solo at this moment, but in class I get to now provide him with air and as we head on out our lights mysteriously go out and we continue on with a lights out touch contact exit. And we both lived to tell.

Right before the beginning of the gold line, where the cave floor is mostly rock and harder to silt we are stopped and asked “Where’s the line?” Well, dang, its right there I point ……uh uh….. black out mask in place and spun around I am now in search mode. Last time here and performing a lost line drill I doubled back on myself and found my own reel line and then proceeded to foul it so I needed to carry it out in a ball. This time I am happy to report that I found the line, much quicker than I expected and….. my rewound reel was intact and hanging from my D-ring at drills end. Much improvement from last time.

If only my special control would improve also.

As hard as it may be to believe my next dive is worse. My left secondary light pulls from its security band in the low flat tunnel at the beginning of the dive and I place it in my dry suit pocket without clipping it off as I am losing my place in the water column trying to find a place for it on the pockets bungee line.

I spend time plastered on the ceiling and just inches from the silty floor. At one point I am floating up just so out of whack that Jim comes to ask me if I am OK. I bang heavily at the ceiling and am most downhearted that it is getting worse.

I roll left and right, to and fro as I try to move air from my dry suit legs to my valve and from my wing top to my dump valve….. two different areas, tow different motions and I am sure I look like I am having a seizure but the best is yet to come.

As we turn to exit I look at my hand and see the clip has fallen off the light, luckily not a gear emergency…. Maybe.

We haven’t gone far when Jim turns to me and indicates OOA. I immediately try to stick my regulator in his mouth and he shakes his head and points me towards my “airless” buddy….. hey, an honest mistake.

As we exit again our lights go out …..we continue on and I pull my backup light from my pocket and juggle my backup light, holding the hose, touch contact with my buddy and managing my unlit light head I cannot clip off.Jim has a sense of humor. He ends our air share on backup lights exit and asks………”Where’s your buddy?” He’s right…..the little sneaker has his light covered…… and so begins a major misadventure.

I cover my light and do not see my buddies, I swim to and fro and the son of a gun is lost….. Oh my! Look over there, a side tunnel. I should look there. And so I tie off my safety reel, never letting go of my light head and begin to float up. I struggle to stay near the line as I dig in my pocket for a line arrow to mark my spot and place it on the line and now the bungee from my pocket is tangled on the line. I am floating up and attached to the gold line and fighting to stay level and trying to see how my leg pocket has gotten itself entangled. I pull line arrows and a spool, secondary light and some trauma shears and am still stuck. And I still cant let go of the lighthead. The only thing to do is cut the bungee before I am hanging upside down from the gold line by my pocket. But before I do Jim comes over and “unclips me. I wasn’t tangled; he had sneaked over and clipped me to the line.

I check my air and honestly ….. if I don’t find my buddy soon I am leaving him here…. But I make one run out to that side cave to have a look. The drill is called and I reel back in….. safely…. And we continue on. Again at the tie in I am struggling to dump all I can and not float away…..

I am struggling with my fins, soaking wet and have killed off my buddy several times today….. it’s a cow butt day….. dammed cows.

Apprentice Day One

…. They are but hovels compared with the caverns I have seen here: immeasurable halls, filled with an everlasting music of water that tinkles into pools, as fair as Kheled-Zaram in the starlight……..
~ Gimli the Dwarf from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers

I am back…. Back where the rivers have funky names and the springs run warm and clear into the flowing rivers with sometimes unpronounceable Indian names.

The world is setting itself right again, the frosty Florida winter is gone, replaced by warm sunshine and cooling nights. And I am back, checking cow butts for a glimpse of the day to come.

I stop on my way at the Dive Outpost and spend some time chatting with everyone while Hobie makes himself at home. A dog in a dive shop, not an unusual concept. I am happy to meet Forrest whom I have heard so much about and he shows me his slideshow from Mexico, another thing to add to my bucket list, what a wonderful trip. I torture the workers a bit with questions and my flooded lights and like magic there are bright beams of light and we while away the time as I wait for my 10W bulb to arrive.

Unfortunately, I discover it will not happen til morning and Forrest graciously takes the handful of parts I call a light head and offer to reassemble and have a working light for me when I arrive back and I thank him immensely for his help.

I move on and arrive at the trailer where things are changing, there is a washer and dryer now, a new chair, and air conditioner. But the old familiars are still there too. The showerhead is 8 feet in the air and while someone has stolen the stars off the ceiling, the glue residue is still there and glows if only for a short while. I miss the old stars and the soft glow is somehow comforting.

I awake the next morning and head for Ginnie Springs and day one of my apprentice class. I am not solo for this portion, my classmate is Lee, a quiet soft spoken man and he is in for a ride with my frantic antics and non-stop chattering.

We gear up and hit the water for a shakedown dive. Apparently Lee and I are well matched, we begin with S-Drills that have an unusual look to them as we bounce off of each other simultaneously spinning and claiming OOA. Lesson one….. part of dive planning is deciding who goes first.

We enter through the eye and the flow is kicking….. I remember now, you fight your way in like Wal-Mart on black Friday and ride the flow out like the water flume at the amusement park. Jim has left a reel in and we check it to make sure it is still taut and move on the start of the gold line. I drop my deco bottle and we make our way up to the ceiling.

I begin to pull myself along and feel the rub on my fingertips. I know I am not using my full hand for every pull and will be sorry later but I am struggling to keep up with Speedy Gonzalez in his wetsuit and double 85’s. Each time I tell him to slowdown he does but not enough for these old bones. I am struggling a bit with buoyancy and am just feeling exceptionally light, I know I am not but I am struggling.

We make our way to the Hill 400 line and Jim places a jump reel in and we make our way down the passageway waiting to hit our turn pressure and head on out.

The trip back out is uneventful, I emerge from the tunnel and make the turn for home, the right turn this time…. Last time there I turned wrong, misreading the twisted arrow and not checking the reel clip. This is improvement. Improvement is good.

I still struggle with my trim as we exit and as Lee pulls the reel and as I sit ahead of him waiting, I am plastered in the eye, feeling waaaay too light and trying desperately to dump more air from my arm valve before being shot out like a circus performer from a cannon.
I did not get to sit on the deco log as I spend my hang time still fighting to remain below the water. We rise up and over the lip and head onto the steps and lunch.

I am soaking wet, inside of my drysuit and thoroughly upset with my bouncing buoyancy. I hate Pinnacle and my soaking wet underwear. I do hope they read this. They stink worse than my trim.

The sun is warm and lunch is relaxing and we enter the water again. Skills this dive and again we massacre the S-Drills before heading on down to the eye and flow like an open fire hydrant. We make our way again to the gold line and make our way along to the catacombs.

I am tying a jump reel in and leading our way through the catacombs and out to the gold line again. I am still struggling to remain trim but am not leaving a huge cloud of silt behind me as I feared I would. We continue on to the lips and here we turn the dive and return back through the low dark tunnel as it meanders along with narrow passageways and low wide rooms, the silty rise to a dead end and more tunnels and twisting and turning. I reel on in and upon reaching the gold line I………. remove my reel and clip it off to my left D-ring. Uneventful you say…… you must not remember my ability to foul 3 reels in one dive and having to have my jump reel cut from the gold line last time here. I am jubilant, unfortunately my bouncing up and down was not the result of me jumping for joy. I was still struggling light. I pick up my deco bottle and it helps to have the extra weight as I make my way through the eye and spend my hang on the limb just above the deco log.

My fins stick to my boots with the suction of Hoover vacuum and upon removing my dry suit I pour water from the sleeve before extracting my wet arm. Did I mention how I hate Pinnacle?

I have accepted the fact that I will be wet for the week I am here and hope tomorrow is better for me.

Cave Country for Easter

Well there's a place you really get your kicks

It's open every night about twelve to six

Now if you wanna hear some boogie you can get your fill

And shove and sting like an old steam drill

Come on along you can lose your lid

Down the road, down the road, down the road apiece

~Rolling Stones~

We will not speak of Saturday. The cow butts and cow heads were interspersed and it gave me a bad feeling inside…. one that would manifest itself it utter frustration.

The day was off to a late start, I was annoyed but not deterred and continued on my way. Madison Blue Springs was just “down the road a piece”. After stopping for gas, an act of complete terror for me as this Jersey Girl still does not have the hang of pumping gas, I pulled out into traffic and the back gate of my truck flew open and out fell my dive light into the oncoming traffic.

I was lucky enough to be able to retrieve it, and lucky enough that it was in a protective pelican case, but not lucky enough that it actually survived unscathed, but I didn’t know that…. Yet.

I continued on and arrived at Madison Blue State Park much later than anticipated, “down the road a piece” is farther than I thought. Divers were entering the water as I parked and I never actually made it over to the pavilion where a social and bar-b-q was just finishing up as I stopped to talk at the edge of the spring when the discussion turned to She-P’s and never moved from there.

I did actually try to move, I went to the car to kit up and opened my light case to find the brand new bulb and light head I had just had installed were cracked. No diving for me today.
I moved back to the group of gossiping divers and was offered a lawn chair and sat down to while away the afternoon meeting new people, putting faces to old names and greeting the few divers I already knew.

Soon the day was coming to an end and it was time to move on. I was diving the next morning with a new friend, Russell, and he had no clue what an adventure he would be in for.

Heading for the dive shop where I planned on replacing my backup lights which had “somehow” flooded, we hooked up with Polly and Bob who we would be sharing a trailer for the night. They were staying the week and came prepared stay in and relax at night, but Bob was soooo easily swayed….I know this may be hard for you to believe, but I have never had Bar-B-Q. I thought bar-b-q was sauce but was forthwith educated on the finer points and we headed out for the anointed place of my initiation to this southern treat.

Nothing is close here… nothing…. It’s all “down the road a piece”. You can read a book or rebuild a regulator in the time it takes to “run out” to a restaurant. But we arrived and settled in to make our dinner choices.Apparently there is no other choice for the bar-b-q part but pork, anything else just isn’t bar-b-q, but sides are a different story and things like mashed potatoes, slaw and fried corn are up for the choosing.

After filling ourselves with dinner, finding our way back to the trailer was almost like a Lewis and Clark expedition in the old west. We ended the night sitting around the fireplace in the trailer living room yapping away to the wee hours (gotta love dive trailers) and then we settled in for a wee bit of sleep before our leisurely late morning start. Gotta love caves, they don’t know time of day, always there and always dark.

It didn’t take much arm twisting to convince Bob he didn’t want to eat in but grab something out and head for the first dive site, Little River.

Little River is located on the Suwannee River and when river water is low, spring water will run through, forming a "little river" of clear water that you can see through the darker river water.

After entering the cave you descend a corkscrew shaped tunnel to reach the cave system which levels off around 100 ft.

The flow is generally high and you work your way in and drift your way out. The system is basically one tunnel, with only a few offshoots and bypasses, and with a split that meets later on in the Florida Room and the passage continues on.

There was only one backup light at the shop and the second is on order to hopefully arrive by Friday and Russell is good enough to fill out my light shortage with a spare backup light and his extra 10W primary. Much thanks to him for that.

May it also be noted that part of my early morning dilemma yesterday was picking up my doubles from being VIPed at the shop and discovering they had reassemble them backwards. We will be revisiting there and discussing this. But moving on…..

Polly and Bob hit the water first and we were dropping a cookie and using their tie in. Russell gave me a rundown on the system. Turn left right inside the entrance you and drop down to the gold line and then descend a corkscrew tunnel about 360 degrees to the cave floor and move on.I still haven’t mastered the special distance of “down the road a piece”, maybe I never will but I keep trying. We enter the cave with me leading, I turn left, see the line and a drop off, I unclip and stow my O2 bottle under the ledge and drop a cookie on the line and move to drop over when I notice Russell giving me strange looks. He grabs my cookie off the line and continues on.

There is apparently another 40 yards to go here “down the road a piece” before hitting the gold line and where we want to be. We hit the rebar spike starting the mainline and he drops my cookie on it and we head out.The walls are all lacey rock with the look of swiss cheese and holes everywhere. The passage narrows and widens and I look mostly at the floor trying to find my next hand hold. The flow is pumping here but no worse than Devils flow and I pull along but am constantly floating as if I am light and struggling to stay level in the water.

The passage is low and I don’t have the height to rise up and get out of the flow of water pumping against me. I know there is no way I need more weight but am fighting to dump air and not bounce off the ceiling and loose my grip as I pull and glide along. I stop to breathe, slow myself down, regroup and catch my buoyancy, and move forward once more. I am just not feeling the love. Do I continue on and fight past it or turn and head out to try again later.

I pull ahead a little longer and give the signal to turn. How on this dive I managed to lead on the way in AND on the way out is beyond me…. It was just one of those dives. Riding the flow out I am still struggling to not bounce off the ceiling but I can now shine my light along the walls and see what I might have missed on my way in. In the struggle of this dive I had dropped my cookies and pick them up on the way out and grab the lone cookie from the line. I pick up my stage bottle and hang for my mandatory stops before heading on up to the surface and the steps. What the freak is it about cave diving and steps! There are ALWAYS freaking steps… and they are always going UP! ARRRGGG!

Well, apparently my education in cave country is quite lacking. I have never been to the Luraville Country Store and I have never had a slaw dog. Again Bobs arm is twisted and we head on over to lunch. Slaw dogs and dill pickle chips. Another cave country staple and interesting to say the least.We relax at the picnic table eating and talking and soon we need to move if we are going to get in a second dive today. We head on over to Peacock Springs and Orange Grove, another new cave for me.

The Peacock Springs State Park is the only Florida State Park dedicated almost exclusively to cave diving. The cave diving community supports this status providing continued support for improvement of park facilities.

Orange Grove and Peacock are two cave systems accessible at this site with interlocking passageways that meander on for thousands of feet in distance while generally quite shallow in depth.

Orange Grove Sink is the most upstream portion of these systems and consists of Orange Grove Sink, Orange Grove and Lower Orange Grove.The cavern is actually located below the cave entrance and from the cavern which goes to about 100 ft, you access the Lower Orange Grove system which is a silty advanced cave system reaching depths of about 180ft.

Again Russell explains the lay of the system and mentions that I can kick up a hellacious amount of silt in here if I bounce around. Who? Me? After that last shining example of my abilities. I wonder myself.

We hit the stairs…surprise huh? And survey the bright green carpet of duckweed. Just shoot me now. Duckweed, one more little ditty to deal with and Russell makes quick work of shoving it all my way as it appears he is not a fan of it either. As I sink down into the dark green water I am slurping wet air. There is undoubtedly some duckweed jammed somewhere in my reg and I am hoping to dislodge it before reaching the cave entrance and having to turn back. I purge. blow and shake the whole way down and finally am breathing dry as we enter the cave. Sludge with an Umlaut, don’t ask, ties in while I get myself neutral and we pass by Larry and Marcy as they exit and we head on in.

We make our way down the passages and I am much more comfortable this time and better trimmed. I keep looking behind to see if I am kicking up a trail of silt and am happy to report, if it was there…. It wasn’t me. Again we travel among limestone rock walls. Not as lacey and crumbly looking as the walls at Little River but the look is there. The rock floor gives way to a carpet of silt and while the ceilings are not looming high above me they seem to be a bit higher this dive. I have not seen any fish or the white crayfish that nestle deep inside these caves, never seeing the light of day, and it bothers me that I am not having anything to poke. That’s just not right. We soon turn to make our way out, the reel is pulled and we head down to the cavern to look around. Just lying in among the rocks I see a loose stone with the fossil of a scallop shell emblazoned on its side. I pick it up and marvel at it a moment before laying it down again among the jumble of rocks and moving on father in to the cavern and the nooks and crannies it has to explore.

In among the rocks is the entrance to Lower Orange, a deep dark silty hole that seems to go on forever. Maybe a peek farther down, maybe not, maybe. Not. So much more here I haven’t seen and I move along looking about and enjoying the sights around me.

We soon head on up and emerge through the blanket of duckweed, I poke it left and right but to no avail. It must be alive, it keeps coming back at me like curious cunner when you open a mussel. I am still removing it from my gear, car, clothes, rugs….. Help! I think it is multiplying!!!!

I say my goodbyes, to Russell, Marcy and Larry, Polly and Bob, Rueben and others I have met this weekend…. I have a long ways to go to get home…. It’s “down the road a piece".