Peacock with TMet

You have brains in yer heads, and feet in yer shoes.

You can steer yerself in any direction you choose.

Yer on yer own, and you know what you know.

You are the one who'll decide where to go"

~Dr. Seusss

It was dark out when I got up….. no fair! What is this all about……. Caves don’t have tides….. no assigned time slots….. it is the advantage to looking at wet rocks……. Where is my advantage? Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa……..

TMet is a slave driver….cracking the whip…… up before dawn …. Pack into the car….He didn’t even bring donuts!!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa…………..

Enough of the whining……I smuggled a cup of coffee into the truck, along with my dog and my dive gear and we were off. We didn’t stop for gas, or a potty break, or donuts……. Sorry, back to the dive story.

We arrived at the Dive Outpost late-morning and unpacked the car…….no we weren’t staying…. We just put the tanks on the bottom, in the future we will reconsider this strategy….. anyway, it was quiet and while Ron put a cave fill in some and “topped off” the rest we stretched our legs and looked about. Grabbing a few supplies and hoses, and a Twix bar…..they had no donuts….. I know I know…. focus……. We collected what we need and packed back into the car.

Hobie found a soft piece of floor and opted to stay, knowing full well that anyone who entered the shop would fall for his sad eyes routine and give him a pet and a milkbone…… he is a fan of cave country.

We pulled into the park and headed for Peacock. There is a new trail running through the park and I told Terry about it as we drove. This project has been a few years in the making and is entirely designed, built and paid for by cave divers. We have been told it is one of the best in any of the States many parks and divers should take pride in this. Anyone who dives the springs and parks in north Florida should take a few moments and join and support the North Florida Springs Alliance. http://northfloridaspringsalliance.org/ This organization is a wonderful ambassador for the diving community providing things like this interpretive trail, promoting conservation of the springs and working to open more areas to divers. The trail is 1.05 mile long, beginning at the Peacock steps and ending there as well. It follows the same route as the caves below the ground with over a half dozen stations describing the caves below and trail above. These are located at places like the Breakdown Room, Crypt, Peanut Restriction and Olsen Sink. Olsen will also have a scenic overlook built there so you can walk out over the top of the sink and get a good look down into it. (no throwing rocks at the divers below…. They told me that….I don’t know why… really…) A few weeks ago I met some other divers here and we spent a few days clearing the trails, putting benches in along the trail and setting the signs in at each stop…they weighed in at over 250 lbs each, Tim the Toolman would be proud.

The park ranger remembered me, he introduced me to another ranger as the one who got their 4 wheel drive golf cart stuck between 2 trees, a story for another day…..

If you are in the area, be sure to take a few minutes to walk this trail and enjoy it.

Terry and I geared up and other divers made their way out of the water or into the park. Even on a Monday there is a steady stream of divers here enjoying the caves.

I am still working out the kinks on my new dry suit. Cannot say I am a fan yet, but I am working on it…. There is less water in this one than my last one, so that is a good thing.


Terry is practicing and getting ready to further his training. He is making his way to full cave and doing just fine. I think I have to keep a close eye on my double 85’s from here on in though, as he is a fan of them.

There were a few equipment glitches and after ironing them out we were on our way.

The walkway out to the Peacock steps is only a short distance in flipflops but extends, meanders and snakes its way along when you are carrying a100 lbs or so of dive gear. Like the march to Bataan we made our way to the water. I sat on the steps, pulled on my fins and plummeted face first into the water. It is an art and I am the master of it.

A quick bubble check and we are on our way. I have my new reel and I am about to give it a workout. There are 2 other teams already in the system and it takes several tries to find a good spot to tie in around them, they took all the good rocks!

Securely tied to the cavern entrance we make our way inside. Our first dive will be the right side and out to Pothole Sink.

A short distance into the cavern is an oval opening in the rock wall. As you slide into this opening you drop almost straight down 65 feet making your way to the floor and the beginning of the cave. I tie into the gold line and we make our way forward. I am struggling in my drysuit with about 3 feet more zipper than there is real estate across the front of me and am working on how to move the air about my suit though this excess as I adjust my buoyancy during the dive. My struggle seems to be in the beginning of the dive. Going from the surface to the cavern and getting rid of the bulk of air. I don’t believe I had any problems in the cave and Terry did not point out any bouncing about so I am good so far, although I do need to put a bit more air in the suit next dive.

Terry is moving about brilliantly, getting to enjoy the cave as a tourist and not a student.

Large rocks give way to lower passages with silty floors. The beams of our lights illuminate arched grotto like alcoves along the cave walls and the white of the walls contrast sharply with the dark floors and sand. The arches increase in size as we move along extending across the cave and providing openings large enough to swim through and explore. The cave begins to widen and several pure white crayfish scurry along the floors. These are troglobites. They live only in the pure dark of the caves and so have no eyes as there is no need to see and no color as they need not hide from an enemy nor attract a mate. They are especially fun when they float down from the ceiling and you catch them in your light like it’s raining creepy crawlers.

At Pothole Sink the dome of the cave opens up and rises over 50 feet into the air and as you look up you see a hazy patch of blue where the sunshine from the surface filters down into the water stretching its rays far as it can reach into the black of the cave. There is a T tied into the line pointing the way to the surface with a note stating “Emergency Exit Only” and halfway up the wall a small ledge. The cave narrows after this and the Nicholson Tunnel lies beyond.

We turn head on back seeing Mother Nature’s architecture from a whole new angle. Some of the dark grotto like indentures light up as small passageways with at least one tying into the left side of the system. There is no flow and the quiet and the dark lets your thoughts concentrate and wonder at what you are seeing. I pick up my reel and begin to crank in the excess as we slowly rise up the wall and towards the surface. The line tangles round the spool, but this is a wreck reel and I have used it before, I know it will keep going. It continues to tangle but still turn and as I reach my tie in I have a mess round the reel but no unspooled line. Yep, this will be my primary from now on.

At the surface I clip off my tangled reel to a stage clip at the steps and we float about resting and planning the second half of this dive. The left side and the Breakdown Room.

We sink back below the surface and I tie around another team’s line and we make our way back into the cavern. I tie into the gold line and we make our way to the start of the tunnel and the grim reaper sign proclaiming “there is nothing in this cave worth dying for”. This is true. When your light is out and there is no sound, and a dark so black that not a hint of the outside world pierces it. You need to touch your eyelids to see if they are open or closed but you cannot for there is a mask in the way and help or harm could be but an arms length away and you cannot see it…. You want to know what to do and how to do it.

I think of this each time I pass one of these signs and go over in my mind what I need to do. Then the cave is there and I swim on. Past rocks and boulders of all shapes and sizes as you slowly go deeper and then there above is again a small slit, ledge like, and as you approach it you see it extends to the left in a low narrow like passage. Through the Chute and into the Breakdown Room we go.

As we pass along the rock encased tube of a tunnel you can see it is not just wet rocks. There are fossils, some lying on the bed of rocks, small perfect scallop shells permanently embalmed in stone and bits and pieces sticking up from the rock floor. You can scoot along through here pulling on the occasion and riding it like something at Disney or you can march on through eyes forward, finning perfectly not touching floor nor ceiling and making your way along looking for the end and anticipating the rooms farther back, or you can meander like a drunk down a hallway with no straight line and check along the floors and walls for the fossils. Little treasures, time capsules of a time gone by and long past. The sea was here, starfish and sand dollars dotted this floor. Maybe great sharks swam this same passage, maybe it was not always a cave. So many maybes, so much wonder.

This gives way to larger and larger spaces and once again boulders of rock line the floor and as we turn to make our way back I listen…. Can I hear footsteps…. Are there people walking, children running just above our heads? The silence is deafening. But they are up there, in some spots not more than 20 feet above…. There are squirrels scurrying and snakes slithering and maybe even people following the trail…. And reading those signs…. Planted 30 inches deep…. I know cause my arm is 29 inches and if I couldn’t touch the bottom of the hole than it was 30 inches and deep enough.

Ahhh, the surface. We are on our way.

Terry is in the lead now. Beams of light bouncing off white rock in every direction as we take one last look. Silvery pools pock the ceiling. They are pockets of trapped air waiting their turn to make their way slowly up to the surface through the porous limestone rock. And if you drag your finger through them they shimmer and tiny bubbles appear. Almost as good as poking fish…. Almost.

I pick up my reel and crank my way to the light, the haze of blue green marking the entrance to the cavern and the exit to the surface and home. I am a poker….. I hang for a few moments before surfacing and there are a few fish I now know…. On an intimate basis….. they will learn.

We stop to pay our bill and pick up the dog…. Another Twix….. STILL no donuts…. And we are on our way home…. A long day…. But sweet dives….