Cave Diving in Florida - Chapter 3

{I noticed Tamara turn off Steve's isolator and made sure my valves where all still on. I was laying the line this dive and it seemed reasonably easy without the current. I checked our air before we went into the cave and Steve noticed the turned off Isolator. We squeezed through the triangular entrance and down a rocky slope into the cavern. Then tied into the main line which was attacched to the left of the entrance behind a large rock pillar. Commenced our dive into the cave. We saw many catfish all the way into the cave, and a small albino crayfish. We had some mysterious light failures and leaking valves as well as an out of air drill on the way out. I was told that I didn't check my air often enough and made a point to check it more often after that - funnily enough during the dive I thought I was checking my air way too often and was stopping myself from doing so, so I didn't appear paranoid or narced - but I guess that's were cave diving differs from UK sea diving.

Steve lead the second dive where a few more failures happend on the way out. Tamara turned my isolator off before we entered the cave, but I noticed her doing so and turned it back on there and then. This made us check our valves real frequently. The third dive was only in the Spring pool and involved line following drills: first singley, then singley without mask, then as a buddy pair with mask, but eyes closed and sharing air.

After the dives we headed to Chiefland for lunch at a chinese place which serverd good food, then back to High Springs for a couple of hours of lectures.

Thursday (12th April) we were back at Manatee. This time to dive the Friedman's Sink hole. A muddy puddle about 1m deep full of leaf litter, dead branches, tree roots with a narrow tunnel in the bottom leading into the cave. The place was in the woods, a 500m walk from the road and I would have never suspected an entrance to a cave there. The woods swarmed with mosquitos, flys, ticks as well as butterflies. A deer was dosing in the sun in the middle of the road not far from where we got kitted up.
It was an overcast warm day. Which was just as well as we slogged fully kitted up along the path throught the woods to the sink hole. There is a short slope down to the water and we sat down in the puddle to cool off a bit before starting the dive.

For more info see http://gue.com/sites/srb/manatee/index.html

Steve was first down the hole. Tamara hadn't told me how long the entrance tunnel was. I had to go head first down a vertical tube where my cylinders scraped along one side and my suit inflate valve scraped along the other side - my elbows touched walls all around. With my right hand I was following the line along the wall which ment that my light often faced the wall - turning everything black around me. It was dark and murky as a lot of the leaf litter was following me into the tube.. I freaked after 3m and scrambled back out - feet first. Tamara looked a bit surprised and having check I was OK went in back to get Steve. We sat in the pool for 15 min whilst I rationalised what had gone on. I then decided to have another go - apparently I had nearly reached the end of the tube in my first try.

This time Tamara went first and held her light up at me so I could work out where the end was. All was well and I escaped into the cavern OK. I still don't like going head first into a murky dark hole, but I coped, and feel much better about this sort of thing now. I re-established my buoyancy and waited for Steve to follow.
The sink hole is approx 3m long and around 1m in diameter. It leads to a cavern that has a max depth of 27m. The mainline is tied to a tree outside the hole and leads through the tube to the bottom of the cavern and then splits to follow each opening of the cave tunnel.

I was put into the lead for this dive and followed the main line against the current. We came to a huge room and headed across it - I think it might have been the Pillar Room on the map above. We got to maybe some 600 ft in before we reached our turn pressure.
Steve lead the way out and we had another light failure. Got back to the sinkhole and did our safety stop just underneath it. The sun was shining through the hole into the cavern and a few small catfish were swimming around us. We exited back through the sinkhole into the muddy puddle. The exit was quite easy and uneventfull.

We sat in the puddle for 30 minutes discussing the dive and then went in again - we kept to the same order for reentry and I found it much easier this time round, but still felt lke a complete novice when I trundled from the tube into the cavern doing a windmill impression to regain my buoyancy - to feel Tamara turn my isolation valve off ;-).

Steve took the lead into the cave and we went the same way as before. I was told to be OOA on the way back, and returned to the exit breathing of Steve's reg. I was glad that Tamara let us go back to our own regs before exiting through the tube. We did our safety stop with all lights out and watched the catfish pick away at the leave litter that was still raining from the sinkhole.

We scrambled out of the tube and sat in the puddle for a few minutes before attempting our way back to the carpark. The sun had come out now and it was quite hot. Dekitted and drove back to Chiefland for another Chineese lunch. Then back to High Springs to finish off the lectures. Had dinner at the Outdoor Café near the EE shop - a very nice place with excellent food, run by a British lady. Shame we didn't have time to stop there more often.

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