Mailing List Archive Mailing List Archive
Finally, here's my trip report. Sorry for taking so long to get it
written. I'd be happy to answer any questions on it either on the
list or in private.
-Carl-
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Trip Report on trip to Gainesville, Florida on 12/7/95 -12/11/95
for training in cave diving by:
Carl G. Heinzl
email: cgh@ma*.ai*.mi*.ed* (preferable)
carl@vv*.co* (secondary)
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Part #1 - Introduction
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I wanted to do this trip earlier in 1995, however, being as busy as we
all are I just was unable to schedule the time. So be it, I took my
time to find an instructor that I was comfortable with and who came
highly recommended by George Irvine, Tom Mount, and Ken Sallot as well
as several other members of the cavers mailing list whose opinions I
trust. The instructor I choose was Jarrod Jablonski. For those of
you who havne't heard of him, he's one of the well known divers on the
WKPP (Woodvill Karst Plains Project) and so he dives quite a bit as
well as teaching for IANTD, NSS, NACD and who knows what else.
As much as I really wanted to learn cave diving time was a very
precious commodity so I asked my wife to schedule my trip so I could
get 3 days of diving in. She called up our travel club (Travelers
Advantage) and arranged the air trip on Delta, the rental car via
Avis, and the hotel - the High Springs Country Inn. Travelers
Advantage books everything for us and, when we send in copies of the
airline tickets, rental car recept/etc, sends us a 5% rebate. If
you're interested in this, let me know (I have nothing to gain
financially and am NOT tied to them).
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Names/etc of the companies that I used, restaurants I ate at/etc.
along with a rating 1-10 (10 is best - 1 is the pits)
#1) Airlines - Delta
Flew from Manchester, NH - Boston, MA - Atlanta, GA - Gainesville, FLA
on 12/7/95 and back (same route) on 12/11/95
rating: trip down - 4, trip back - 2.5
#2) Car Rental - Avis
rating: 9
#3) Hotel - High Springs Country Inn
rating: 9
#4) Diving Instruction - Jarrod Jablonski (904-45402202)
rating: 10+++
#5) Restaurant - Sonny's in Alachua
rating: 7.5
#6) Restaurant - Nels (Branford)
rating: 8.5
#7) Supermarket - Winn Dixie (open 24 hours about 2 blocks down!)
rating: 9.0
#8) Ginnie Springs (the dive shop)
rating: 9.5
#9) Seamboat Dive Shop
rating: 9.5
#10) Spring Systems (the dive shop) - also a bunk house now
rating: 9.0 +++ - they had *complimentary* burgers!!!
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Part #2) - The "trip"
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a) The Trip To Florida
Being able to leave from Manchester, NH made the trip much more
convenient than driving to Boston and the additional airfare was only
$9.00. My wife dropped me off and I checked my one suitcase which
only has non-diving related items like clothes, etc. I kept my dive
bag, which weighed in at just over 100 lbs, to be gate checked, and I
had a smaller carryon (the diaper bag the hospital gave us when my son
was born on 10/7) to carry a few books/magazines to read on the trip.
Manchester airport has a very "new" look and feel to it. My flight
was scheduled to leave at 4:00 pm and the airport was virtually empty
- no crowds here. The trip from Manchester to Boston was on an 18
seat twin prop plane. You couldn't even stand upright inside (I'd
guess that headroom floor to ceiling was about 5' or so. It took 2
people to gate check my scuba bag :^) We took off about 10 minutes
late. The pilot apologized and said it was due to an irate passenger
on the previous flight, whatever... I don't remember exact how long
the trip was to Boston, but it was pretty short. I timed the reverse
direction though and it was only 13 minutes of "in the air" time!!!
I would like to have gate checked my scuba bag in Boston as well, but
they said that Atlanta would NOT bring a gate checked bag to you
except for very limited items like strollers and wheelchairs. This
REALLY sounded stupid to me, but, there's often no rhyme or reason
behind the way things like this are done. I'm going to verify this
for my next trip - yes, I plan on going back :^) I was tempted to say
there was a wheelchair IN my bag but knowing some of the people at
airports (some are serious idiots) I figured I'd just stow the bag in
the overhead compartment. Yes, it did fit, albeit with a little
"convincing". The flight to Atlanta left late as well, about 25
minutes late. I was getting nervous since my layover in Atlanta was
only 1:05... The flight overall was smooth and far from full. Even
though there were plenty of extra seats I had started a conversation
with my neighbor about computers/etc and we continued it through
virtually the whole flight. It definitely helped pass the time
quickly. We went into a holding pattern outside of Atlanta. The
pilot said it would take 20 minutes to land once we got the go ahead
and that he expected it to be at least 20 minutes before we got the go
ahead. 10 minutes later we started our descent. I inquired with the
stewardess about the connecting flights. For whatever reason, she has
absolutely NO information regarding connections and really had the
attitude of "well, there's nothing you can do about it anyway so just
sit tight" - what a BIMBO I thought to myself!!! With this age of
communications you'd think they could flash all the connecting flight
information up on the screens in the airplane but, some industries are
still in the dark ages and this stewardess looked like she needed to
be pulled by her hair into a cave and.... well, that's off the
subject. The food on the airplane was reasonable, I've had better and
worse, I'd rank it about a 5. My neighbor gave me his piece of fudge
so I was happy :^)
In any case, once we landed I immediately checked and found out my
other plane was delayed 30 minutes so I had about 15-20 minutes to get
to the gate - unfortunately we landed at the end of one concourse so
my trip was all the way up that concourse and *ALL* the way down the
next one - and that was carrying my Dive bag (100+ lbs remember) and
small carryon... I was thinking that I was glad that I had been
swimming to build up the legs :^)
Trip to Gainesville was uneventful, I just had a few juices (OJ) to
stay hydrated - airplane air is filtered and pretty dry. We landed at
Gainesville about 40 minutes later than we were scheduled to
originally, but, I was here...
b) The Rental car - Avis
Gainesville airport was smaller than Manchester NH. The rental car
agencies were easy to find, courteous and it didn't take long to get
out of the airport. The one thing I really would have liked was an FM
radio, the car, a "full sized" by todays standards, a Sierra was
pretty comfortable and ran about $30 a day. I wanted large so I could
spread my gear out easily...
Ken (Sallot) had told me to turn right onto 39th street then right
again on 441 and take that into High Springs. Actually I was planing
on meeting Ken at the McDonalds near the I75 intersection but I was so
late the lights were turned out and the person inside didn't speak
English so it was clear they were not there...
c) The lodging - High Spring Counry Inn - Rt 441 High Springs
Down the road to the High Spring Country Inn (right on 441) - the
office was just shutting their lights off as I pulled up, they thought
I wasn't coming, but, likety split I was all set up in unit #8. And,
they told me about Winn Dixie supermarket a couple block further down
441.
I carried my gear into the room and headed over to Winn Dixie, a 24
hour grocery store, to get some "staples". I picked up a gallon of
milk, a half gallon of OJ, 3 subs (one to eat immediately, the others
for lunches), some grapes (for between dives), a bag of pears, and a
bag of M&Ms for treats - total about $35. There's a small fridge in
the room (perfect). The first night I was there I had to turn on
the AC, the last night, the heat was on (only a portable electric
heater but it did the job). I watched TV for a while. They have
cable PLUS some of the good pay channels like HBO/MC/etc, which is a
little unusual. I had a queen sized room - cost $30.50 a night and
very nice in my opinion - I'll stay there again when I go back (if I'm
alone). I unpacked, got my gear ready for the next day, then fell
asleep about 3:30.
The *only* 2 negative things about the hotel were:
1) no alarm clock - but they did do wakeup calls and I wanted to get up
at 7:00 but forgot to tell them.
2) the towels are pretty "thin". Fortunately I only used them for
showering, I had brought my own two BIG towels down for use between
and afer diving.
I'd suggest brining an alarm clock. Fortunately, my own internal
clock woke me up a 6:47 after a refreshing 3:17 of sleep. I was
meeing Jarrod at Ginie at 8:00 and had to find it - fortunately, it
was simple and the route is well marked. I actually arrived about
7:45 (it was about a 15-20 minute drive). I always enjoyed the drive,
heading past the farms with cows, horses, etc. I love the country.
d) Ginnie and meeting Jarrod
I walked around the outside a little, the shop opened about 10 minutes
early so I decided to check out the shop, prices, what they stock,
etc. As dive shops go, this one is fairly well stocked and the
prices, well, they're better than MOST other dive shops that I've seen
with the possible exception of Andy's Sport Shop in Fitchburg, MA, but
Andy's does NOT have the selection of gear that Ginnie does!!! I
later found out that prices were low all over Florida. It must have
something to do with the fact that diving is really a year round
activity down there... I know, I know, it is here in New England too,
but not for the vast majority of divers. Having the spring water at
68-73 degrees year round makes for very consistent diving conditions
(well, except for flow, clarity, etc).
In any case, Jarrod came in a few minutes after 8:00, I got logged in
at Ginnie - I got a sticker good for diving that day, and I left my
credit card "open" so I could just pick up things as needed (warning,
this can be dangerous if you're like me at all). We then headed over
to the classroom on the side of the building and we had a brief
lecture. ALL of the lecures were very brief for several reasons.
First, I obtained the books ahead of time, read them all *twice* and
understood everything. Second I was taking a private class so there
was no one else to hold me up :^) I figured at this point in my life
the time is more valuable than the extra couple of hundred dollars,
which, when you figure in airfare, car, hotel, etc is less than 1/2
the cost of the whole trip. Third, I knew my gear needed to be
reconfigured so with the helpful advise of George Irvine, Ken Sallot,
and others I ordered the "right stuff" ahead of time, checked it out
and even though I didn't get to dive with it was thoroughly familiar
with how I expected things to work, which proved out to be very
useful.
After the lecture we started reconfiguring the gear. I had a brand
new AUL aluminum backplate with a continuous piece of webbing and
inner tube cross sections for attaching and holding things down. I
got the tanks (double lp 95's) and started with the wings and
backplate. Then, we worked on the regs. I had to configure the long
hose (7') - i.e. move around which 1st stage hole it was screwed into,
and play around with a couple other items. The basic idea on the 1st
stages is to have the hoses all point down. I have to add some strain
relievers to the hoses (a couple of them are new) but other than that
everything is in good shape. Jarrod showed me how to mount the 2
secondary lights (both sl4s). We took off the strap that they come
with, took some nylon rope and connected a clip to the sl4, hooked
each one to a shoulder (really top, front of chest) D ring and used
one of the "inner tube" rubber bands to hold it to the webbing (and
keep it from dangling. We roped a clip to the pressure gauge so I
could clip that off on the waist D ring. Jarrod used their heat gun
to melt a hole in the webbing so the bolts could fit through the
webbing/wings and secure the backplate to everything. After roughly
45 minutes of gear configuring, we loaded up and headed for Ginnie
(the cavern). So that morning I ended up buying 3 clips, a neck strap
for my short hose and one SL4 light.
Jarrod told me to hop in and get used to the tanks. The first thing
that I noticed was that everything was a little :^) heavier than I was
used to. I certainly didn't miss the weight belt though. I inflated
the wings and waded in to swim around a little. About 5 minutes later
I felt pretty comfortable swimming around down to the cavern and back
and just hovering. I did notice that the AUL light felt a little
loose though. I surfaced looked for JJ who wasn't there yet so I just
went down and did some more hovering, getting used to moving around
with the heavy doubles. I tightened the waist strap a couple of times.
When he finally showed up plans changed a little because a school bus
of divers just showed up. We went over the standard buddy check items
including the S (safety) drill, quick air sharing drill, etc, a piece
of cake. He ran a circuit outside the cavern, made several ties off,
into the cavern, around, and back out. The first skill we pretty much
passed on which was to just look at and follow the line (I watched him
lay it). He told me how to follow it without seeing it, explaining
how to feel for entrances/exits off of a tie point. I followed it
eyes closed, no problem, kind of fun. I then got to reel up the line.
Since I'm not as nice as Jim (in his trip report) I will mention the
reel manufacturer... It was a dive rite reel and a piece of c**p. It
wound unevenly and would bind periodically producing a very
uneven/rough feel. There was NO contrast to my Aqua Explorers reel,
although I had a wreck reel with thicker line and it isn't quite long
enough for some of the longer tie ins. We then did practice primary
and secondary tieoffs for a cavern dive and practiced placing the line
and some of the other cavern skills. These were all pretty quick
dives, 4 in all, and we got out of the water just as the hoard was
starting to arrive and get geared up - whew. We went back up to the
shop just to top off the tanks and grab a bite to eat. I had a couple
of the ham sandwiches and a juice from the shop.
Down to the caves :^) Before the dive here, I got a plastic clip from
Jarrods truck and used that to hold the light in place on the waist
strap, MUCH MUCH better. I really felt like the gear was holding
together nice and tightly now :^) Here's where my memory got a little
fuzzy. We did one dive in Devil's Eye, which has some flow. Tying
off there was a little difficult for someone not used to doing this in
a flow. We basically went in to the mainline and a little ways down
the mainline, then back, picking up the reel. On the way out, I found
(not by choice but by necessity), that the easiest way to remove the
reel is to point yourself INTO the flow while you're unwrapping the
reel. Of course my bouyancy on this dive sucked raw eggs from the tie
in to the main line. I could have picked some better placements for
the line too, but they weren't too bad. I seem to remember doing this
twice, maybe the first time we just did the tie ins and line placement
and turned around at the main line??? I may be forgetting some
drills/skills we performed so please don't take this as a complete
listing. We then did a dive at Devil's Ear, lower flow than the Eye
but still interesting. Bouyancy was better but still needed work, esp
between primary and secondary tie offs. Line placement was good. We
past the Eye entrance and on to the mainline. I believe we did a
lights out drill, and a brief air sharing drill. Once we hit the main
line I felt very comfortable :^) Both these dives were done to 1/6ths
(which would be 1/3 of a single tank). My bouyancy once I got to tie
off the main reel was halfway decent but the entrance stuff needed
work. You just don't see the same types of bouyancy changes in open
water diving as you do here and, you're most likely close to neutral
with less air in the BC so it's not nearly so noticible.
After getting out of the water, climbing the stairs, and walking back
to the vehicles, nothing feels so good as when you sit the tanks down
and take them off :^)
I could have and would like to have done more dives but we quit for
the day around 6:30 that evening. I bought a few books at Ginne to
peruse that evening and headed for the hotel. JJ recommended Sonny's
as a good place for BBQ so I headed down there for dinner that
evening. First, back to the hotel, I hung up my wetsuit, booties, and
lycra hood and laid out the other gear to dry. The nice thing about
fresh water is that really washing the equipment isn't as critical.
Sonny's was good, I woofed down dinner and got back to the hotel
around 9:00 or so. Oh, I got the Cavern and Intro tests to do that
evening... I watched a couple shows on TV, downloaded my dive
profiles to my PC from the computer (a Suunto Solution), called my
wife, and rested :^) Around 11:30 I looked at the quizzes and did them
while I watched some show on TV. Fell alseep around 3:00 but, I always
go to sleep late and I'm really pumped with adrenalin. zzzzzzzzz
e) Day #2 - Little River
Saturday, 12/9/95 - woke up at 7:40 - uh ohh, gotta hurry a little...
Packed the car, took the bag of pears and grapes and the OJ with me.
We filled the tanks, went over the quizzes and did some quick
lecturing which ended up being half lecture and half discussion which
I really liked (while I had some OJ and grapes), JJ gave me the take
home test for basic nitrox and we then headed over to Little River.
Two quick dives to 1/6ths here saw increasing improvements in bouyancy
control. Mainline bouyancy was pretty good at this point, from
secondary to the mainline was also pretty good and the line placements
were ok, and from primary to secondary was improving, but still needed
work.
I believe the key is to learn to anticipate bouyancy changes and take
care of things before you're too negative, which can happen fast! The
first dive still had me bouncing on the ground a little between
primary and secondary but, the second was markedly better. Again we
did some lights out and air sharing drills in the cave, nothing shook
or scared me, I was calm at all times. We were getting into slightly
longer penetrations, say, 400-500' and air was never the turning
criteria, we always reached the goal of the dive and turned on JJ's
signal. On the 2nd dive we got the the point at which the mainline
branches and turned there. At this point I'm really pumped and
excited for the next dive, the first dive to thirds :^)
Off to Steamboat Dive shop for air and lunch. This day I brought one
of the subs from Winn Dixie and munched on that, and I was eating the
pears and drinking OJ while driving behind JJ. No dehydration for
this puppy :^)
The afternoon found us back at Little River, which was very low as
others have reported and with very low flow. We found Ken Sallot and
another diver, I've forgotten his name 4 times now :^), was it Al???
At least I didn't forget Ken's name :^)
Intro was done, this was to be the first dive on 1/3s of doubles, and
I was carrying jump reels (3) clipped off to the right hand side tank
D ring. Of course, all along I had a safety reel on my LHS Tank D
ring. Ken and companion entered and said goodbye (they didn't expect
to see us when they returned). We entered, I ran the reel taking care
to avoid Ken's reel, and off we went. The plan was to run a jump to
the mud tunnel (which I had already seen on the previou dive), head
down to the end of that, back onto the mainline and just a piece
further down, either until we reached thirds, or Jarrod or I called
the dive. Things proceeded relatively smoothly. I fumbled a little
with the jump reels but got them tied off ok (it just took a minute or
so longer than I would have liked but I was proceeding slowly). I
decided ahead of time that I would like to tie my arrows in right over
the jump reel tie in and told Jarrod this. I also through an extra
wrap over the front of the arrow. A few places I noticed a little
silt being kicked up so I concentrated on finning techniques more,
which JJ had been working on with me a little. We found ourselves
back on the mainline and going a little further. JJ finally called
the dive and we turned. First reel pickup, no problem, 2nd reel
pickup and my bouyancy went a little off so I ended up turned around.
Just as I got the reel off the line and the arrow stowed I saw what I
thought was Jarrod heading down the line so I quickly followed. It
was also strange that there were two other divers there, one of whom
was on a single tank. About 150' or so down the tunnel I noticed that
things seemed to be looking "differently", like, unfamiliar. I was
about to stop, wait and turn around when JJ tapped me on the shoulder.
Yep, I had followed the wrong group and he let me. Ok, back toward
the entrance. Even though we were diving Nitrox (roughly 30% the 2nd
dive) I was decoing on an air computer, in fact, I had two of them, a
Solution and a Solution Alpha. Strangely enough, the Alpha read a
*constant* 3 feet deeper than the Solution at all depths. Max depth
on the Solution was 94', 97' on the alpha. I was showing 30 and 47
minutes of deco required so we settled down to wait at the 20 foot
stop. After a while we headed up to the 10' stop. I actually did
that stop a little deeper because I found a comfortable cranny to back
into. At some point Ken and buddy showed up and started their deco.
Ken was fooling around and headed off into a shallow side tunnel only
to reappear again several minutes later...
With deco done we hoisted outselves out and up to the vehicles for
post dive (should I say post mortem) debreifing. The first real
lesson learned - never forget which direction you're heading or going
to head!!! Total underwater time including deco was 90 minutes
exactly. Of course I violated the Solution Alpha so it was now
useless (but it didn't know I was diving nitrox either). The original
Solution was fine.
Ken and buddy appeared at the surface a while later and we went down
to greet them... Somehow, an O2 bottle (or was it a stage bottle?)
got loose and we chased it down for them lest it be swept away in the
river. In any case, I joined Ken and company for a dinner at the
world famous Nels. Pretty good food, cheap too. That was a good
thing because I told Ken I'd buy him dinner for all the help he gave
me pre-trip - I still owe George one too but he wasn't there, maybe
next trip... I followed Ken back to the High Springs area, but
tonight was the first annual High Springs Christmas Parade. Ken
turned around and headed around the parade area while I simply parked,
got out and enjoyed the parade. People are pretty friendly down there
:^)
This parade lasted quite a while (about 45 minutes). Afterward I went
back to the Inn, relaxed, unpacked my gear, washed the sand off of my
booties, rewound my primary reel, and downloaded my profiles onto my
laptop. I watched some TV, called my wife at 10:00 like I promised,
downloaded my dive profiles, did the nitrox quiz around 1:30, then
fell asleep around 3:30.
f) Day #3 - Peacock
Sunday 12/10/95 - Up at 7:00 am today, I feel great but am a little
sad that it's my last day here :^( Over to Ginnie to meet JJ, pick up
a couple of items at Ginnie, close out my account and off to dive. I
picked up 3 of the cave videos on the rack there. I've now watched
1.75 of them and they're painful to watch. It appears to me as though
the person doing them just found out how to dub on video from a
computer so that about 1/3 of the screen is taken up with this stupid
map of the cave with a pointer showing you where you are in the cave
at all times. Please, I wish they would have kept this crap OFF the
screen as it detracts big time from the video. There's also a timer,
that's fine, you can reference that to a list of positions. A paper
map of the cave with the various times would have been more than
sufficient. I'm planning on writing a letter of complaint and
forwarding it to Ginnie and the Manufacturer if I can find them (Scuba
Tech, whoever/wherever the hell that is).
Back to the course... We went over the Nitrox quiz, JJ had forgotten
his answer key but we visually did them all, nothing suprising. With
tanks filled, we started the trek to Peacock which I was told was a
very silty place. Our first dive was down the mainline do the jump at
Pothole. Jim Greenlee, in his trip report, noticed some cooler water
around here in his dry suit, however, I in my full 3mm jumpsuit didn't
notice anything. Anyhow, we did the jump, went down the mainline a
little ways and turned the dive on JJ's call. We did lights out, air
sharing, and on the way back a lost diver drill. This was
interesting. Unbeknownst to me, I dropped the set screw of my safety
reel somewhere, or so I had thought :^) I really couldn't believe that
it would unscrew THAT many turns so I did a double and a tripe take
with a look of disbelief on my face. I unclipped the reel, tied off,
and was told generally where to search. I didn't fully understand
where he wanted me to go so he kept pointing out different areas with
his light. Then, I thought I finally got the idea so I headed off
into a VERY low area that just LOOKED like someone would get lost in
:^) I got pretty far in, found the "end"s of the tunnel and turned
around. Jarrod said he was about ready to come get me because of the
tight area I went into :^) I felt pretty good though that I hadn't
screwed up (other than going somewhere he didn't really want me to).
I reeled the safety reel back in, jury rigged it so it wouldn't unwind
on the way out (remember the "lost" set screw) and clipped it off. On
the way back we again did a lights out drill, I had to find my
secondary, then did the secondary lights out, then an air sharing
drill (lights on). At this point I was feeling pretty good. Also, on
the way out, Jarrod purposefully took off the wrong way after removing
a jump reel, about 50' down the line he turned around, shrugged his
shoulders and I pointed back the other way. He turned around JUST
before I was able to grab his leg too... I don't remember what else
we did on the way out here but nothing out of the ordinary. I did
notice during the deco that magically my set screw on my safety reel
reappeared. At that point I thought I was hallucinating and wondered
what Jarrod would say :^)
In any case, this dive went fairly well and I'm feeling pretty good at
this point. Bouyancy has improved an order of magnitude over my 1st
day and even quite a bit since day 2. Even the primary to secondary
bouyancy is pretty good. Jarrod commented that my finning technique
was quite good and that very little if anything was being disturbed
even at the lowpoints. The trick he told me was to keep your head
down. The natural tendency is to look at the low overhangs which
forces your body into a more vertical position, fins DOWN. If you put
your head down, your fins can stay up and pretty soon you'll get a
feeling for where you are in relation to the ceiling. You know what
it worked :^) Total dive was around 70 minutes.
Upon surfacing there was this scruffy looking guy sitting on the steps
with a woman nearby. Having never met, I assumed this was Jim and his
wife. I later learned it was the park ranger about to throw him in
jail for not paying his $5.00 entry fee :^). We climbed out - the
exit was quite interesting with the water below the bottom step!, and
headed off for some air and lunch. Jim accompanied us. We had lunch
at Spring Systems (complimentary hamburgers!!!), filled our tanks and
looked around a little while. They had a real nice Peacock map T
shirt but unfortunately it was only available in XL and I'm a 2X. We
saw Richard Wylde (I saw him back at Ginnie a couple days earlier!)
who's also on this list and out diving around the area somewhere.
Back to Peacock for my final dive with a real buddy. Since I couldn't
find a real buddy, there was Jim :^)
The first disappointment was that Jim had a transformer pac, I already
knew this, but, JJ let me violate rule #1 anyway :^) We got in, and
were ready to go. We did the usual buddy check, air sharing
drill/etc. The plan was to head down the peanut tunnel, crossover
back to the mainline and head to Olsens Sink, air and comfort level
permitting and I was going to do all the reel work while Jarrod more
or less observed Jim. Since I was diving 95s and Jim was on 104s we
had to calculate turning pressure based on my smaller tanks. Off we
went. The trip in went pretty smooth. Someone once commented that
Jim swam slow and I'll second that, but it was his first dive and I
was feeling pretty comfortable at this point, but, I'll also note that
I'm definitely a little more on the "quick" side and I was
purposefully trying to keep the pace down. We jumped to the peanut
tunnel, jumped again back to the crossover, and then again back to the
main line, all went very well. I was even running the jumps with some
efficiency at this point. I was keeping an eye on Jim (looking
between my legs) every so often. Just as we got near to Olsen Sink
and started a slight ascent, Jim had a bouyancy problem and was into
the ceiling (he wrote about this in his report too). I went to him
and helped hold him a minute until he regained control. His signal to
turn the dive was done by moving his hand in a circle. I was taught
from JJ that that was not a "must" turn, but more of a , well, ok,
let's turn now so I querried, question, then up (thumb pointed up)
which again I was taught meant go up (out) NOW. The decision was
made, let's go. I had seen Olsens sink but Jim was 20 or 30' behind
me so I'm not sure if he had seen it as well as I did. On the way
back the cave monster struck. At various points things came off, line
unspooled, lights failed, air was lost, etc. Jim and I handled it all
with ease and with no consternation. The lights out air sharing drill
was actually fun. I remember even seeing in my mind some of the
passages and rocks on the way out that we had seen on the way in as we
bumped, josteled and swam around them. At some point our secondary
lights magically worked again. While SL4s don't put out a TON of
light, they're certainly adequate for conditions like we were in.
Total dive time was around 65 minutes.
One comment was that I still knelt down on the secondary tie off. It
wasn't a silty area or anything so I wasn't concerned and didn't think
it an issue but from now on, I'll hover. We should have gone over our
communications before the dive. I thought Jim was too far behind me
but Jarrod said that the distance was ok. Jim thought I should have
gripped him tighter during the air sharing/lights out drill (I kept a
pretty light touch) and Jarrod agreed and said that in real life a
diver would most likely really CLAMP on :^)
I was finished and sad. Jim and I headed over to Nels, which, closes
on Sundays at 2:00 pm, then on to Jim's favorite place in High
Springs, Conestoga's, which was closed on Sundays so we headed on down
the road to a dinner at Sonny's...
It was a pleasure to have a dive with a real partner (thanks Jim, I'd
even like to do it again sometime now that we'll both be full cave
soon hopefully), knowing that on most dives many things that we went
through would NOT happen but that we were at least beginning to be
prepared to handle these types of emergencies (yes, it takes
continuous practice!). I know that I really enjoy cave diving because
I quite often dream about it, and I go through some pretty interesting
scenarios in my mind :^)
With that I headed back to the High Springs Country Inn, and started
thinking about planning my next trip to the Sunshine State :^)
g) The Trip Home :^(
I got up around 7:00 am with a 10:00 flight scheduled. I had checked
out of the hotel the night before (i.e. paid my bill). The car was
loaded and I was on my way by 7:30. The gas station I stopped at to
fill the car had the slowest pump i have ever seen in my life. I was
watching the pennies tick off!!! After what seemed like forever (was
really close to 15 minutes!!!) I was outta there. This was a Monday
morning so there was some traffic but it was still very easy getting
to the airport. Handed in the keys to the rental car and I didn't
even charge them for all th extra sand I left in it :^) Checked in
with the airlines and relaxed until flight time.
Having finished the dive at 5:05 the previous day and having a 10:00
flight with the Solution still showing about 5:00 in the "time to fly"
mode didn't really bother me much. I had been diving nitrox the
entire time (36% morning, topping off with air leaving roughly 30% for
the afternoon) all along so I had less nitrogen than the computers
calculated. Understanding this I accepted the risk and no symptoms
came on.
As soon as I landed in Atlanta I was disappointed. My flight to
Boston had a "CX" on it - cancelled!!! The next flight was two hours
later. While Delta said the plane was having mechanical difficulty it
was more likely a cost saving measure by them. Everyone on our flight
(that I know of) rebooked on the later flight and there were STILL
seats open on the flight. I was really not happy with this. So, I
sat down to lunch at the pizza place in Atlanta airport near gate A19.
At least the pizza there was MUCH better than expected and I felt
pretty good after that. The flight from Boston to Manchester was
uneventful except that out of the gate to actually taking off was
something like another 30 minutes, 20 of which was made up in the air.
Then, from Boston to Manchester the flight was delayed again, 45 MORE
minutes. I was scheduled to reach Manchester originall at 4:00 pm and
I didn't get in until about 7:30. I'll think twice about flying Delta
again. And, of course, no one could ever provide connecting
information while you were in the air. Come on Delta, this IS 1995...
At the airport I met my wife and son Josh who wanted to show me around
the airport... Back home and it felt good but I knew that I would
return to Florida again:^) Stayed tuned for "Full Cave, March 1996"
:^)
-Carl G. Heinzl-
(c) 12/28/95
This was posted to cavers yesterday and Jim sent me some followup
email... Thanks to Jim for the following corrections!!! He said I
could post this or not as I saw fit. Well, I hate to have details
wrong so...
>> We did one dive in Devil's Eye, which has some flow. [...] We then
>> did a dive at Devil's Ear, lower flow than the Eye
Jim corrected me saying...
>The Ear is the one with the flow (the entrance closest to the
>river). The Eye is the round one just out from the deck.
I knew something didn't feel right - I've gotta write these reports
sooner that way I won't forget as much :^)
>> Jim Greenlee, in his trip report, noticed some cooler water around
>> here in his dry suit,
Jim corrected me saying...
>The area of river intrusion is in one of the crossover tunnels (off
>the main line) - if you look at a map of Peacock, it's over to right,
>kind of between Pothole and Cisteen Sinks. Ask Jarrod to take you
>thourgh that section when you go back in March - I think you'll find
>that the temperature drop is fairly noticeable.
So, indeed, I did not get to this point, which was off the mainline to
the right.
>> Upon surfacing there was this scruffy looking guy sitting on the
>> steps with a woman nearby.
>I've been called a lot of things - but that's got to be a first for
>"scruffy" :-).
Musta been that dust on my mask that I was looking through (I have a
prescription mask) :^) Anyone else that's met Jim care to comment :^)
>> Back to Peacock for my final dive with a real buddy. Since I
>> couldn't find a real buddy, there was Jim :^)
>I resemble that remark!
Heh heh... I hope everyone realizes that I did enjoy diving with Jim
immensely.
>> Someone once commented that Jim swam slow and I'll second that,
>I'm sure I'm in the minority on this, but I just like taking my time
>and looking at the scenery.
We'll just have to get you a scooter :^)
>> His signal to turn the dive was done by moving his hand in a circle.
>> I was taught from JJ that that was not a "must" turn,
>I was watching George's "Extreme" video last night (the one that was
>"edited" for the NACD workshop), and noticed that the dive shown in
>the video (at Wakulla) was turned using this same signal. So maybe
>I'm not as much of a goober as I thought :-).
I never meant to insinuate this, it was just what JJ had taught me.
It was more of a failing on BOTH of our part, not having gone over
signals before the dive. And when you think about it, it's even
worse, Jim is an OW instructor and I'm near a DM (I know, BFD) but
have about 3k dives and we both have LOTS of experience so, we made a
bush league mistake - won't happen again...
>> I had seen Olsens sink but Jim was 20 or 30' behind me so I'm not
>> sure if he had seen it as well as I did.
>Probably not - I clearly saw the light streaming in through the
>opening, though (that always looks kind of neat to me).
Yea, I thought it was a GREAT view. I would have like to have gone up
to see it from the surface, but, there's that 1/3rds rule and when
someone calls the dive, it's called!
>> It was a pleasure to have a dive with a real partner (thanks Jim,
>Glad I could be of service :-).
Hopefully we can do it again sometime!
-Carl-
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