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Before you guys start whinning, this is a "technical dive". I thought some of
you might appreciate what can really be done with scuba.
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From: George Irvine <gmiiii@in*.co*>
To: "Cost effective home improvement" <freeattic@co*.ci*.uf*.ed*>
Subject: Wakulla Exploration/WKPP
Sender: Maiser@co*.ci*.uf*.ed*
WKPP had another great weekend at Wakulla, although on a much reduced
crew
(eight people). We were given an award for our volunteer work for the D.E.P. at
Wakulla nad elsewhere by the Director of the Park Service, also the Preident of
the National Association of Park Services. After that we hit the water, setting
up for two dives at once.
The Rat (Bary Miller), Steve Berman, and Rick Sankey went in to do L
Tunnel. They eventually hooked to F Tunnel, but did not know F is wide open, so
came back (it is tannic when the system is down). This was all set up and
serviced by John Rose and Ed Padgett, as were all the dives this weekend - they
did an amazing job.
Jarrod Jablonski, Casey McKinlay and I went in on a tripple, and were
told
by the first team to set up A, so we went to J Tunnel (3500), and dropped two
of
our bottles, and tried to dive J, but it split into a deep section that
reintersected A Tunnel, and a shallow section that was too tannic still to dive.
The next morning, Rick Sankey, Dave Miner, and Barry Miller dropped two
safeties at D, and three stages at the "bottle" , then dropped two more at J
Tunnel , setting us up with three in the cave plus two safety depots.
Jarrod, Casey and I went in on a double, swapping at the Bottle, and
picking up two more at J, now giving us a tripple and full hundreds, only 3500
feet out instead of at the entrance. We dropped one more past the Mountian, and
another at the old end of the line at 6200 feet, a swift trip given that we
were
on a tripple and towing scooters. We have developed a new way to carry multiple
bottles very fast.
We dropped the locomotive scooters at the end with the fourth bottle,
and
started adding line from the little nicad scooters. Unfortunately , we had long
since lost the good vis - it petered out at the Kahuna Basin and stayed lousy
(20 feet at best) all the way out. This made it tough, as I was the only one
who
had ever seen the cave, but with teamwork of the kind provided by Jablonski and
McKinlay, this was your basic "walk in the park".
The first 3500 feet was the best I have ever seen Wakulla - you could
see both walls 200 feet apart, and the floor to ceiling is about 100. This is
trully the best cave ever. Watching the divers move along the wall is
spectacular given the size of this cave. If you have ever seen the room in #2
Dieploder , the whole Tunnel is bigger than this for three thousand feet.
As we addded line , JJ with the reel, Casey wrapping, and me surveying,
the cave looped up over itself and finally made the turn northwest towards Leon
Sinks. After only going to our back gas for a few minutes, we started looking
for a tieoff as the bottom time was mounting up pretty fast, and we cut it off,
7,530 feet back (seven thousand, five hundred, and thirty feet, known by some
as
"open circuit heroics", known by us a a lot of fun when you know what you are
doing). I guess we "eeked out" another twenty percent. We got back to deco
without ever hitting thirds, telling us that we have many more dives out here
from this side without any problem.
We pulled our own bottles out, and it was a real sight to see Jarrod
switch his scooters and put the big boy behind him and go back to the nicad
while carrying five stage bottles. We had run the regular scooters, not
expecting to do this dive, and they only have a 100 minute burn time - the
bottom time was 120 from the surface, and we had only been on the nicads for
twenty minutes. This way, they will get us all the way out of the cave from the
end if necessary. I held my locomotive, and glided up to the first stop at 240
with no burn time left, but 65 minutes left on my nicad. The Big Boy scooters
will do two and one half hours, and we never back them off in Power Cave.
We did the first couple of stops on the stage bottle, and then went to
air, and so forth all the way up. We had FFM's in the water at 120, and went to
a huge back gas break at 70 feet, followed by back gas or air breaks every
twenty minutes for five minutes for the rest of the dive. The total deco was
480
minutes, not bad for a 120 minute bottom time at 285. We did the last 275
minutes at 30 feet in the habitat, where John Rose had brought us the Sub Tube
full of stuff. We were able to put the tanks back on and swim right to the
surface, after a ten minute back gas break in the habitat.
The really cool part of this dive is that it was done with the Park
in
full operaton, and nobody ever saw us - we went in early in the morning an got
out in the dark, leaving all of the gear under the ledge with the divers. There
were only eight of us, and two photographers. With the clean decoes we are
getting now, we carried all of our gear out, and drove home, like a regular
cave
dive.
Like I said, thew entire dive was serviced by John Rose and Ed
Padgett, so they are first at bat for the next ride into good stuff. On the
next
one we will use Casey , Brent and I to mule fifteen bottles to D Tunnel, and
the
other guys can leapfrog it out to the Mountain. We will run the circuit through
F and check that out. The other cool thing is that we now have "shortcuts",
"circuits", and "high and low roads" to chose from in our routes out to the
back
of the cave. We can run the Kahuna, the Mountain Road, or even maybe the
Megajunction to get the bottles out farther without using so much gas.
This is the biggest cave ever, and it gets bigger every time we
dive
it. Thanks to Ed and John. - G
\
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