DIR Diving Blog

Ginnie is my favourite cave in Florida. When I was diving at cave-1 level I didn’t like it. I found it a bitch to swim in fighting the flow and found the dives were all short. As my technique improved I managed to reach 1000 feet on the mainline using 35 bar out of my 104’s. At that point I began to find the dives more interesting. The charm is that the cave changes as you progress through it from high domed ceilings, through narrow passages in winding tunnels before reaching larger rooms with an undulating floor. Since become cave-2 (full cave) I’ve discovered so much more to Ginnie. The cave has numerous jumps and alternate tunnels and the further you travel into the cave the more it can vary.

Scootering in Ginnie is also a huge challenge and a lot of fun. Working your way past the lips restriction requires you to kick even on a scooter. It has also opened up much large reaches of the cave albeit requiring more careful gas planning. It’s possible to scooter to a location, clip the scooter off to the mainline and go exploring.

With 10 day trip to Florida coming to the end Clare asked what I wanted to do and my answer was just to dive Ginnie. We did a succession of dives some there all of which were greatly enjoyable. We ended up running a few circuits around the bone room, the big room and the jumps near the expressway tunnel. We headed up the mainline several thousand feet; we toured the Hill 400 line. Lots of parts of the cave have been named and had some special significance. The Rouse memorial by the Henkel restriction is quite nice to see – having read “The Last Dive” it raises a few thoughts, including how far you are from daylight! The other memorial is the one to Steve Berman which is in the white room a reasonable distance off the mainline, again a person I’ve read about which is interesting to visit.

The cave has such beautiful vis and just looks amazing when bathed with lights from the HID’s. When diving with David Martin his primary light failed and he had to exit on a backup, it was a real shame to have less light to admire the cave on the way out.

I also discovered the “wonder tunnel” by accident! While I was searching for the white room we tied a reel into the mainline and set off following the tracks left in the silt by someone else’s guideline. It led us to a low passage which looked a bit tight; Clare motioned for me to head in as I was running the reel. As I slowly made my way in I thought it was a little tight and began wondering whether this really was the right path to the white room. I looked up ahead and it just looked tighter so stopped and began to exit. Unfortunately the tunnel was rather narrow and I couldn’t turn round so I had to backfin. At this point my stage jammed in the ceiling and found myself stuck. After some wiggling and stirring up some silt I manage to exit the tunnel to find Clare laughing away. She’d let me make my way in a few metres and then saw the silt and realised it was the wrong path. I’ve since found out it’s called the wonder tunnel as everyone wonders why the hell they are in it!

As we were exiting from our last Ginnie dive I thought about the diving in Florida and how much more I want to do there. Florida cave diving just has an appeal that is unique.

Tuesday and we are off to dive Twin Cave. Lots of fun was being had manoeuvring the boat by now and it really was quite a laugh. I really like Twin – the long passage for the first section for some reason makes me think of the path into some underground city. The visibility was stunning and as I led in I couldn’t help but marvel at the view. We took the right turn down deeper at the T junction and ended up dropping the stages not far from the change of direction marker. At the marker we jumped off the mainline heading right towards the chimney. We soon reached the T and I dropped a cookie marking our exit and headed up. The room was shaped like a funnel and as we rose up it grew larger and larger. We followed the line to it’s end and spent a little time just amazed by the scale of the room. I thumbed the dive and Clare led out. We got back to the mainline where I got a little muddled as to what the plan was and began exiting. Unfortunately I’d completely mis-understood and Clare was keen to drop the stages and use a little backgas to explore the other way. Bit of a mistake on my part and it made the dive a little shorter than it might have been. On the plus side it does leave us something to go back for.

After the dive we quickly packed gear away and returned both the boat and house keys to Edd. We loaded up the mini-vans and headed South back to Extreme Exposure. Corey Jablonski (JJ’s sister) had organised a big bbq for the UK contingent, a cave-1 class and lots of local divers.

Monday and we’d relocated to Merritt’s Mill Pond in order to do some different cave dives! The caves in the Mill Pond are best accessed by boat so we made use of Edd’s cave adventures – a local dive shop who rent boats. We had rented scooters as well so planned a two stage scooter dive into Hole in the wall.

We parked the boat at the dock and geared up and got in. We had several kit dramas getting in and ended up having to haul a Gavin out of the water and sort it out. Clare and John set off to put the line while Joe helped me out. Once we were all sorted we descended down to the restriction at the cave opening. I had a bit of an issue getting in and stripped off some of the stages to push in front of me and then I watched Joe make his way through without issue – doh! Once I’d sorted myself out we dropped down to where John had tied into the mainline. I un-pinned the scooter and after OK’s hit the trigger. The scooter promptly came off my harness D-ring as the gate on the bolt snap had stuck open – it didn’t take long to sort but overall it did feel like we’d lost a fair bit of time getting into the cave.

We headed downstream and the cave started to fly past. The cave has a silty floor but amazing large passage with white limestone walls. We exchanged who was leading between John, Clare and myself several times early on. Seeing 4 HID’s lighting up the cave as we flew down the passage in formation was amazing. We dropped the first stage bottle quite early; John had entered the cave on his while the rest of us used backgas until we got to the mainline. Once sorted we were off again and all too soon we reached the restricted section. The ceiling was much lower and it was difficult to scooter through the passage without the prop wash catching the silt. We ended up finning for a small section trying to use the scooter only where the cave was large enough. The cave opened up again and we were off, we were now passing the last few T’s in the mainline. All too soon we had to drop the 2^nd stage bottle. We also staged the scooters at this point and as we’d agreed we would only use a small amount of backgas without the scooters. We’d passed the last T and I was busy working out that we were about 4000ft back with only 500ft to reach the end of the line. John thumbed the dive and with a glance at the ongoing tunnel we began exiting.

The scooters soon came into sight and once back on the stage and scooter we set off again. The first part of the exit was great fun but as we neared the low section the vis had worsened. The prop wash from 4 scooters had stirred up the silt somewhat. This forced us nearer the line which meant we were in the smaller part of the passage and this became a vicious circle. I was exiting in position 3 with Clare behind me. All of a sudden the vis got so bad I had to come off the trigger. I kept going briefly but lost Clare’s light behind me. I waited for a few seconds before heading back into the cave. I made contact with Clare by bumping into her, checked she looked OK as best as I could and began exiting. Once again I lost her light so stopped and waited, this time she appeared. Thankfully we made progress through the low section and once at the restriction all was well. We were back on the trigger and on our way out of the cave. Once out of the cave and settled on 02 bottles we had some time to tidy away the used stages onto leashes. Not the nicest exit – complete silt out where you can’t use your scooter is a worrying situation.

I’ve not done a lot of diving in Madison so I was looking forward to going back. George and myself set off to run the guideline while the other 3 assembled on the surface. We swam down into the cave and George did a nice job of laying the line. We moved back to the Rabbit hole and Clare arrived and started handing stages into the cave. We all had two bottom stages and a deco bottle so it took a few minutes to get us all assembled with stages clipped off and 02 bottles dropped. We set off as a group with a 3 and 2, which in hindsight was just too many.

Our plan was to head up the mainline and see how far we could get. If we had gas on the way out then we planned to stop and look at some of the jumps. We made steady progress up the mainline and through the half-hitch restriction. All too soon we reached the end of the mainline. In order to get into Potter’s Delight & the Rocky Horror tunnel we set a jump from the mainline. Potter’s delight is full of clay and the Rocky horror is very pretty but very narrow. When we came to exit the silt had been stirred up by such a big group that we made the exit of Rocky Horror in touch contact with the line. Once we got back to the jump the visibility was fine so we carried on exiting the cave normally. The rest of the dive was un-eventful, we passed on taking the jumps as we’d done a lot of swimming already. The deco all went to plan and everyone got out very happy.

Once back on the surface we asked Joe Hesketh what he thought of his first dive in Florida, his comment “tell me that was high flow” generated a good laugh. While Joe’s done 100’s of dives in Mexico, France and the UK; the flow in Florida can generate a different experience!

I visited Peacock 1 on the first day it opened after the recent roadworks to the site. It looked very un-appealing with a dirty mud coloured surface pool. The water level had dropped to extremely low levels in the last few months and instead of clear spring water running out, the river backflowed into the cave.

I was diving with Clare and George Boulokous so we kitted up and put stages in the water. Rather than break the dive we put in two bottom stages and a 02 cylinder and planned to spend several hours exploring. Vis was pretty bad as we descended and I noticed a distinct cold patch on my chest which felt like water coming in. As we entered the cavern zone the visibility improved somewhat up to about 10m. However I was distinctly getting wet. I dropped the 02 bottle and came to the conclusion there was no way I could complete a long dive without being soaked so I thumbed the dive. Clare and George clearly looked surprised. Once on the surface I explained and said I’d get the spare suit out of the car. Clare did a quick diagnosis once I was out of the water and it turned out the inflator had not been screwed in after a recent repair job with DUI. This was the suits first outing since I’d had the zip replaced.

I jumped back in and we set off down the Pothole line. Now peacock is normally a lovely cave, lots of white limestone and lovely visibility. Unfortunately the river inrush had deposited lots of dead fish and other dirt in the cave. All the lines were covered in silt and the walls were all darkened too. Our plan was to head down the line dropping the first stage at just over half. We jumped right at the Nicholson tunnel and headed off into a part of the cave I’ve not been in before. We travelling in for around an hour before we came to a junction where it looked like two lines crossed and the visibility deteriorated as muddy red silt fell from the ceiling dislodged by our bubbles. We thumbed the dive and began exiting.

Once back to the cave entrance we set off down the peanut line. I finished off the gas in the 2^nd stage I’d taken with me and then used a little backgas. Clare not long after that thumbed the dive on dive duration and we began our exit.

Just over 3 hours after we left the surface we returned. Overall a very nice dive, despite the poor visibility.

The DIR-UK team got together last weekend for a trip out of Weymouth and managed to fit in a few dives.

Saturday we ended up starting out with reasonable weather but a potentially dodgy echo sounder. This was the first trip out on Grahame’s new boat Outcast so he wanted a big wreck that was easy to shot. As it was the first dive of the season we didn’t mind too much that we went to the Salsette. I’ve dived the wreck far too often now as it’s a favourite for skippers in rough weather. It is however often described as the UK’s best wreck dive and the 5800 ton P&O liner can be a very nice dive.

Divernet | Wreck Tours | Wreck Tour: 11, The Salsette…

Me on the boat.

The dive went fine albeit with not great vis. There was no ambient light deeper than 36m so it was a rather dark dive. The current was pushing us into the wreck so I spent most of the dive being careful not to get swept into a opening.

When we surfaced the weather had turned from a 3-4 into a 6-7 and was rather nasty. We got back on the boat and had a lousy ride back to port. Most of us put our hoods and masks back on and clung onto our gear while the water broke over the back of the boat repeatedly soaking us. I’ve had better boat rides as have most of the group!

On a personal note this is one of my more expensive boat rides. We were the last team back onto the boat and Graham set off like a scalded cat given the bad weather. I ended up falling asleep while leaning against my kit as the trip was exhausting as did several of the divers. Unfortunately I didn’t notice I’d lent on a 2nd stage and managed to loose all the trimix I’d saved using an RB80. As Joe remarked at the time “so you saved all that gas on the dive and then just used it on the boat”. One £40 fill later I was still a bit miffed with myself but it lightened everyone elses mood!

Sunday and we set of for the wreck of the Iolanthe. I’ve only dived this one once before so was quite looking forward to returning to it. We dropped down to the wreck and all ambient light vanished at about 25m. We picked our way around the wreckage identifying various features, there are several winches still on the boat and the bow rises up several metres from the seabed. The lack of light again had me being cautious about swimming into the wreck. There are a few items scattered about and I looked at a couple of bottles and other little items. I was on the look-out for another one of these:

Clare picked this up on our last dive on the wreck back into 2006 and fancied turning it into a pair! She’s since had it cleaned up and it does look pretty good now.

For those interested in a bit more detail the Divernet wreck tour can be found:
Divernet | WRECKTOUR:101 The Iolanthe

Overall a nicer day with a reasonable trip back to port.

Monday and we were off to dive something rather new. Back in January 2008 a greek registered cargo vessel the Ice Prince sank 26 miles off the coast of Portland. The sinking was widely reported in the UK media at the time as the wood cargo washed up on shore. Lots of people were recovering the wood and using it for fences, sheds, etc.

The link to the BBC news story is below:
BBC NEWS | England | Timber ship sinks in rough seas

We would be the first group to dive it and were excited about the prospect of seeing a very new wreck. Weather was excellent with only a small swell left over from the earlier rough weather. We reached the site and Grahame Knott got ready to start searching for the exact co-ordinates of the wreck. Almost immediately he found it as we began to slow down, “well that’s my job done, you lot better go diving” was the response. It’s worth noting the wreck is still under salvage at the moment so it we were under strict instructions not to try and recover the bell or anything else.

BBC news pic

The wreck lies in 60m of water with the top of the wreck rising to 45m. I was diving with Clare and Mal and we were the first team in and off down the shotline. There was still a little tide running so we had to work down the line. My first thought was “blue” which of course because the paint was still on the wreck. It was lying on its port side and the visbility was excellent at around 10m. We moved along towards the bow and could make out lot of rigging still on board; there was also some of the timber still trapped. We followed one of the deck cranes out along the seabed. I noticed that the seabed was hard stone and gravel so there is a good chance the vis will remain good at this site.

This was our deepest dive on the RB80’s so far and they worked absolutely fine as expected. I looked up at one point and got a mouth full of drool which was not very nice but other than that no issues. We also dived in a mixed RB/OC team on the last dive which was nice to put into practise on something a little deeper.

All too soon we had to leave the site and bagged off from the top of the wreck. Lots of smiles back on board the boat and a great end to the weekend.