Florida Cave Dive Observation '09

[Deep Thought]

Last week Dec. 28 - Jan 4 I was cave diving in High Springs area and had some excellent dives at Peacock, Little River and an ok dive at Manatee.  The water clarity was very good at Peacock, and Little River had a lower flow so it was easily swimable and vis was pretty good most of the dives. Manatee is a higher flow cave, very dark cave walls and not very interesting features until you get past the sink, which we did not drop in at....but its an ok dive...

What surprised me was the number of fully closed circuit rebreathers at the dive sites.  When I initially trained in cave it was on O.C., then I switched to CCR Cave in 2001, and it was very rare for me to see a rebreather in N. Florida cave sites.  This trip I would say there was about 4 out of 10 cave divers using rebreathers.  The most common rebreather was the Megalodon, then the rEvo, a couple Inspirations from our group, and saw one very modified KISS (Brett Hemple at Manatee) and an RB80.

The group I was diving with had two open circuit divers that did every dive we did without issue, so rebreathers are not necessary for the dives we were doing but an alternative.  The only dives I saw that would necessitate CCR's was the cave mapping that Brett and buddy were setting up at Manatee. 

Side note on staying at Richard's Hydro Lodge - Very Nice!

Good Diving

Deep Thought

[Kirk]

I actually like Manatee.  It may be a bit dark, but certainly is big, and I like all the ups and downs (though must say it is a bit hard on the ears when being towed by a scooter).

If Hydro Lodge is that place off Old Bellamy Road on Scrub Town Road – yeah, that is a nice place – though watch out for that tire biter across the road (that little canine is vicious).  - Kirk 

[Deep Thought]

Manatee is not a bad system by any means, and I like the entrance in Catfish...but the structure of Peacock, Little River and Devils is more my cup of tea.  Brett was saying that the system does not get interesting until you scooter past Friedmans or so, he had a couple monster scooters and stages that they were setting up for a survey later on.

Next time I want to drop in at the sink and coast down to Catfish.

The Hydro Lodge I'm referring to is the one that Richard Dreher has in High Springs, this is a newly remodeled home (used to be an office) and has a great parking area, bbq area, all is top notch (aside from the kitchen could use an industrial fan - anyone who has seen me cook knows I tend to make a bit of smoke - the place has commercial smoke alarms, Yikes!)

Deep Thought

[jleech]

I was down in Florada over this time as well.  We did some great dives out of Key Largo on the Spiegel Grove and the Duane plus some shallower reef dives.  We then went up and spent 3 days diving in the caves of NFL.  I too noticed many more rebreathers in the caves than I saw 2 years ago when I was last down in FL.  I crossed paths with several mixed teams at both Peacock and Devils Ear/Eye.

Here are a couple of photos from the Key Largo dives.

Jeff