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+--- Thread: Florida Cave Diving (/showthread.php?tid=1010)
Florida Cave Diving - Omicron - 05-29-2006
Ethan, Tami and I just got back from spending an amazing week cave diving in Florida. We spent 4 days in Marianna diving the caves on Merrits Millpond, and then we moved over to Mayo to dive the caves of the Luraville area. We ended the trip by going to the NSS/CDS Workshop - this years focus was on the history of cave diving, so we got to hear lots of interesting people from cave diving's past speak about what it was like during the early years of cave diving.
Here are a few pictures from the trip! We did 18 dives in 10 cave systems in 7 days. Photo credit goes to Ethan Brodsky.
These first pictures are from Twin Hole cave, on Merrits millpond.
Re: Florida Cave Diving - Omicron - 05-29-2006
The stop sign is from Twin Hole cave, and the next photo is me coming up from the first breakdown room in Jackson Blue.
Re: Florida Cave Diving - Omicron - 05-29-2006
These next 2 photos are also from JB - one showing more of the breakdown room (me going down into it) and one just cruising through the main tunnel.
Re: Florida Cave Diving - Omicron - 05-29-2006
One final picture of the beautiful JB tunnel, near the exit I believe. The next picture is of me tieing into the Hill 400 jump at the Devils system.
Re: Florida Cave Diving - Omicron - 05-29-2006
Reeling up our jump after coming back down the Hill 400 tunnel, and then me going into "The Lips" at the Devils system.
Re: Florida Cave Diving - Omicron - 05-29-2006
Exiting from the Keyhole restriction at Ginnie, and then napping during deco. 60+ minutes of bottom time at 100' will give you plenty of time to hang out in the ear and watch the Memorial Day Weekend tubers float over you as you deco out.
Re: Florida Cave Diving - Omicron - 05-29-2006
One of the requirements of my sidemount class was passing certain restrictions that required me to remove first one and then both tanks. Here's me coming through a no mount restriction and then putting my tanks back on.
Re: Florida Cave Diving - Omicron - 05-29-2006
And finally, a neat photo while exiting the Cow Springs system - we dove the upstream section for quite a distance - Cow is renowned for having some really neat banks of layered clay that we really enjoyed seeing.
Re: Florida Cave Diving - matt t. - 05-29-2006
Nice pictures. Looks like you had a fun time.
Re: Florida Cave Diving - Chris H - 05-29-2006
Cool stuff Jason.
Do you have any problems with your regs when you pressurize them under water? Do you leave them on, or turn them off and pressurized when not in use? I'm not starting any Poseidons are the devil arguments, but when I had that Xstream it was really too touchy for me and I'm curious what your experience has been. It also looks like it pulls a bit in your mouth with way the hose is routed, do you find yourself clenching the mouthpiece?
What do you use to plan your deco? What were you using for gas? Even 80 minutes at 100ft only gives you a 15 minute 20ft stop using 32% and 50% and 100% for deco gas. Is 15 minutes long enough to take a nap?
I just got back from Wazee with Doug. It wasn't nearly as cool as cave diving probably is, but it was better than not diving. Talked to a couple guys playing with their new Gavin Scooters....some day.....