WKPP – Wakulla Springs – June 12-14, 2008

Casey’s Observations

Friday the 13th had arrived and neither Jarrod nor I were concerned about superstitions other than those that might possibly insult the cave; bringing more than 3 reels for example. The Friday exploration schedule was ideal. Knowing that if all went as planned we would not exit the water until mid-day on Saturday anyhow, neither of us were concerned about the usual 6am start. An extra hour of rest, followed by some last minute prep work to get everything down to the water and a hot breakfast in the dining room was ideal. We were able to cool down during breakfast and then head upstairs to the room to suit up before making the walk down to the water around 9:15am. It was nice not having to put on heavy insulation while sweaty and in turn starting the dive out dry and warm as opposed to damp and chilled. Breakfast made a huge difference in my opinion since it would be more than 14 hours before we would have anything solid to eat. The small support team was focused and excited to be part of a big exploration push from Wakulla and for some it was their first. It had been 1 year since the big R-Tunnel push north for the link to Leon Sinks and more than 2 years since the discovery and exploration of Q-Tunnel. It was time to go and having only 1 scooter and 1 stage bottle in tow through the restriction was an extra treat courtesy of Antonio and Doug. We wished everyone well and headed for the ledge. Enjoy the day, we’ll be back tonight.

The switch at 190 was quick as we picked up the extra gear and headed for 5500ft and the first scooter switch. No stage switch necessary since we were using the 1:14 exploration RB80 counterlungs which provided a 40% advantage over the standard counterlung. At depth I expected 160 minutes per stage compared to the standard 100-120 minutes. We were also using the extended scrubber RB80 which at 50mm longer allowed for extra sofnolime and 2 hours additional scrubber time. We could stretch to 15 hours if necessary. Breakfast was settling in, the pace was quick, the new C-400 felt warm and the RB80 was delivering. At 43 minutes we arrived at 5500ft, switched scooters and headed for 10,000ft. The safeties were in place at M-Tunnel junction and we soon arrived at the second junction of O-Tunnel and A-Tunnel. I needed to spend 20 minutes gathering some survey data for Todd Kincaid which while necessary, took away from our momentum. We wrapped it up and headed for 10,000ft and the next scooter switch. We exchanged scooters and stages and headed for 12,000ft. Visibility was as expected at 20-30ft but what would it look like in the big passageway as we entered P-Tunnel near 12,500ft? We switched scooters again at 12,000ft but not stages; leaving a full one behind. It was unnecessary to switch scooters after only 18 minutes but this would be our bailout scooter in case we lost one from this point forward. We decided that losing 1 scooter each would not disrupt the primary plan but any more than that and we would have to throttle back a bit and play it conservatively. If all went as planned and we did not experience any equipment failures it could be a “gloves off” dive when we hit 17,000ft.

As we made the right turn into Q-Tunnel at 14,000ft I began to feel excited despite the poor visibility. I kept looking around since I had only seen this passageway on 1 dive 2 years ago. The tunnel was wider than I remembered but I quickly noticed the big rock near the left wall and began to look for the turnaround room where the line doubled back on itself in a low, silty area. Sure enough we found it and carefully resolved the problem by pulling the lines together and joining them with a big arrow. We arrived at the end of the line, high on the left wall and began shedding gear. The safeties would remain at this location in addition to spent stages and scooters. We decided to depart with 2 fresh scooters and 3 fresh stages each; two stages to explore and 1 to exit. Following a Camelbak break we decided it was time to get to work as Jarrod tied in and I started the clock; 3 hours and counting.

Jarrod stayed left as usual and followed the wall with me 1 station behind. Following too closely would not allow for an accurate survey and I needed to have the line tied off and tight for a good shot. The section immediately following the end of the old line was mixing clear and particulate laden water near the ceiling. Something was happening but there was no time to investigate as we stayed with the big passageway. I was curious whether this might be a junction where Leon Sinks came back in from tributaries off the bend in R-Tunnel to the north. Another couple of stations and some big rooms before the tunnel really began to take shape. Jarrod was doing a remarkable job in low visibility as he sorted out the true passageway out of each big room. I had expected problems whereby we would barrel into a low area and lose the cave while silting out the entire tunnel. After 30 minutes I knew this was not going to happen as the tunnel began to take on a familiar, towering, corridor style shape like Leon Sinks downstream of Turner and the big section of R-Tunnel. We were back into power cave bearing 180, 210, 160, etc. and clearly heading south for the Gulf. Bad ass describes it best as Jarrod and I settled into a familiar routine of station to station, stop, signal and go. It was difficult to determine width at most of the left side stations because I could not clearly see the right wall but the cave was big and the anxiety low. I kept thinking stay big, maintain the southern bearing and give me long shots. I glanced around from time to time to see if there was any evidence of surface debris or a sinkhole but nothing. The first reel was taking a lot longer than expected likely due to the visibility but the pace seemed about average. I knew we had roughly 3,200ft on each of the big reels and 2,500ft on the small reel. 7,400ft was the goal but anything over a mile would be a huge success.

We finished the first reel in 90 minutes at which point I checked my stage pressure and the tank was at 2,000 psi; incredible. Jarrod was pulling out the small reel and I motioned to take the big reel instead. It would be easier to empty that reel and save the small reel for negotiation in an hour or so. We took off running again and the cave remained massive heading south. Difficult to describe but easiest said that it did not get any better than this. Wide open cave headed in the right direction and all equipment functioning 100%. We wanted to make the most of it while we were here and the team would expect nothing less. It occurred to me that it might be years before we returned and as long as everything was working why not push hard. The second reel went down in about 80 minutes with longer shots in this section of cave. We decided to take a moment and switch to a fresh stage while laughing about the insanity of the current situation. After a few moments I pulled the third reel and told Jarrod 1,000ft and we have to go since we were close to 400 minutes already with 4+ miles and 4+ hours back to Wakulla. He understood and we quickly put down another 1,000ft in a series of 4 shots before calling it a day and a damn good day at that.

I pulled 2 large arrows from my pocket as Jarrod took care of the reel. The first arrow was a magnum WKPP exploration arrow and the second was the memorial arrow we agreed to place at the limit of exploration for WKPP team member Chris Elmore who lost his battle with cancer earlier in the year. I could not imagine a more appropriate location, Chris would have been pleased. A quick handshake, scooter switch and we had to get moving. The pace was quick on the exit as it took us an hour or so to return to the tie in point. It was difficult to determine the direction of flow in this section of cave although it appeared to be heading for Wakulla and not south. We decided that our gas reserves were good enough to leave 1 full stage each in addition to the safety for the next dive and head to 12,000ft. At 12,000ft we left another full stage for the next dive and headed for 10,000ft. A quick drink and rest at 10,000ft and it was time for the brutal 4,500ft run to the first stage drop with 4 scooters in tow and low visibility. We managed and arrived an hour later wasting no time as we shed gear for the cleanup team. It felt like home as we headed for the door. The pace felt great and despite being exhausted and hungry we were excited and we knew the team would be equally excited but probably more relieved. 35 minutes later and we arrived at the 190 drop; almost 700 minutes since we left the surface. It was Friday night and a long way to go until Saturday afternoon. Despite being tired I decided to take advantage of the 70% helium in my 190 mix and add the 4 pages of survey notes. My math was clearly wrong or so I thought adding the pages again. 8,790ft was not possible unless perhaps my assumptions were incorrect about the quantity of line on the big reels. The timing then began to make sense so I asked Jarrod to come clean. The Extreme Exposure guys had carefully, hand-wound each reel, packing on 3,900+ ft of #18. Seems I didn’t plan for everything.

Planned exploration weekends are always a bit more exciting; with the growing responsibility of dive exposures in excess of 24 hours in-water for our lead explorers, there is a lot of positive energy from the team.

This weekend was going to more of an endurance marathon than anything else requiring the entire support team to maintain adequate sleep, hydration and diligence during their dives. The schedule was less hectic as only one RB80 team would be in the water for the first 24 hours making scheduling very easy and the marathon would begin after the clean team was in, as then we’d have another 12 hours to go before we were done.

Friday AM started early as we prepared to get T1 (Jablonski & McKinlay) off on their dive. After setting up the beach, we had the rare pleasure of a team breakfast! What a great time to have everyone together in the morning before seeing Casey & Jarrod off for their big dive.

Todd Leonard & Shellie Foss arrived on Friday afternoon so we had a fresh set of SM’s on the surface to share the load through the night and into Saturday. The evening went quite smoothly and we were happy to have T1 (McKinlay & Jablonski) return after their successful exploration report around midnight. There is always a bit of relief when the Teams are back into the basin area as they begin making their way through their long overnight deco.

We spent Saturday morning setting up gear for RB80 Team 2 (Mark Messersmith, Jim Miller and Scott Cox) who would be getting in first thing Saturday morning for cleanup. We got T2 off on time Saturday morning and juggled support during the noon-hours until the final escort for T1 began around 11am and we welcomed T1 back to the surface around 1pm on Saturday afternoon. After this our focus remained on T2 as they were not scheduled to be surfacing until about 7pm or so that evening.

Highlights for the weekend included having the alligator return to see us again!

We had several new surface support people who proved to be efficient team players and fit right in. It was also nice to have Ian Sutherland, Graham Blackmore and George Bouloukos down from New York. Thank you to everyone who was on site this weekend for a few hours or all 3 days – your enthusiasm and dedication always impresses me.