Ginnie Springs Expedition

Final Update: 4/23/00

Well, the Ginnie Springs Expedition is completed.  By an large, it was a mixed success.  

To no one's great surprise, the pre-loading didn't go quite as planned.  I wasn't packed, and hadn't been shopping. We did get the canvas and furniture loaded, though, and repairs done to the floor rack of the Silver Beast.  

Friday morning we slammed the remaining gear into the Silver Beast, and Catherine and I hit the high road to adventure.  Our total travel time was eight hours.  She and I stopped once for gas and twice for ARV's.  We got to site, checked in, and pitched Big Blue and raised the canopy for Vixen.  That done, since the light was failing, we went down to the Devil's Eye spring system for our Friday dive.

While we were gearing up, Giavanna and Leo arrived, and helped us get in the water.  They skipped the dive, wanting to get their canopy up before nightfall.  Catherine and I spent 20 minutes in the water, on compressed air following the shallow spring riun out ot the Santa Fe river.

The water was cold, but well within the tolerances of a 3 mil wetsuit.  As were were wearing five and seven mil suits, it was actually a little warm once the suits stabilized.  It was when we reached the Devil's Eye cave entrance that trouble set in.  Despite her best efforts, Catherine was unable to get her ears to equalize.  She could not submerge past about 7 feet. In fact, she was unable to get her ears to clear the entire weekend.  The water was crystal clear, as it always is down at Ginnie, but after three trips down there in 20 years, the magic of the water has faded.  There's not much point in crystal clear water if there's nothing to see.  While there are some fresh water fish, by an large, the Ginnie Springs park is a rather sterile dive. Unless I have a close friend who is certifying or something, I am unlikely to return to Ginnie any time soon.

Catherine and I got out of the water and went to help Gia and Leo finish setting up camp.  That went like it always does, with occasional surprises.  My stake mallet normally travels with my woodworking gear.  Since this wasn't an SCA event, I didn't bring the toolbox, and ended up using a claw hammer to pound stakes for the first time in about ten years.

After we got the walls up and the beds made, we headed out for dinner.  It was after nine when we left site, and as you might imagine, restaurants, hard to find in rural northern Florida, were all closed. Eventually we found a very nice place on the outskirts of Gainesville, but when your restaurant has an Italian renaissance walking garden outside, you may presume that the entrees are not $5.00/plate.  Ow. Ow. Ow.  But we were hungry and at that hour, we'd been lucky to find anyplace open.  The food was excellent, the wine cellar well stocked, and the company wonderful.

Roz and Tormod arrived after 2:00 AM, and there was much rejoicing.  At the rather firm and persistent request of Gia and Catherine, I'd gone out into the woods to forage for firewood, and came back with about 40 lbs.  Like most camping areas, there's a "no cutting" rule at Ginnie, but I've never been anywhere that objected to you picking up deadfall.  The problem with deadfall is that while it burns well, it also burns enthusiastically.  I came out of the woods with about forty pounds of firewood, and it was gone to ashes by about 2:45.  Rather than go to bed like rational people, the ladies sent me back out into the dark.  The sad thing is, I used to be able to do that without a flashlight.  I've got no night vision left.  

Many songs were sung, and many beers were sent to glory.  A good time was had by all.

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, and we all skipped it.  We also skipped most of the morning.  By the time the last of us (me) rolled out, it was after 10:30, and that was okay.  No armor inspection, no classes to teach, and no puppet to wave.  We stoked up on a hearty breakfast of powdered oatmeal and headed to the dive shop to rent tanks for the latecomers.  Only to discover that this was the first nice weekend north Florida had seen this spring.  The camp was jammed.  There were over a hundred customers in the dive shop, including one group of 20 that spoke nothing but Spanish, and a second about the same size that spoke nothing but Farsi.  Wow.

Eventually, though, we managed to get down to the Santa Fe river for our planned drift dive.  Again, poor Catherine was unable to equalize her ears and was limited to very shallow water.  The drift dive was quite disappointing.  While I did manage to find a pair of $100 Oakley sunglasses and see some mussles on the hunt, mostly we saw deergrass.  And more deergrass.  The water was also quite shallow. And it had deergrass in it.  I did find an interesting patch of deergrass that was so thick I was able to dive under it like it was a cave.  This play of light and shadow on the sand and rocks beneath was interesting.  At one point Leo surfaced under the fundament of a tuber who was quite surprised.  I had been too ambitious when I laid out the drift, and Roz got tired and cold after about two hours, so we got out at the boat ramp, about 2/3 of the way through the drift.

Back to camp to update dive logs and take a surface interval.  Between Roz' fatigue and Catherine's ears, the ladies declared "done."  Tormod, Leo, and I opted to return to the Springs for a final dive.  We selected the Ginnie Spring, with it's Ballroom.  The Ballroom is a cavern lit with natural light, a strong water flow, and only two exits, one of which is barred.  These three features make it impossible to get lost, and so it's permissible for Open Water Divers to enter the ballroom without cave certification.  It was worth the effort.  The Ballroom opens up into a cavern about 50 feet across, 100 feet long and 52 feet deep.  The rock formations are unlike any I've ever seen on the surface.  Your exhaust puddles on the ceiling like quicksilver, and the force of the water flow down by the grate is amazing.  And when you turn your lights off under water, under ground, it's really, really dark.  Serious dark.  No messin' around dark.  It's a strong reminder of just how dependant you are on all that gear you are wearing.

I'm going to get a backup second stage.  My old dacor doesn't have one.  Back when I bought it, just after the last mammoth migration, octopuses were luxuries for the very rich.  I'm thinking maybe not, now.

Anyway, it was very exciting, interesting, and a little scary.  Time and money permitting, I may consider caving some day, but not right now.  It takes too much commitment.

Tormod's ears malfunctioned, and he called it a day.  That left me a Leo to check out the alligator gar in the sink at the mouth of the spring run.  That was the most rewarding dive of the trip, and only two of us made it.  We swam with a school of garfish.  They let us get within a couple of feet of them.  We made a depth of 20'.  It was starting to get dark so we surface to find a game warden waiting on us.

Apparently, in exploring the sink, we had wandered way out into the river channel, with no diver down flag.  That's a $160.00 fine.  Each.  But, as we were tourists, and clearly to dumb to know any better, we got off with a written warning.  Every try to keep a legal carbon document dry in a wetsuit?  He wrote us up while we were standing chest deep in the water.  But we got off lucky.  Better a written warning than getting your hair parted by a boat propeller.  Hell, better a fine, or being struck off, for that matter.

I did have a couple of reservations, though.  On the drift dive earlier, through the same area, there had been at least three other give groups, and we were the only ones with a diver down flag.  Further, none of the river traffic appear to be yielding to it.  It seemed that the enforcement was a little selective.

Anyway, though, he was reasonable, courteous, but firm, and we deserved what we got.

Roz and Tormod have sworn off fresh-water diving for a while.  There's just not enough to see in rivers.  Catherine needs to see a doctor and a divemaster about her ears and find out what she can do to keep them clear.  Leo and I need to be more careful.  Some time in mid-summer I'm trying to plan an off-shore dive for our next effort.