Welcome to Thunderdome

Today was a good day.

Another perfect day.

Looks awesome. really like the second shot - good story there. Where at?

Devil's Den in Williston, FL. We were the first ones there in the morning so managed to get the pristine shot with no other people and smooth water. We've done 4 dives there.... it is my favorite dive ever, so far. It's like flying through a cave tour.

It looks like your son's wet-suit says "Barf" in first picture, second post.

Troy wrote: It looks like your son's wet-suit says "Barf" in first picture, second post.

Ha, I mentioned that on Facebook about an hour ago.

Dive trip is basically done.

Wednesday we did a drift dive down a river.... fun, and neat, but at one point we thought we drifted past the docks where we had to get out, and stressed for about 10 minutes because the next spot to get out was 5 miles down the river. But I asked a passing kayak, and he let us know the docks were right around the next bend. Whew. I have some video of that dive I will post when I get home and get organized.

So then Wednesday night we drive a couple hours down to the Tampa area to stay with some relatives for free and dive charters for the next 2 days.... the entire week was building up to being on the ocean Thursday and Friday.

So if course Wednesday night the charter company calls, high winds suddenly in the forecast and Thurs/Fri are prolly both cancelled. That was a real kick in the nuts.

But we played it by ear, and the forecast changed that the high winds weren't expected until late afternoon, so he took us out at noon Thursday for some diving in the Gulf. Didn't see any sharks, and vis was a little shitty... maybe 20 feet.... but it was salt and this time we had seasick patches behind our ears and it was still a great, sunny day on a boat out of sight of land. Friday was still cancelled but at least we got Thursday and that was pretty good. I also have some vid of the Gulf dives.... biggest critter observed was a big grouper about 3 or 4 feet long. I'll post that video, when I get to it.

So instead of diving Friday we hit the other side of the state, met with my half sister that I've now seen twice in 30 years, and we went to the space and rocket center at Cape Kennedy. So all in all, a pretty good trip.

Beginning the drive home tomorrow, we'll be sleeping tomorrow night in Charlotte, NC. It was actually a powerful moment being 10 feet from the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Also have pics of that if anyone is interested.

Awesome, share it all.

Similar thing happened to us doing a river dive. Bailed and started swimming upstream because we weren't familiar with where we were and only knew that a waterfall meant we'd gone too far. We didn't see/hear it but the current was picking up and we feared the worst.

e: Goliath Grouper? I think other grouper get that big too. Goliath's get yuuuuuge

It wasn't yuge. If it was officially a Goliath, it was a young one.

It was big enough to have a remora sticking to it, though.

I just spent an hour preparing a long trip report and then chrome "oops, error" and I lost it all just as I was about to hit submit.

ok, let's try this again.

We spent two days driving down from Ohio, 7 hours the first day, like 9 hours the second. No need to be stupid about it. It was just my kid and I.... and no other committee members wanting input on every little decision.

We checked into a cheap-ish hotel in Gainesville, FL on a Sunday night. This trip was done on a budget, basically just my monthly pocket cash that I had to save for 7 months. That elimated the original plan on going to Daytona to do more salt water diving... this was Spring Break season and I dind't want to pay $400 a night for a Daytona hotel. Got a suite in the crappy Quality Inn.... we were there for three days and I wanted a little space. The room had this smell.... remember the episode of Seinfeld where his car got infested by "Really Bad B.O.?" It took me a day to place it, but I realized THAT was the smell in that room... really bad B.O. Turned up to 12 on an 10 point scale, 10 being "overpowering." If the smell hadn't been focused by the door.... away from our living space, and right next to the bathroom exhaust fan... we would have changed rooms, but as it is we were men and we could deal with it. Plus they tried to cover the smell with too much carpet fresh, you could tell.

Anyway, 6am, we're loading gear in the truck at it is 42 degrees out... but we're in shorts because fuck it, we just left Ohio, we're in Florida, and we're going diving. We have about a 45 minute drive to the dive site, we're there by 7 and we get ready to walk into the office so we can get paid up and rent tanks when they open at 8.

Blue Grotto.

You may remember this place from our visit last year.... we stayed in their cabins, I was stressed because I'd never planned a dive trip before and I didn't know what I was doing or how to proceed. This time everything was chill and relaxed and copacetic... last year I planned two dive sites every day.... which meant getting to the first spot, unloading and putting gear together for 90 minutes, diving for 45, breaking down gear and reloading for 90 minutes, driving to the next spot, and repeat. It left you rushing and exhausted and it was fine to do once when I didn't know how to plan a dive week..... but I learned from that and this time I did it right. One location a day, 2+ dives. I left it up to the kid if he wanted to do 3 or 4 dives. He said he did, but after 2 he was tired and that was fine.
We had an equipment issue first thing.... we hooked the rented regulator from Ohio to the tank, and a pinhole-sized hole in a high-pressure hose made itself known with some audible hissing when it was subjected to the 3000 PSI of the air tank. The owner (?) of the place seriously helped us out... sold me a new hose and put it on, then put on a different one when the first one had a manufacturing defect. He was cool and chill and saved the day and possibly the week.... I had initially gone to the office to see if they rented regulators, he asked why, and instead he said, "Why don't I just fix it for you?" Good thinking.

Anyway, even with the delay it was Monday and we were still the first ones in the water, and that was great. I learned "Don't try to dive Florida Springs on weekends," last year. I planned well this year.

We finally got in the water, and you wouldn't think it, but 72 degree water can be bracing. My kid gets waist deep and says, "Nope, that's it, too cold, vacation cancelled." But you soon got used to it and this year he handled the cold very well in our thin 3mm suits.
Our plan was to immediately descend to the 20 foot platform and refresh/practice our skills. We hadn't been in the water since September 2016, and I wanted to spend a little time reviewing before we hit real depths. But we'd done mental review in the car on the way down, and he was great, so we went on down.

Or first stop was that air bell at 30 feet, we went up in there and chit chatted for a few minutes.
That was super fun, and then we explored the cavern. I can't remember if it was the first or second dive, but our plan was to go down to 70 feet because the kid wanted to break his personal depth record last set at 60 feet in Lake Superior the previous September. Technically his legal depth limit is 40 feet, as a JUNIOR Open Water diver... but there aint no scuba police, and I let him decide what his limits are... I never push. We could see the bottom down there just 30 feet farther down, and we could have easily hit it.... but I never push him. He has a good head for what he wants to do, and tends to be conservative, so I follow his lead when he wants to do something and haven't yet had to say to him, "No, too risky." So good for him. We hit 70 at one point.
But anyway, we did our first dive, chilled out for an hour getting the tanks refilled and eating some peanut-butter-filled pretzels, and by now a few other divers were getting in the water. That was fine. We even saw a couple divers in dry suits (pussies) who never went more than 10 feet down, it looked like the wife was having problems. Peeps with too much money and not enough skill (Drysuits start at $1000+). It was great going back to the place where we had our first certified dive ever, and it was a great fucking day.

There were a few more pics I posted earlier in the thread, the one looking up at him with his reg out of his mouth was at this place.
It was 70 degrees by the time we got done diving, not a cloud in the sky, and there had been snow on the ground when we left Ohio. We were tired but we were in Florida and it was a great fucking day. Back in the hotel by 2, I said, "What do you want to do the rest of the day?" He said "Sit in the room and watch netflix." Hmmm... we already had a long day that started early, we were tired, and Gainesville sin't exactly Vegas. I checked with the committee.... didn't hear any objections..... so that's exactly what we did and it was fucking great.

Here's a random 3 minute clip of one of the dives, I think it is right after we went down to 70 reemerging into the light. I used this clip to show him that his buoyancy still sucks... you are supposed to be zero, neither floating or sinking, but he insists he likes to be a little heavy. This means he has to kick to stay off the bottom, and that kicks up silt and pisses everyone off. This video... and seeing what a bunch of newbs with bad buoyancy can do to viz on our Thursday dive (which I will explain later).



there, I think that's most of what I said the first time.

Oh yeah, I forgot... for this trip we got those back-of-the-hand flashlight mounts, and those worked great. Just saw them in that video.

GORDON wrote: This means he has to kick to stay off the bottom, and that kicks up silt and pisses everyone off.

You need to teach him that other people exist. A concept kids seem to have a hard time learning.

Believe it or not, there's a similar thing in golf. A lot of cart paths are dirt. So driving down them kicks up a cloud. If you're in a trailing cart, it sucks. Thus, folks with awareness will drive off the path so as not to kick up that cloud for the people behind them.

He's aware... But he needed to see it before he really understood it.

Day 2: The Return to Devil's Den.

http://www.devilsden.com/

Last year this was our favorite dive... we dove it on day one of that trip, and liked it so much that we snuck in another dive on the drive back home and really screwed up our travel timetable that day.... but it was so werf.

As I mentioned before, last year I was over-scheduling dives so we were rushed.... this time it was the only dive stop of the day, so we got to chillax and do as many as we wanted and it was great. Up at 6, there by 7, ready to sign in and rent tanks and be diving when they opened at 8. It was a few degrees warmer than the day before, not a cloud in the sky, and when we got there we were the only ones there at the time when we were unloading gear, so no crowds and choice picnic table location. Fuck weekends, real ballers dive during the week.

Put your wetsuit on while standing on the table means no sand on the parts that drag on the ground while putting it on.
Also there was a gun show that day.
The hole in the ground is just to the right. Beautiful place, even above the ground.
First ones down the hole, I got this pic... this has to be slightly rare, this place fills up.
That's also when I realized the fucking date... I keep forgetting I need to reset the date when I change batteries. Grrrr. Also that's when I noticed the battery was nearly dead. I would have sworn I charged it the night before.... the battery typically lasts a single dive in those temps... but I wasn't going to go back up the stairs for a new battery, so video of that first dive never happened. You wouldn't believe it... we saw so many fucking sharks.

Anyway, that was dive 1, and we spent about 45 minutes under water and resurfaced... and I love it when the cute snorkel chicks come over to check us out and ask questions about what we saw down there. The kid doesn't quite know what to do with them, yet, and as before I've got no game so I probably blew some mucous out of my nose and just answered their questions like a goober.

ANYWAY...

You already saw the dabbing pic above... it's sort of played out now but some peeps at his school wanted to see him dab so he dabbed. You also saw the selfie of both of us, that was also Devil's Den.

This is a pic looking up from the water to the hole in the ceiling.... I hope I am not in it when it collapses further.
This is some of the crowd that magically appears when you resurface.
Now... Devil's Den.... basically a collapsed, spring-fed sinkhole. There's the central part with the stairs and decking, and all the diving is around the bowl and gets deep, basically, where the rock starts around the edges. You'd better go in with a flashlight, so much of it is pitch-black. Again, the wrist-mounted lights worked great. There are a couple caves with the grim-reaper "Stop or you will die" signs, and we stay out of those, we aren't cave certified. But there are also a few parts that are walled off with PVC pipes that basically means "too tight, nothing to see here..." but a few times when we were deep and at one of those little walls, shining my light in there showed me some big-ass catfish... I would guess 3 feet long. Also some albino ones (I just remembered, most of the catfish were spotted on dive 1, and after that went away from the flashlights). I will try to see if the vid clips with the catfish have anything else interesting to see. But going around this bowl, gliding between these giant fallen boulders, squeezing through gaps, scraping your tank on the low overhead while scooting along on your belly.... so mother fucking cool. When your buoyancy is dialed in you literally feel like you are flying through canyons. Devil's Den remains my favorite dive spot ever.

Looking down the hole.
Nope, found a catfish! Otherwise this video is sort of dark but near the end you can see some of the tight fits, and total darkness.



And this video is near the end of the dive when it was time to make a safety stop.... it isn't a fell decompression stop, it's a "just in case" sort of thing for when you are being conservative with the dive tables. Your computer handles the times, and you can even hear a beeping decompression alarm at one point in this next video. Just 2 or 3 minutes at 20 feet to breathe normally and outgas some nitrogen.... so basically we're just sitting there waiting to surface, but the scenery is glorious. As far as "just a really fun place to dive" is concerned, Devil's Den is my fave so far.

Dig this stuff. Good pictures too. And LOLing now at your kid dabbing - It's hard to tell underwater.

I understand getting there super early to beat the crowds - I really dislike seeing other people when out on a diving session. A few other spearos(safely pointing their guns) in the water is cool, but when I get out of the water with a stringer, all my gear and a pointy stick to boot, being swamped by little kids trying to touch my stuff is asking for me to get ornery. I'm already thinking of washing stuff down, where my filet knife is and where I hid my keys, I don't need little kids grabbing my speargun out of the sand. Looking at you, rando families from Iowa vising La Jolla.

Dig the caves. Out in SoCal there is similar ocean-cliff-side-diving, but there are Lobsters all up in those sort of caves too. You are only allowed to take them with your hands. I haven't done it yet, but it would be rad. Scuba seems like a way safer way to go about it than the wackos going into caves for lobster on one-breath.

My car has the combination-lock-buttons on the door... I can "hide" my keys right under the seat in the locked car.

But yah... HATE crowds. When I plan a vacation, it is out on the ocean or in the wilderness past the point of the trail where old people can walk or deep under water. When my wife plans a vacation we end up standing in lines at Disney or Universal Orlando. Fuck people.

Things get a little less safe in the next day's dive report.

Day 3: Drift Diving the Rainbow River at KP Hole.

http://www.kphole.com/

No still pics, this dive was sort of crazy.

We needed a little something different on Wednesday. There weren't any more good springs in the immediate area, and Thursday we were hitting salt water, so there was KP Hole, right between where we were, and where we were going.

The Rainbow River is a drift dive. We'd never done one of those before.... but the random youtube vids I looked at made it look like fun. There's current, but not much of one... I figured we could figure it out. But it is a river, and it is constantly flowing, so it would be something new.

Unlike previous dives,m this was the first in which we were really, seriously alone. There was no boat following along with us waving the "diver down" flag... I actually had to drag a buoy along with us flying the flag, and by law we were required to be withing 50 feet of it at all time. We paid the water taxi $50 to take us a mile upstream, the cap'n tried telling us where to go when we were under water.... "Good underwater spring here, the 6 foot gar hang out there..." but we were in a boat, and the river was about 100 feet wide, and under water you lose all your bearings and we found maybe half the things we wanted to see.

He dropped us off at a concrete wall and told us not to miss the docks where we took off, because it's all private property for 5 miles down the river to the next public docks and the landowners ALWAYS call the police when people leave the river and get on their property. No pressure. He said all this and said bye, and my kid and I were literally alone in a river wearing scuba gear. Ok, fine.

It took us about 5 minutes to get used to moving with and against the current.... so weird. I had my buoyancy dialed in so I could go up and down the changes in the riverbed when it goes from 5 feet deep to 25 feet deep, and then back with just inhales and exhales. My kid isn't quite at that level yet, but managed. He was also trying to carry a gopro on a stick, so he was a little awkward with that. I'd love to show some of his footage but he's just so shaky it's ridonk.

Anyway, it's mostly sea grass, about 4 feet deep. In those sections you just skim on top of it, letting the river push you along until the next thing to see, if you can manage to find it. But every now and then you find some feature... rock, boiling sand, a spring.... and that's the interesting stuff. This is North Florida... water is coming out of the ground everywhere, including at the bottom of this river. Of course my camera stopped recording at one point, but we found a cave with a strong spring feeding out of it... I had to struggle to get into it, but I knew it would be awesome footage that I didn't get. And everywhere there is sand that looks like it is boiling where water is seeping out of the ground. You can see that right at the beginning of this video I am linking.

Plenty of fresh water fish, and at one point, after my camera stopped recording, I found a turtle in the grass with a shell maybe 2 feet wide. I took a close look... it wasn't a snapping turtle... so I touched the shell and it took off. That would have been neat to get on video. When I went to look at my kid's footage of the event, you saw about a half second of turtle shell and his camera was otherwise recording sea grass. Good stuff.

Anyway, if you are curious about GOOD footage of KP Hole and the Rainbow River, look at other peoples' videos. Mine suck and I am not going to take the hours needed to edit them down.

Here's my vid.



Funny story: I mentioned how nervous we were about missing the docks where we get out, and we actually surfaced many, many times to get our bearings and see what we could see. And after about an hour, I knew we had to be close... but where we were looked absolutely unfamiliar. I decided we had overshot the dock while under water and were now fucked. I started dragging the kid through the shallow grass to get to the shore... heavy ass scuba gear on, dragging that fucking buoy on a rope tangling everything. The first kayakers to go by never heard of "KP Hole" where we were trying to get to. Great. A few minutes later, the next kayaker said yeah, it's just around the next bend.

Thank fucking god.

It was an experience, but neither one of are interested in doing that again. It was grueling.

Bought another wetsuit, this time a 7mm thick one designed for cold water. We plan on diving a week from today in a local quarry, I'm guessing the water temp is in the mid-50's.

I followed the Cressi sizing chart but this fucking thing is too big. The chest and shoulders were about right, but I could pinch about 5 inches of excess in the thighs. Too loose, WAY too much cold water would be up in there.

And I'm squatting 4 hondo, my thighs aint that small. Returning it, ordered the next smaller size.

Also, diving in the Toledo Zoo shark aquarium in three days. It's my first dive so they won't let me talk, they just want me to get comfortable in there, feed the fish, and wave at the kids. Talking will be next time.

In case you were planning on throwing chum in the shark tank while I was in it Saturday, sending the sharks into a feeding frenzy causing me to fight them hand to fin, all dives and tends were cancelled for a block of days, including mine. I just rescheduled for May 14, 11am.

Oh also I processed the amazon return and packed up the wetsuit to return it with the UPS label on it... and then 5 minutes later I see a UPS truck at my neighbor's. I flagged him down and he took it. That's service!

Smaller wetsuit arriving Friday.

I know you're all excited about that.

Didn't Troy say he was a Cressi fanboy?