Underwater Wakulla
By RUSTY MILLER
We are on the third day of my side mount training at Emerald springs. This is the first time I have been to Emerald springs and I have lived in Wakulla for 16 years. I’ve heard about it but usually it’s been pretty mucked up by rain and runoff. Since this has been a relatively dry season it is very clear. It’s very deceiving when you look at it from the bank because the walls of the sink hole have black silt that makes it look like a dark hole but the water is really clear when you are in it. There is a staircase that is very long down to what is a narrow rock ledge a foot or two deep and about three feet sticking out towards the water. At the top of the stairs there is a platform and a bench that you can put on your wet suit or dry suit and harness. You walk down the first set of stairs to a small platform, then you proceed down the second set of stairs into the spring.
My instructor had already taken our tanks to the rock ledge, so all I had to do was go down the stairs, which is not an easy task when most of one of your feet is missing and you don’t have a big toe on the other one. I made my way very carefully down the stairs to the bottom little platform and I sat on one of the rock ledges waiting on my instructor to tell me what to do next. We went through the checks on the tanks and regulators to make sure there were no leaks, then she said to go ahead and attach them to my harness. My surprise was, I was able to attach them with no issues the first try unlike I had at Peacock the first try. All the fumbling and trying really helped.
I inflate my harness BC and slid into the 68 degree water. We started our decent to the 40 foot mark, which is where Joerg, the other instructor, had run a circuit of line for us to practice with. I finally got my buoyancy set for the depth and then started trying to get my frog kick going correctly. I can say that I was no better than before. I would do it correctly every once in a while and then lose it.
Sensing my frustration building, we surfaced and we talked about it and all the while she was very encouraging to me. What she said our next skill was going to be really took me by surprise. She said we were going to the tree to practice my kick. When she was giving me the briefing of the area and the spring basin she had mentioned that a long time ago a big chunk of a tree trunk had fallen straight into the spring with enough force to drive it deep into the silt bed and remain vertical a few feet below the surface of the water. Cave divers use this to connect their stage bottles to before they enter the cave, so they can decompress on the way back up.
We get to the tree and we go through the fluttering of the tank valve skill. This is if you have a small leak develop and you turn off the tank and exhale then turn it on enough to inhale air, this will help conserve air while you make your way back to the surface. When I did that successfully several times, then she had me grab the trunk of the tree and lay in a horizontal face down position with my knees bent 90 degrees and practice my frog kick. So after about an hour of this I set off to try to make a complete circuit with my frog kick. I was not as successful as I had hoped but every time I messed up, I immediately went back to the tree and practiced again. Let’s just say I spent most of my time under water on the tree.
We surfaced again and she said she wanted to take me on a tour of the spring basin and just show me where the cave entrances where. Yes, you read correctly there are several caves in Emerald Springs and that’s why you cannot or should not go there with just an open water certification. When you read this article you will have been through Christmas so please have a very good new year and continue to make bubbles.
Russell Miller is the manager at Wakulla Diving Center in Medart. NAUI Instructor #59999