Underwater Wakulla

Finished side mount course.

By RUSTY MILLER

I have good news; I finished my open water side mount course. A week ago Monday I met my Instructor Miss Aletheia at Orange Grove Springs in Live Oak, an hour and a half from Crawfordville east on 98. This is the only spring in the Peacock system in the park that open water divers can use. The cavern entrance is a little small and should only be entered by cavern or cave certified divers because you lose the sunlight very quickly.  
There are no showers to rinse off with but they do have a big porta-potty and changing shed (two sides) with locking bolts on the inside of the doors. The pathway to the stairs/ramp is clear of debris so even with my gimp left foot I was able to walk carefully to the spring. I used the ramp to the final stair entrance to the spring. The stairs at the spring are very wide with a rail dividing the staircase. I will caution you that the last two stairs can be very slick because of some algae build up but still navigable.
When we were there the water was incredibly clear and they said it was blue (I’m color blind) but I could see the 70 foot bottom from the surface. The water temperature is a year round 72 degrees. There is a lot of silt on the branches and some on the walls of the spring so you need to either learn to frog kick or don’t get close to the sides.
We wheeled our tanks to the entry stairs and laid them on the bottom stair connected to a looped rope so they wouldn’t fall off into the spring. We connected the tanks to our harnesses, did the final checks for leaks and then we were ready to head out into the spring. Aletheia briefed me on what skills I needed to accomplish on this first dive. We were going to enter the cavern to the entrance to the cave but not penetrate the cave. Then we swam down to the entrance of the cavern. She tied off her line and we swam around exploring the cavern and literally after we made the first right turn in the cavern the entrance disappeared and we used our lights at that point, it was awesome. We saw the cave entrance and we were about 90 feet underwater at that point.
It was time to start making our way back to the entrance and then to our 20 foot safety stop. She asked me to lead the way out, at that point I started getting a little nervous because I’m still struggling with my frog kick and I didn’t want to mess up the way out with silt because the place is covered up as are the tree branches that you have to navigate through. I followed the line she laid out very slowly and carefully; it seemed every time I kicked I hit a branch with the tips of my fins and my thoughts where that I was silting up the place, there was no silting. We made it to the entrance and the sunlight coming through was almost a spiritual thing because the way it danced in the water. Aletheia asked me to deploy my lift bag on my reel, I did but my regulator that I filled the bag with started to free flow but a good smack on the side it stopped. I made a mistake by putting the reel down on the rocks to attach it to the bag, that’s a big no-no.
I deployed the bag and reeled up to our 20 foot safety stop. We completed our first dive. After about a half an hour surface interval we entered the water again and the skill that I have been dreading was about to take place. We descended about 30 feet and it was time for me to unhook the rear of one of my tanks and lay it out in front of me and swim 50 feet. I struggled a little bit but did it and connected it back and then unhook the rear of the other one and repeat the 50 feet. Then she wanted me to deploy my lift bag again but this time I was to stay in the horizontal position. I did and even frog kicked around clockwise then counter clockwise holding the reel out in front of me.
We surfaced and she said congratulations I passed and I was excited. Not bad for a nearly 66 year old diving instructor. So no matter what age you are you can learn new things. Keep blowing bubbles.

Russell Miller is the service tech and scuba instructor at Wakulla Diving Center in Medart. NAUI Instructor #59999