By Gregg Stanton and contributors

Gregg Stanton

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January 3, 2013

The Diving Emergency

What to do when the unthinkable happens.
The worst has happened, someone has been hurt during a dive. What do you do?
Recovery to the surface is important, and first aid will help if the diver is still alive.
Who do you call for help? What do you do with the equipment?
Get the diver to the surface. If you can’t remember your basic training, or if your basic training was insufficient, remember to hold your dive buddy’s regulator in their mouth, using their BCD, slowly bring your buddy to the surface while maintaining a steady ascent. If you are having troubles drop your buddy’s weightbelt to make things easier.
Once you reach the surface, assess the victim, are they responsive? If medical attention is needed and you are on land call 911. If you are on a boat, use the marine radio VHF channel 16 and call the coast guard PAN PAN PAN. This is a distress signal that will alert the coast guard that you need medical assistance. If the victim is unresponsive, administer first aid and assess CPR.
Ask someone to keep the equipment sequestered. Turn off the cylinder after you note the pressure in the tank and note how many times the valve turns to turn off the tank. Make notes of everything you observe, conditions of the dive site, condition of the equipment, dive profile, and get the contact information for everyone who was involved. Ask each person to write down a witness report, what they saw, as soon as possible.
Co-operate with law enforcement, coast guard, EMS and boat captain. No matter what happens, be prepared.
Oxygen on board/at the dive site and delivery equipment is one of the best first aid supplies for any diving accident. Be trained to use the equipment, in first aid, in CPR and in any of the medical evacuation procedures for the dive site that you attend. Know where the nearest hyperbaric chamber is located to your dive site, as well as the phone number of your local EMS and LifeFlight helicopter service. In Wakulla county, you will be transported to Capital Regional Medical Center under the care of Dr. William Kepper, their chamber medical officer.
Medical treatment for diving injuries can be very expensive. Medical evacuation and hyperbaric chamber treatment can exceed thousands of dollars. The Divers Alert Network (DAN), an advocacy group for divers in the USA, provides an insurance policy that covers these treatments and transports and are available at a minimum fee. They can be reached online or by contacting your local dive center. DAN also serves many uses so please look at their services for divers. DAN contact information: 1-800-446-2671 or (919) 684-2948, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Now the worst has happened, are you going to be prepared?

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January 10, 2013

An Underwater Look Forward in Wakulla County

Last week I attended the Beachwood 31st annual New Year’s Eve party at the Livingstons residence. There, amongst our friends and neighbors, we typically review what has happened during the last year.
This year the continued increase in home foreclosures, loss of jobs and general economic strife was distressing. Some are solidifying their resources while others are just leaving town for greener pastures. One dive shop in Tallahassee went out of business a week ago, and the other has branched out away from diving into archery.
Our efforts to open Wakulla Springs State Park to qualified recreational diving was defeated. Indian Springs (next to Wakulla Springs), owned and operated by the YMCA, sold their property north of Route 267 to private developers, who are now proposing to rent the property surrounding the springs. Access to the basin and cave for diving has been closed while the new owners decide how they want to proceed.
All of our December and January international attendance has canceled citing economic stress or disinterest in the county. The new cave dedicated store, Cave Connections, is busy identifying caves on private property that are only available through their facility, following in the footsteps of the out-of-town group that currently dives Wakulla Springs. None of this bodes well for Wakulla County economically.
What then, can we see for underwater Wakulla in the crystal ball? Providing we survive the asteroid that is scheduled to pass between the earth and the moon on Feb. 15, there is a summer reprieve coming. The inshore (out 9 miles) spear fishing season for Gag Grouper may open on April 1 through June 30, if the FWC draft proposal is implemented.
That season will close inshore and open offshore in federal waters (9 miles to the shelf) July 1 through November or December. Red Grouper also opens April 1 through the end of January. Amberjack opens Aug. 1 and closes May 30. Red Snapper has not been determined at this time according to the FWC website.
Our scalloping season in the shallow grass beds near shore now extends from July 1 through late September.
And of course, for those who visit the Florida Keys for lobster, the mini season is in late July and opens otherwise Aug. 6, closing at the end of March. This summer could be a bumper year if inclement weather does not interfere.
See http://myfwc.com/media/2455479/Gulf_Seasons_AtAGlance_2013.pdf for more details.
On shore, further cave exploration continues south of Route 98. The reported known 400-plus windows into the karst should be expanded with the renewed cave diving by several exploration groups.
Deep exploration is hampered by the rise in the cost of helium, now at over $100 per 280 cubic feet (cf) cylinder. A diver who, say, breathes 1 cf per minute at the surface wants to dive to 200 feet in a cave or off shore, which may use a 50 percent helium mix, will pay $3 per minute at that depth. At that rate, his twin cylinder set will cost him $107, (not counting decompression gases) just for breathing gas.
The dive will cost him/her in excess of $150, which encourages exploration divers to take up rebreathers….. or some other pastime.

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January 17, 2013

Time to get ready.

The weather may be uncharacteristicly warm, but few are currently diving. The ocean is still on the cool side.
I do see many boats on trailers pass by us preparing for the upcoming season.
And we are no different. A good friend donated a nice boat to our efforts to move more diving offshore. Folks are tuning up engines, testing electronics and charging or replacing batteries.
April arrives soon enough. The excitement is epidemic with this warm weather.
Your diving equipment is as important a life support technology as is your boat. Your cylinder may need a visual inspection, a hydro test or valve cleaning having sat idle since last summer.
Your regulator needs an annual tune up to perform at its best.
And just like the PFDs required by the Coast Guard, so too should you inspect and test you Buoyancy Compensator.
Every year our attendance at national conferences makes us aware of diving improvements.
Our evaluation of diving incidents has taught us two lessons: 1. Life support equipment not routinely serviced and maintained leads to needless emergencies. 2. The majority of emergencies underwater are the result of poor or “rusty” training.
Both have a basis in attitude.
Refreshment training is always a good idea. This can be done by what is called continuing education: upgrade to Nitrox breathing gas, or Oxygen Delivery for management of decompression, surface-supply hose diving, spearfishing, or even rebreather diving. Better diving technology and techniques abound.
Every one of these topics are new and exciting, enabling divers more and safer bottom time.
Training is not hard to find and timely with four months until April.
Yesterday, a boater told me he fine tunes his engine, and streamlines his boat and his boating skills to be faster every year. He said he wants to avoid ocean emergencies by having the ability to return to shore rapidly should a storm threaten.
We divers need to proactively engage in similar improvements to avoid the underwater emergencies we can avoid.
Safe diving, like safe boating, is no accident!

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January 24, 2013

Zero to Hero

In a time when near instant gratification is possible because of the internet, many are expecting similar options from all aspects of life.
An email arrives with the expectation of immediate response. When I don’t, the sender is offended.
Such technology permits rapid access to information increasing the efficiency of learning. Our younger folks are tuned into the internet.
Consequently, everything is speeding up.
I was told a few days ago that scuba instruction has been made more efficient by Internet e-learning. Students are plugged into a distant database and structure automated class, and “taught” the knowledge part of diving.
That left the water-work half of the class to finish training the student in one weekend. They doubled the number of students, making more money. Now, diving instructors can be expected to focus on the water skills and not on the knowledge of diving!
The shop owner did say she was disappointed how little dive instructors understood the science of diving these days, but she can now blame the agency producing the e-class when injuries happen.
When I taught diving at the university, our basic students took 16 weeks to learn to dive. Their instructors took a minimum of 16 months to become a certified scuba instructor. They first had to pass the Dive Technology course where they mastered how our equipment worked and is repaired.
The next semester was dedicated to learning how to assist in a class (Assistant Instructor). Passing those tough exams let the candidate move on to Dive Master, training to manage the risk of diving.
Passing those exams and supervising dive operations allowed the individual to enter a formal instructor course leading up to a battery of practical and academic tests at the end of the fourth semester.
Of course, everyone worked around the basic students every semester, a type of mentoring program from the top down.
Today we find people who only learned how to dive a year ago, teaching others to dive with little experience or understanding themselves. We call this a “zero to hero” situation.
I often speak to folks looking for refresher courses just to better understand what was missing from their basic scuba class. Pick your instructor and their training program carefully. Then take the time to soak up the information and skills to make diving truly enjoyable. Then find like-minded friends and go diving in the water.
Once comfortable, expand into new diving areas and skills. Diving is full of opportunity best taken as a journey, not a destination.
And like so many things off the Internet, let the buyer beware!

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January 31, 2013

Crustacean Condominiums

Two decades ago, Dr. Bill Lindberg of the University of Florida and I at Florida State collaborated on a Sea Grant study into crustacean reproductive strategies, by first building an artificial reef that would attract our target species.
We chose the Stone Crab for obvious economic reasons and expected community support (or so we thought). I set to build what we thought would attract this crab after discussions with local crabbers in St. Marks and Cedar Key.
Our presentation on the topic in Wakulla County was met with considerable push-back, ultimately informing us that if we tried, the shrimpers would drag the sites and destroy them. Taking the hint, we moved the research entirely to Cedar Key.
We spent the first summer building reef modules underwater out of broken cinderblock with a rebar mast in the middle. Mother nature pushed back as well, by sending us a hurricane that sat on the site for several days and buried it under three to six feet of sand.
My father, a civil engineer, reminded us of Archimedes Law, that states that an object is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced material it occupies. In this case it was concrete in sand. Our reefs were heavy and easily sunk. His design was a floating block that would ride over the sand that hurricanes move.
The next winter I set to constructing reef modules or condominiums at the Hensen Wood & Hoe (HWH) cinderblock facility at Four Points, south of Tallahassee. The module contained holes on all lateral faces, elevated enough to keep the sand out and “float” the unit on the sea floor. HWH donated more blocks and let us assemble wooden forms to contain surplus concrete.
Each module cost us 50 cents each because of industry and student cooperation. Soon we had more than 250 modules, loaded up on several flat bed railroad cars and shipped to Cedar Key. They were loaded on a barge and dropped at the same coordinates of the previous reef the next summer.
For three years, we studied this reef underwater and found we could attract up to 10 crabs in our meter square module during the winter. During the summer, their residency was considerably less but more a matter of food limitations than mating strategies.
Single modules developed a halo in the sand around them, where the crabs would forage during the night. All of the halos were roughly the same radius suggesting when they ran out of food in the sand in a “comfortable” distance from the protective module, they moved on.
Assemblages of modules had the same radius out from the collective pile as the single module. The Crab Condominiums also attracted octopus occasionally, dispelling the crabs temporarily. Large fish also occupied the reefs suggesting a typical artificial reef community would ultimately develop and our exclusive habitat would develop greater predatory pressure.
I suggested a “scare fish” floating device that might chase octopus away, since we were farming the sea, but it was never tried.
This research reef still floats on the sand today, just as productive as it was during our study, and still used by UF students to study reef dynamics. The results of our research are published under Florida Sea Grant Publications.

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February 7, 2013

Business Underwater

Becoming a merchant has made me more aware of the challenges facing some of my underwater study subjects. Let me explain.
For years I observed marine creatures that survived by providing a service to their community. Science calls them cleaners, and by enlarge, dismiss their contribution as minimal and for the gratification of their host. Perhaps…
The most obvious to humans are the fish cleaners on a reef, specifically the Pederson shrimp found on Caribbean reefs. They are typically found roosting near anemones. Fish come to their location and are observed to patiently wait their turn, and then posture to the shrimp.
Once mutual consent is reached, the fish will expose an area of its body and the shrimp will jump on to pick parasites or flesh, “cleaning,” some times inflicting pain which is tolerated by the fish.
The fish will often open its mouth and permit the shrimp to enter, much like we humans do at the dentist. The shrimp presumably benefit with food, the fish with less parasites and better health.
Cleaner shrimp represent a benefit to many fish made obvious by the effort of fish to seek and defend cleaners and their station (The Wakulla News, Oct. 11, 2012) on a reef. Shrimp advertise their services by swimming away from the protective anemone (anemones sting like fire coral when touched) and “dance.”
Caribbean divers have learned to offer their hand in posture to these shrimp and are cleaned. I have witnessed shrimp refuse to clean a fish and be knocked off the station or later ignored.
Successful stations have a line of waiting fish, with multiple cleaners servicing clients. The established communications between these two species, more often in a predator-prey relationship, and the benefits derived by both in this relationship fascinated me then as a scientist and now as a merchant.
From our protective anemone, our center, we advertise our services (sign, newspaper, festivals, radio) which defines our facility. Our fish, customers, come to our station to learn skills for better health to safely enjoy a new realm, and acquire technology to make them more efficient. They occasionally flinch when paying for a service, but tolerate it for the derived benefits like the cleaned fish.
It is our customers after all, who defend our station and encourage our success. Like the cleaner shrimp, our success is only as good as the service we can render. Our customer participation at the center benefits our staff in terms of salary with which to feed their families. With more customer participation, more staff will be hired and our station will grow. Sound familiar?
At first glance it may sound far-fetched to compare our business with community life under water, and use the analogy to understand and improve our business processes.
Hans Hass, the Austrian explorer and naturalist, years before Jacques Cousteau, using an oxygen rebreather lived amongst the fishes, observing community dynamics.
Hass has made many movie documentaries, and written several books about his observations. It was later in life that Hass became a successful consultant when he made the connection between how fish literally integrate their behavior to minimize efforts and maximize outcome, and applied it to the business world.
This I just learned during a review of this article by Dr. Joerg Hess.
Now, about that dance…

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February 14, 2013

Decompression

By Travis Kersting

When you first take an open water training class it is a bit like drinking from a fire hose.
You will be bombarded with information, terminology and equipment, all the while you are daydreaming about that upcoming vacation. Much of what you’re force-fed only comes to realization much later in your diving career.
One of those things is decompression. A term often shrouded in fear, misunderstanding and disappointment.
Those who know nothing about it usually fear it, those who know very little usually avoid it, and those who are familiar with decompression tend to be disappointed by encountering it.
Decompression, or deco, is the term divers have given to stopping their ascent at specified incremental depths and for calculated amounts of time to allow the inert gasses that has accumulated in their system during the dive to be released safely.
The concept is often compared to opening a bottle of soda. Open it slowly and the gas is released and few bubbles are observed, open it fast and bubbles can overflow the top.
As divers we don’t want to bubble as it would literally make the blood boil.
Decompression stops are usually unnecessary when diving within the recreational diving limits, which is part of the definition of recreational diving in contrast to technical diving.
The practice of a safety stop was developed to allow your body to equalize a bit with the lessening pressure, typically at 15-20 feet deep. Your body undergoes the largest pressure change during the transition from the first atmosphere underwater, about 33 feet, to the surface. This safety stop is about half that distance to the surface, a critical point for one to ensure their ascent is controlled and the air spaces in the body can catch up with the pressure change. While not an explicit decompression stop the safety stop nonetheless minimizes bubble formation, and is a healthy practice.
Some instructors will teach that every dive is a decompression dive, which is technically true. More often than not that is the last and only time the subject is mentioned in an entry level class.
In single cylinder diving decompression is not recommended, as these mandatory stops often require ample breathing gas and prevent an immediate ascend to the safety of the surface.
That being said, if the water is warm enough, decompression stops are usually my favorite portion of the dive. I am able to relax, watch the local wildlife if present, or play games underwater. Some people even take books to read on dives where long decompression is planned. Deco time can be enjoyed on a wall dive in the ocean, tucked out of the flow in a cave passage, on a shot line in the great lakes, and anywhere in between.
You have paid for the breathing gas, fuel, food and other expenses associated with diving so why be in a hurry to leave the water?
Instead of doing two or three short dives in a day you could do one that is longer than the short dives combined and spend the rest of the day enjoying your vacation. This of course requires additional training and equipment but it can provide for a new way to explore and enjoy the underwater world when you are no longer as concerned with beating the clock of staying within the recreational limits.
Rebreathers ad an interesting twist to the subject. Suddenly you can do that extra long dive and still not acquire mandatory stops at the same rate of an open circuit diver.
How about diving to 70 feet all day and never having a deco stop pop up on your dive computer?
See you on deco.

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February 21, 2013

Our Tides

Last week my neighbor in St. Marks called to say my sailboat was leaning over so far that the mast was threatening bodily harm to the boat next door.
By the time I got there, the threat had passed leaving everything peacefully afloat. The river was noticeably low, presumably because of low rainfall. After all, the town of St. Marks is five miles inland and upriver from the sea. Could it be tides?
Gravitational forces of the sun and moon primarily pull our planet’s water towards them. As these objects move through space, one (the moon) orbiting the earth and the other (the sun) both earth and moon orbit about, they align their gravitational pull on the earth.
When both sun and moon are pulling in the same angular plane, this force is greatest, the tide is most extreme. We call this a Spring Tide. When these same forces are at perpendicular angles, the tides are minimal and are called Neap Tides.
So tides contribute to the rise and fall of the oceans water level. We take advantage of a falling tide to visit a mud or sand flat exposing marine life trapped in tide pools. Boats ride in or out over a harbor’s sand bar on a high tide.
We all know that fishing conditions are predicted based upon a rising or falling tide. And divers know that the high tide brings better visibility to a dive site with shore ward driven tidal waters. The movement of celestial bodies is predictable giving rise to tide tables.
If the tide was responsible for my boat’s behavior, then I could have found the low tide published. But other forces may undermine these tables.
On shore or offshore winds can alter the intensity of a tide, pushing or pulling water further on or off a beach than what the tide tables predicted. Typically, during our winter, we see a northerly wind (from the north) pushing the water south and creating lower tides. During our summers we have the opposite effect with southerly winds creating higher tides.
Tides reach inland through our rivers both above ground and below. Years ago, I placed a current meter at the opening to the Wakulla Springs cave (at 185 feet). The data collected reflected a tidal pulse.
Here two forces, earth’s gravity pulling water downhill and tides altered the flow of the water, reflected in the pulsing current of the spring. Many of our Archaehaline (marine connected) sinkholes have a tide, that is to say they rise and fall on a schedule that is tidal. They also reflect the water table, which is a reflection of the amount of local rainfall filling our aquifer.
My boat slip is on the shore of the St. Marks River and is usually floating year around. But on those days when the wind is out of the north, the rainfall or water table is low, and the tides are in spring condition, my hull rests on the river bank and for a short time lays her lofty rigging over those around her.
And I get the 2 a.m. phone call of a pending disaster.

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February 28, 2013

Water and electronics don’t mix

By Joerg Hess

Water and electronics don’t mix well. That is an old paradigm that holds true till today. Translated into everyday English, it means that you shouldn’t drop your cell phone in your drink. This is probably a painful experience most of us have had at some point in our lives. In the early days of diving, before electronics were even available, the underwater explorer was limited mostly to shallow depths and fairly short exposures. With the growing popularity of integrated circuits (also known as ICs) in the late 70s and early 80s, electronic gadgets grew in popularity. Up to that point, dive time was measured by mechanical (analog) dive watches which even today have a one way indicator ring to set bottom time. Depth was measured by mechanical depth gauges with limited accuracy.
The most successful attempt to combine reading of depth and time in a small device was made by a Swiss company by the name of UWATEC. It does not take much imagination to figure out what the name stands for. Their flagship product, the Aladin dive computer, was first developed by “Dive Team” in the early 80s. The ingenious trick they used was simply to embed the electronics in silicone oil, which is non-conductive, non-corrosive, and keeps water out of the thin-wall plastic housing. The resulting product could be mass-produced inexpensively and proved reliable. It was developed further for multi-mix breathing gas use and became a standard for divers in the 90s. Since then, many companies have produced better and cheaper dive computers. These computers became better at tracking a diver’s inert breathing gas absorption as they remain under water, and allow for a safer and slower return to the surface. Today, we have a vast variety of underwater dive computers to choose from costing from $200 to $2000. But that is not the end of the story!
The standard dive computer is merely a simulator with limited human interaction during the dive. The dive computer is well shielded from the harmful wet environment. The early ventures into self-contained, self-mixing closed circuit rebreathers, required electronics to not only measure, but actually intervene and control the life sustaining gas blender on your back. This includes exposing oxygen sensors to the moist breathing gas, as well as activating a powered solenoid valve to inject oxygen as the body required. One of the earliest reported attempts for a recreational rebreather was developed as early as 1968, and patented under US patent 3727626 as the “Electrolung.” The CIS-Lunar Mk1 rebreather was developed in 1984. It contained four independent computers. The Mk1 was successfully deployed during the Wakulla research project by the U.S. Deep Caving Team at Wakulla Springs, keeping a diver under water for 24 hours in a single dive.
Since the early days of rebreathers, their electronic control systems have been continuously improved. Unlike the dive computer mentioned earlier, however, rebreathers have not yet become a mass product. The development of electronic rebreather control systems has developed more slowly. We are happy to be part of this development, as some of the research into the high-tech electronics used in rebreather diving now happens at Wakulla Diving Center.

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March 7, 2013

Used SCUBA cylinders.

By Travis Kersting

Nearly every week I see a customer who has purchased a used scuba cylinder at a local yard sale or off Craigslist. The individual is usually very proud of the wonderful deal they found and I’m often wishing I had found it for myself.
Not all scuba cylinders are created equal and not all cylinders used for scuba are designed for it. Prior to my generation of diving it was not uncommon for divers to repurpose CO2 cylinders for scuba. This requires adapters and is actually illegal.
If you are looking at a cylinder, be sure it is EMPTY. Secure it from tipping over and slowly open the valve. If nothing comes out or the handle doesn’t turn then treat the cylinder with caution. There are safe alternate ways to drain a cylinder but please call me first. Under NO circumstances should you try and remove the valve while the cylinder could be pressurized.
Once the cylinder is empty carefully pick it up by the valve and tap the side with a block of wood or a mallet. If you hear a bell tone then it is steel. If you don’t then it is either aluminum, badly corroded inside and steel, or full of water. A magnet will tell you if it is steel or aluminum. In the case of corroded or water-filled cylinders tread lightly and avoid the purchase.
The next thing to examine is the stampings in the “crown” of the cylinder. You should see the letters DOT or ICC, these are required marking for filling and transport within the USA. You will also see markings like 3AA (Steel) or 3AL (Aluminum) and other variations starting with the letters “SP” or “E.” These marks represent the permit that the cylinder was manufactured under. Usually that set of markings is followed by the rated service pressure in PSIG. Together these will look something like: DOT 3AA 2250.
The manufacturers mark the cylinders in cryptic ways that are sometimes difficult to determine without training. If you can read the stampings the easiest thing is to call me and tell me what you see. If you see the letter “M” followed by a number then this is the manufacturer’s designation number and you could search it online. If you find any stamp marks in the wall of the cylinder it cannot be filled or transported legally.
You will see a series of stampings from hydrostatic requalification too. This process is done every five years. You should see a month, a symbol or series of small numbers, and a year for every requalification. If the date is past five years from today you will need to have it re-qualified. This costs usually $20-50.
At the time of hydro, or annually on cylinders used often, it is good to replace the pressure relief device too at an added expense. Older cylinders may need new valves or a valve service, as well, adding to the cost of bringing this used cylinder back to service.
Cylinders made of aluminum should be treated and handled with great caution until they have been properly evaluated. Never pick up a mystery aluminum cylinder when it is under pressure.
Trying to decide if a cylinder is worth $25 or $200 is, frequently, a complicated process. Scrap value is normally less than $10 and many scrap metal facilities will not take cylinders without some specific destructive measures on your part.
I encourage you to call me when you encounter any cylinder of unknown origin, contents, or age. Determining if a cylinder should be condemned is often subjective and difficult. Properly destroying a dangerous cylinder is also not so straight forward.

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March 14, 2013

Merritt’s Mill Pond.

The Merritt’s Mill Pond in Marianna, Jackson County, was once off limits to cave diving.
Built at the turn of the last century to drive a mill stone, the pond is a flooded valley that once had many springs. For years only a special few could dive their inundated caves, especially those of the Mill Pond known as Jackson Blue, Twin Cave and Hole-In-The-Wall.
During the mid-1980s, Parker Turner took me to the fish camp mid-pond and rented a small aluminum jonboat, which, after hours, we paddled across to the opposite side, to a land cave on the bank.
Folks called it Hole-In-the-Wall because there was a hole above an underwater cave. At that time, a small landing nailed between two trees made water entry with our heavy kit less likely to sink the boat.
The entrance was a narrow restriction at 20 feet after which a vertical shaft took us to horizontal passages going upstream or downstream. We would tie our safety reel to either one and explore huge clear passages that extended for thousands of feet.
Back then we mostly used open circuit air. Nitrox was just introduced and took a lot of time to blend.
Fortunately these sites usually did not go deeper than 100 feet so narcosis was manageable. At the end of the dive, we would slowly surface and scan the Mill Pond with our lights.
Our activity back then did attract the attention of the toothed kind, evidenced by twin reflected eyes staring back at our light beams. We would slowly move over to the platform and quickly climb out.
Several years later, the Jackson County Commission decided to open the headwaters or JB as it had become known to divers, to cave diving. They had already created a public park at this beautiful site complete with picnic tables, lawns, a beach and a diving board right over the cave entrance. For a fee, cave divers were permitted to dive only during the winter, when the park was closed to the public or after hours during the summer.
We had to drive to the far end of Marianna to the sheriff’s office, file a waiver, cave diver card and pay a fee, sign in and secure a key to the gate. When we finished the dive, we had to drive back to the sheriff’s office and let them know we were safely out.
Edd Sorenson was introduced to the area almost two decades ago, fell in love with cave diving and purchased a house with docks mid-pond. Typical to most cave support enthusiasts, he was soon filling cave cylinders from his garage and running pontoon boats to caves along the pond.
With support available and caves to dive, cave divers came! And they brought their money as well. Edd became the gatekeeper of the pond, cooperating with local authorities to keep diving safe in the area.
Then someone let an unauthorized person into the park who became entangled in a tight passage and drowned. The sheriff threatened to shut down cave diving in the county. But the National Speleological Society and the National Association of Cave Divers visited the county commission with data demonstrating that, since the park had opened to cave divers, these folks provided the bulk of their income. To the surprise of everyone, the commission not only kept the caves open, but also extended the diving opportunity year around, built cave diver-dedicated parking and buildings, and made check in/out easier by moving it to Edd’s place mid-pond.
Today, cave diving is recognized as the second largest income generation activity in Marianna and an internationally recognized dive destination. We like it. Every one of our students completes at least one day of training in Marianna.
During the summer we spend a lot of time explaining what we do underwater to the multitude of enthusiastic children with whom we share the park.

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March 21, 2013

Jackson Blue

By Joerg Hess

Last week, Gregg Stanton described one of the main spring systems for diving in North Florida, the Mill Pond in Marianna. Mind you, it has not always been that popular as a diving destination.
When I started cave diving in 1998, the Mill Pond was more of a secret rather than a destination. The county park was open to diving, somewhat, but under heavy limitations, to the point that only few diving visitors came.
The argument by the locals had always been that diving as an activity would never attract many visitors, or if it did, then these people would not spend money, or even worse, harass swimmers and fish, and destroy the environment.
I lived in Panama City in 2004, and Jackson Blue — the main cave in the Mill Pond — was just over an hour’s drive away. We would schedule Wednesday evenings as our dive time, checked in at the Marianna Sherrif’s office around 7 p.m., paid our dues, and were allowed into the park only after all other non-diving visitors had left for the day.
Jackson Blue at the time was considered an advanced cave, due to its depth of almost 100 feet, and extent with several miles of passage. The high flow also limited the diver’s ability to travel deep into the cave. In fact, the flow was so high (I was told) that it created a broil on the surface of the swimming area just under the jumping tower. Even using a diver’s propulsion vehicle or scooter would barely allow for pushing against the onflow.
As it turns out, none of the above were entirely accurate. Well, I suppose some of it was, at some point in history, but even 15 years ago technology had advanced enough to make “JB”, as Jackson Blue was lovingly nicknamed, a pleasure stroll in the park. The early days were limited to exploring a bit of the entrance area, less than 1000 feet distance from the surface. Bigger tanks, and additional tanks clipped to the side, called “stages” provided more gas, which meant more time spent in the cave.
Jackson Blue has other openings further into the cave. They may not be accessible for a person, but had been used in the past as a trash-disposal opportunity.
As a result, deep in the cave, a whole pile of trash and refuse, such as milk jugs, shoes and glass marks an area around what became known as “the traffic light.” An old discarded traffic light sits atop a limestone rock at 2,100 feet from the entrance. This became a good destination and turning point for our students.
Later acquisition of scooters allowed us to see the area behind the traffic light, which looks completely different. It reflects a night-time-winter-landscape, with fine grey-white sand and sand dunes that extend as far as the eye can see.
With the addition of rebreathers in 2005, the whole cave suddenly became accessible within an easy dive and little effort. Gas volume for breathing was no longer a concern, as long as sufficient breathing gas for emergency situations was carried.
Suddenly, the whole cave, once described as huge, appeared rather small, and the end of the cave as it was known at the time, at a distance of 4,500 feet from the entrance, became a popular spot for us, to venture around and smell the roses, pardon, limestone. For the most part, this “dangerous cave” had become tame, and is still a joy today.
Topside, things evolved as well. Cave divers followed their passion and acquired property at the Mill Pond, with additional access points to the water. Pontoon boats became available for rent, and the other caves in the pond became accessible for the diving public. Suddenly and almost over night, Jackson Blue and the Mill Ponds became an internationally known diving destination.
I still very much like diving in Jackson Blue, and there are still spots that I haven’t seen yet, so I need to go there once in a while and have a look. It allows me to de-stress from a hectic work schedule, and the visual impressions are still stunning every time I go.
Opening the site further has improved the infrastructure, and allowed the preservation of the whole pond. Even just a boat-ride on the pond is worth a visit – give it a try!

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March 28, 2013

New boat.

I understand the FSU Marine Lab has a new research vessel replacing a 50 foot craft that served them well for over three decades. Back then, the 65-foot RV Tursiops had just been returned to surplus property leaving the Marine Lab without a research and training ocean going platform.
Our fledgling diving program had faculty and students seeking marine exposure. With little funding and great resolve, I turned to the courts to find a replacement vessel. After two frustrating years of inspecting confiscated boats around the southeast, I found a Marine Management hull in the Miami River.
For the price of past due dockage, we could take possession of the Wolf, previously used to haul drugs from South America, now confiscated and turned over to FSU. With the resolve of youth, I took several students to Miami, stayed at a friend’s house and over two weeks reassembled what had been stripped (stolen) over the years. When the dock community figured out what we were doing they came to the rescue returning anchors, antennas, fixtures and engine components at no charge. We soon changed out crews and departed for the trip north.
Venturing out into the Miami River with our new boat was short lived. We met bow-to-bow with an incoming freighter, who with no room to maneuver and being much larger than us, forced me back on the dock! We did finally make it out into the Intercoastal Waterway headed for the canal that crossed south Florida through Lake Okeechobee.
Progress was slow as we struggled with contaminated fuel, weather and police raids.
A case of fuel filters accommodated the first problem, anchoring up during storms was relatively easy, but the police raids were another story. We later found out that the Wolf had a reputation which brought her passage to the attention of every legal jurisdiction we passed through.
Lights, sirens and bull horns became routine and small police craft would swarm out of hiding. Police, with hidden but obvious guns would demand our surrender. Paperwork would be exchanged and much frivolity expressed. I suspect they all used us as an exercise, alerting the next county along our passage for good measure.
A big storm kept us in Tarpon Springs for several weeks before moving on north. I had shifted crews again, this time taking on a student raised in Steinhatchee. With family there, we could hardly pass their harbor without a visit.
That night his father visited the boat and like so many before on this trip, recognized the craft. Only he offered to sanitize the Wolf, since he knew of the secret hiding places below.
I was ever so thankful to be rid of any lingering contents of its previous life and agreed.
On a late March evening, the Wolf, soon to be renamed the Nectes, then the Seminole, and finally the Cala Nectes, pulled into the FSU harbor to begin a new life in support of marine science.
I wish the new boat an equally rewarding experience.

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April 4, 2013