﻿Coming up, Jonathan and Cameraman Todd explore a tight silty cave called
Gator Hole—and hope they don’t meet any Gators! Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
Merritts Mill Pond in Marianna Florida is one of my favorite places.
This man-made reservoir was created by damming up a river originating at Jackson Blue Spring.
It’s a long, skinny shallow pond filled with clear water and a bunch of great submerged caves.
Located in Northern Florida near Tallahassee, it’s a cave diver’s paradise!
During our expedition to explore this area, we dove Jackson Blue Spring with legendary cave
explorer Edd Sorenson, who owns the local dive shop, Cave Adventurers. Then Todd and I explored
a tiny fascinating cave called Shangri-La--which gave new meaning to the word “restriction.”
And today we are off on another adventure, to explore a cave known as Gator Hole. But
first we have to find it. We’re on our way to a place called Gator Hole, and we don’t exactly
know where it is but we got some instructions, you know, and we’re going to try to find it,
and then we’re going to dive it. And it’s supposed to be kind of a cool cave. It wasn’t that far I
don’t think… Like I said, we don’t actually know where it is. Between Zach, Todd and I,
with a map of the pond and some guidance from Edd, we have absolutely no idea where it is.
Eventually we do find it, and we navigate through a maze of tree stumps and logs to approach the
entrance of the cave. There’s a big log here as well. Nicely done… It’s not very inviting.
Having no idea what to expect, we suit up in full sidemount cave diving gear.
At 67° Fahrenheit, the water is not exactly warm. I should have brought my drysuit.
And the thought has occurred to me that there might actually be a gator around here.
That’s one way to do it! We make our way to the cave entrance through the muck, hoping it
gets clearer inside. We follow a plastic hose, which was placed here to sample water quality.
In this part of the cave, there is still air above our heads.
Soon we reach the stop sign, and the real cave dive begins.
We go around a corner and down to about 25 feet deep.
Here, the floor of the cave is quite soft and silty.
One misplaced fin kick will create quite a mess.
But we have no choice because we reach a low section.
Finally we hit the first restriction.
Todd is no dummy, he sends me through first to see if I can fit. It’s barely a foot tall and I make
a rookie mistake by forgetting to release the air from my buoyancy compensator. So it sort of grinds
against the stone. But to be fair, I’m trying to minimize how much I disturb the bottom.
On the other side the water is clear, and I turn around to film Todd coming through,
but he signals that he wants to turn the dive and head back.
One of the principal rules of cave diving is that anyone can call the dive at any time for
any reason. So I turn around and squeeze back through. On the other side, it’s really silty.
Going through the restriction made quite a mess of the cave. Todd saw how silty it was getting,
and decided that it would safer to leave before we made it any worse.
Because the flow in this cave is extremely slow, the silt doesn’t clear very quickly.
It just hangs in the water for a long time.
So as we swim away from the silt we created and back to the stop sign, the water is clearer.
Then we can see the glow of sunlight at the end of the cavern zone, and we swim back out to the boat.
Because the dive is so shallow,
we don’t have to worry about doing any safety stops or decompression.
Well, that was quick! We got to the first restriction and I went through it
and it’s a really tight restriction, I had to wiggle against the bottom really hard
to get through it and it just really silted the place up. And I was like
on the other side where it’s nice and clear and I was like “Hey Todd come on through and
I’ll get a shot of you.” And he’s like “ No, we’re out.” It was a good call.
After a conversation about our mutual comfort level with the silt,
we decide to try again the next day, this time with smaller cameras
and the knowledge that the cave will get silty. No bubbles coming out of the tanks! Alright!
The image quality on our GoPro rigs is not as good as our full size cameras, but they
fit in this little cave better. We head in and past the now-familiar cavern zone and stop sign.
Down at the bottom, the silt from yesterday has settled…but not for long!
Doing my very best to minimize disturbing the bottom, I scrunch through the first restriction.
This kind of diving is not for everyone,
and honestly I never would have thought I would enjoy this, but I do. It’s super fun!
On the other side, we encounter a low, wide passage with the same silty bottom.
I’m not sure what this catfish is thinking, being so far from the light of day.
We pass fragments of turtle shell, the remains of turtles that swam in, got lost and drowned.
It doesn’t take long before we reach a second restriction. I motion for Todd to go first,
so he will have a chance to see some clear water. The diver in front gets the best view.
We try to stick to the ceiling to minimize the siltation.
But it’s not always possible in really low sections.
Following the low section, I can barely see Todd’s light, even though he is only ten feet ahead.
On the walls of the cave, we can see evidence of a lower water level in the past.
We reach a third restriction, and on the other side, Todd suggests we turn to head back.
On the way back we can see how well we preserved the water clarity. And the answer is…not well.
I’m using the “OK” technique to keep a hand on the line because the viz is so bad.
We always have to be gentle with the line because if it breaks, that’s a big problem. In a higher
flow cave, this silt would be washed away, but in this cave, it just hangs there for hours.
The viz might be bad, but as long as we never lose the guideline,
we will be fine because it takes us right out to the entrance.
In some places, the line goes through what’s called a line
trap—a place where a diver can’t fit.
It’s tough to navigate by feel in such a place, but we have enough viz to see what is happening.
We make it back to the first restriction and the silt has actually settled a little.
Not for long!
When we finally make it back to the pond, I wonder how Gator Hole got its name.
I’m not sure I want to come face to face with a Gator in these murky conditions. Well, you
know I didn’t keep going because I wanted us to progressively learn the cave, rather than trying
to get all the way to the end, because then if something goes wrong, you’re not as well-prepared
for that contingency. I wasn’t really sure how clear it would be on the way out and so now we
have a better understanding of how quickly the silt will dissipate. So we can use that
to our advantage planning our next dive. Question is…should we do it again? Merritts Mill Pond is
an amazing place to explore—there are 7 caves on this pond. Gator Hole is completely different from
both of the other caves we have explored so far, and we have not yet seen all the way to the back.
I hope to explore this cave again on our next visit. But we also have four more caves to find
and dive on Merritt’s Mill pond., giving us many more adventures to come in the Blue World.
Hey everyone! Did you know that you now can become a Blue World
member? Hit the JOIN button down below and get access to cool perks like custom badges,
early access to new videos, your name in the credits and more!