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The Blue World team drifts along an underground river, hoping to reach the exit!
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
Drift diving is a type of diving where you jump into moving water and go with the flow.
In the ocean, this usually means that a boat follows you and picks you up where ever you
decide to surface.
It’s a lot of fun and super easy, because you don’t have to swim hard, and you don’t
need to worry about getting back to where you started.
Cave diving is almost never done this way because you can’t surface except where you
started.
So cave divers usually try not to get involved in high current situations.
But as with all things, there are exceptions.
Cameraman Todd, Cameraman Zach, and I have come to central Florida in search of a famous
cave drift dive.
We stop at our favorite dive shop to rent some scuba tanks and get air fills.
Then it’s off to Manatee Springs State Park, where they do have manatees, but that’s
not why we’re here.
We start with a quick tour of the area.
Since Zach has done this dive before, he explains how it will work.
Manatee Springs is a place where an underground river flows out of the ground and joins into
the Suwannee River.
So the state park has a huge submerged cave system underneath it, emerging at both Manatee
Spring and a spring called Catfish Hotel.
Catfish hotel is covered in duckweed and looks like a little pond.
We’re going to make sure that it’s clear, that there’s nothing obstructing the entrance
here then we’re to go off into the woods, we’re going to find Friedman’s Sink, and
we’re going to drift down and we’re going to meet ZP back here.
We talk a walk into the woods to find Friedman’s Sink.
That does not look like something that’s diveable.
That looks like a puddle in the woods!
It is a puddle in the woods!
But it’s a diveable puddle in the woods.
Wow!
That’s crazy!
Where’s the part where you go in?
Right there!
Today, we’re going to do a cave drift dive.
Where we’re going to go in here and we’re going to come out downstream at the Catfish
hotel!
Once we swim down into the current of the underground river, we won’t have enough
air to get back to where we started at Friedman Sink, so we have to drift all the way to the
next exit.
There is one emergency exit called Sue’s Spring before Catfish Hotel if we have a problem.
This type of dive is generally not considered proper cave diving protocol.
The only reason we are doing it is because hundreds of cave divers have done it before
and proved that it’s short enough to make the distance with no problem.
I’m super excited, but also a bit nervous as we start gearing up.
[Singing a sea shanty]
Looking straight down, I can’t believe there is a hole into a cave at the bottom of this
little puddle in the woods.
Zach knows the way, so we let him lead.
Of course the minute we move, we kick up all kinds of sediment.
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Todd and I follow Zach down the hole and emerge into the cave, with strong current passing
by.
It’s also filled with particulate matter.
I was definitely expecting better visibility.
Once we have gotten our buoyancy dialed in, we start swimming gently with the current.
Fortunately, the current is doing most of the work.
Zach keeps his primary light on the guideline.
In this visibility, we have to work extra hard not to lose sight of it.
It’s a very disconcerting feeling knowing that after a few minutes of drifting, we probably
would not be able to get back to Friedman sink if we had to--against the current.
Soon we have travelled 700 feet, which is the halfway point between Friedman Sink and
the next possible exit.
In larger sections of the cave, the current gets slower and the pace feels a little more
relaxed.
But I can’t stop thinking about how far the next exit will be.
In a smaller, low section, the water moves faster and we don’t really even need to
kick.
Zach points out the line that will take us up to a small possible exit, known as Sue’s
Spring.
But since we are doing fine and have plenty of air, we will keep going towards the Catfish
Hotel.
Finally we reach a section of the cave that begins to angle upwards.
We’re approaching the end of the line.
Finally we enter the cavern zone, and we can see daylight.
Catfish Hotel might be known for its large population of catfish, but we’re not finding
very many.
The holes in the rocks are supposed to have catfish in them.
I guess there’s a vacancy at the hotel.
I hunt around under a ledge and find a few hiding.
Hunting for catfish is a good way to do a little decompression stop.
Since the dive was almost 90 feet, I will need some time to decompress before surfacing.
Zach has found a little turtle hanging out.
The surface of the spring is covered in algae and duckweed, which makes for a dramatic underwater
view.
I’m thinking that if I surface through all this stuff, my gear will be covered in algae.
We head over to the swim platform and I use my regulator to clear out a spot to surface.
Man, that was a wild ride!
That was fun!
It goes against all my training, but it was fun!
The drift from Friedman Sink to Catfish Hotel is an exhilarating, but extremely unusual,
cave dive.
This practice goes against standard cave training and is only undertaken here because of the
short distance, multiple exit points and long history.
This is one of the only dives of its type in the world, and it’s a thrill every cave
diver should experience.
It’s another amazing place in the Blue World!
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