Hello my friends!

Yes, yes, another week end in cave country!

I managed to leave work at 3:00pm again and shot straight to Wakulla to be greeted very warmly by Nanci... :-) Got there just after 8:30pm, having had a rather good traffic. They needed me for late night support, when the last 2 divers come out of the habitat. So I went in at 2:30am and met JJ and Brent in the habitat. They were cheerful and it was nice and warm in there. There were also lots of toys in there... After ferrying a few tanks up, I kept them company during a long & very slow ascent (40 minutes I think) to the surface. We made it to the motel at 4:30 or 5:00am, I forgot.

On Saturday afternoon we all met at Indian at 1pm. I was diving with Nanci, Erik, Skip and Scott Landon, our guide. We went upstream on scooter.... cool!
This was my second dive upstream, first scooter dive in Indian. This cave is so impressive. I like it a lot after the first T on the right hand side: white everywhere, twist and turn, up and down various piles, high ceiling most of the time. We went quite a bit further than when I swam that way. This Gavin scooter is really cool! I found that you can drive that thing with just one finger -- to keep the trigger down.... and just relax and enjoy the cave's breath taking beauty, just keeping an eye on the buddie(s)'s light beam.

I learnt a lot that day. I feel that Scott gave me enough leads as to what I can improve. I'll keep practicing until next time and I'm sure we'll go twice as far. I'm also going to put together a 70 foot bottle this week.

Then Nanci and I drove back to High Springs and got ready for the next day.

First dive in Ginnie. Scooter practice. We had a nice ride: after a neat shot through the ear without touching anything (lucky...) we also successfully scootered through the lips, though it was still far from neat for me. We followed the main line, passed the big room jump, scootered through the sand dunes just before the jump into the roller coaster, and carried on until just before the end the roller coaster tunnel, where the main line goes in a right angle with a lead weight -- we turned in the room just before that.

We made it safely back and through the lips and stopped there -- Practice time. I wanted to get this lips area worked out with the Gavin. So we went in and out 4
times until I would not touch anything. Nanci wanted to do some, more but I could not keep up with her anymore! She could turn her Mako so fast!

Last dive of Sunday was in Cow Springs. Nanci and I went in with a stage. Of course I did not remember exactly where the main line started, so we tried quite a few tight spots until, 20 minutes later I clipper our line onto the main line. Most of our first 1/3 on the stage was gone, so we did not carry it very far. The flow was high. It was cool to have this rope. Viz was good. At least 50-60 feet I think. We passed the beautiful clay bank and dropped to 100 feet. Took a right on the first T, then a left on the second T. I started marking a 2 foot jump when Nanci called the dive on 1/3. We were 60 minutes into the dive. I was on 1/3 too. Good thing she was watching! She's really an excellent buddy. At least I thought so until her primary light's battery went too weak. She went on backup so we did not waste any time on the way back. The flow was kicking it took us 20 minutes to get back to the entrance of the cave were we started our deco.

This was one cool dive! One cool WE. I started driving back to St Pete at 5am on Monday morning. I was at work at 9:30am. I only slept 4 hours but I still feel fine!

I hope your WE was excellent too.

Take care.

Herve.