Florida New Year's 2026

As has been our tradition for quite a few years, we went to Florida to cave dive over New Year's.  I haven't blogged about one of these trips in ages, but since Rob brought his camera (which he rarely does on cave trips), it seemed worthy of a few posts.  So, here goes:

• Eagles Nest Downstream
• Emerald Downstream
• Mainland
• Eagles Nest Downstream, Again
• Photography Fun at Ginnie
• Emerald Downstream, Again
• Eagles Nest Upstream 

I think this is also the first Florida cave trip I've blogged since Kevin moved to High Springs :(.  But on the plus side, we have a place to stay, someone to take care of our gear before the trip, and most importantly... a kitty to play with when we aren't diving!  This is Tika.  She's not the most social cat, but on this, my fourth visit to Kevin since he moved to Florida, she finally warmed up to me enough to hang out with us starting from the first day of the trip.  And she even jumped up on Rob's lap a couple of times!

Florida New Year's 2026: Eagles Nest Upstream

For our final dive of the trip, we decided to go back to Eagles Nest (again) but this time to go upstream.  It's been a while since I've been upstream there!  It was still kind of chilly in the morning, so we slept in until 8 and then got going.  So we made it to the dive site around 11.  We were the first people there, but very shortly after, another car rolled up with a couple of cavern divers (who we had crossed paths with at checkin).  We staged our gear by the water, and while we were moving it into the water, they headed into the water for their dive.

We finished up getting ready and headed into the cave.  I never saw the cavern divers, though apparently Rob saw their teeny tiny lights over on the wall around 90 feet (which quite frankly, sounds scary to me).  Kevin led the dive, I was #2, and Rob was #3.  We agreed to go slowly on the way in, with the plan to go to the end of the line (around 2200 feet) and then we could crank up the speed on the way out and play around in the big rooms as time allowed.

As we first got going, the viz did not seem that awesome, but it cleared up I think around the time that we were in what I refer to as the "duck under" -- which is actually an extended section of tunnel deeper than the rest of the dive, around 250 feet.  There were sections that were really clear and blue looking, almost like we were under a halocline.  There were also a lot of sections where the water got colder or warmer, which was weird, but probably corresponded with ups and downs in the passage.

We paused a couple of times in the bigger rooms, but mostly kept going straight to the end of the line, as planned.  Actually Kevin stopped and tried to call it about a hundred feet before the end of the line, but Rob insisted on going all. the. way. to the end.  At the end of the line, there was actually a line T'ing off of the mainline, which I presume was running around the left side of the room.  But we didn't follow it.  That end room is not very pretty, so didn't seem like the best place to spend the time that we had.

On the way out, we stopped in pretty much each of the big rooms (I think there were three rooms that we stopped in), and took turns scootering to the other side or top of the room and exploring, while one or two of us stayed on the line.  With such excellent viz, you could generally see the other side of the room pretty much once you headed that way and pointed a light in that direction.  But wow are those rooms big, and tall.  The striations and different colors on the rock are pretty neat.

Before you know it, we were back to the slope up to the cavern, and we went off the trigger and drifted out as we did some deep stops.  The deco was pretty uneventful.  It was a bit shorter than our previous two dives here, as the average depth on the upstream side is probably about 20 feet shallower than the downstream.  How deep was it, you might wonder?  We had an interesting discussion on this topic.  

The previous day, Kevin pointed out that we were running our gauges on saltwater mode (and his was on freshwater), so our gauges read a shallower than his.  Okay, whatever, so I came up with an average depth around 220' on this dive, which was probably closer to 230' on his gauge.  So how should I plan deco?  Rob pointed out that our finely honed deco schedules (from ocean diving) are based on the pressure at N' of seawater, but the fact that it is N' feet of seawater vs. M' of freshwater is irrelevant.  So in other words, if I run my gauge on saltwater mode, I should be good to use the deco rules I use in saltwater with the numbers I see on my gauge. Makes sense, but seems like a good argument to not switch my gauge to freshwater.  So now I have a good excuse other than laziness for why I don't change my gauge when we are cave diving :)

On the way home from the dive, we stopped at the Freezer for some snacks, and then went to Great Outdoors later in the evening.

Epilogue

I had originally brought this drysuit with me to leave at Kevin's as my permanent Florida cave diving suit.  But since it was so (mysteriously) wet, I decided to take it back home with me, so I could get it looked at/debug it myself in the pool.  The next day as we were packing up the suit for the return trip home, we found some bad spots on the zipper.  Sigh.  Well at least that explains why all the aquaseal patches in the world didn't make the suit dry!

Florida New Year's 2026: Emerald Downstream, Again

Today we got Kevin back (it was New Year's Day, so he didn't have to work), and we decided to go back to Emerald and try to find that jump for real this time.  We were quite optimistic about finding it this time, since we'd found it on the way out on the previous dive.  We slept in a little bit (until 8), because it was still crazy cold out in the morning.  This meant that it was pretty late, about 11, by the time we got to the site.  I have to admit, the drive to Emerald is pretty horrible.  We are on the same boring rural highway for like 90 miles.  It would be fine if I were driving or if I could sleep.  But instead, I have to stay awake to make sure that Rob doesn't fall asleep and get into a firey crash.  And I can't drive stick, so I can't offer to take over for him.

When we got to the site, there were three other cars there already, which was just one team of divers.  They were getting ready, but not at a very speedy pace.  We ended up getting in the water before them.  They said they were going both upstream and downstream, but not very far downstream.  We were quite efficient at getting our bottles in the water (on Kevin's patented downline -- and we even optimized the order of the bottles so we only had to pick up our bottom stages and the other bottles were just where they needed to be, woohoo!), and after a slight bit of photograph-related doodling, we got into our suits and into the water.

The previous night, I had found what I was sure was *the cause* of my drysuit leak... a little slash in the aquaseal right in the crotch.  So we had fixed that and I was sure today would be the day that I was dry :). We finally got going and with the aid of the new bottle sorting technique (patent pending), we were quite quick to get going.  Having just been on the same line a few days ago, and knowing when to expect various waypoints along the dive, I think I had a better chance to take in the cave as we were going.  I really like the white scalloped walls and ceilings, when I am not completely absorbed with keeping track of that tiny dark-stained line in the blackness.

We got to the jump in question a little over 10 minutes in, and I think we were all pretty certain we were in the right place.  And then we noticed a line from the passage coming towards the mainline.  And it turns out it comes like an arms length from the mainline (facepalm emoji).  I don't know how we missed this on our previous dive.  I'm actually kind of disturbed that we missed a line that came so freakin' close to the mainline both on the way in and out.  I think we must have been traveling higher up in the cave on the previous dive.  Also, on the way out on the previous dive, when we found the passage, we were a bit further upstream of the arrow that the jump line comes right up to.

Anyhoo, once we found that, Rob put in a very short jump and we were off.  The line immediately headed downward and we were in a passage in about 180 feet (seawater... which became a thing later).  Rob was leading, with the plan being that he could find good spots for photography and turn around and tell us to pose.  Both Kevin and I had our strobes mounted to the backs of our tanks, which simplified things.  Rob turned the strobes on once we made the jump and we headed slowly up the line.  The passage was not small, but it was very silty on the bottom.  I found it kind of taxing to not generate any silt while trying to position for photos.  But I think I did a reasonable job of doing that.  We were moving along through the passage quite slowly, which of course makes it a bit tricky to decide when to turn to keep on time.  I think in the end, we swam in while taking pictures for about 25 minutes and swam out in maybe 8 minutes.

The line kept disappearing into little silt hills and then reappearing on the other side of the hill.  I've gotten kind of used to this in Emerald, and as long as it's pretty easy to imagine the line continuing straight and reappearing where it reappears, I can live with that.  At one point, we were swimming along and the line disappeared into a silt hilt and maybe 10 feet later, a line appeared at a right angle.  There must have been a tie off under that pile of silt, but we were not about to find it.  So we pulled the line out of the silt on both ends and connected the two with a double ender (that was Kevin's good idea... I probably would have pulled out a spool :P).

Eventually we came to a T, and Rob chose to go right.  Just past the T, the line immediately went up steeply, along a steep silty hill.  One of us (ahem, Rob) silted out the hill, and so we abandoned that side of the T and went back to the left.  We went to the next room, took some photos, and then turned it.  The swim out was uneventful.  I was kind of relieved to be off photo modeling duty, since it meant a small amount of silt generation was acceptable :P (to me, probably not to Rob).

The swim out was uneventful.  When we got back to the basin, the other team was there, up shallower.  I think they must have ascended, hung out on the surface, and then came back down for a dive in the downstream section, because they appeared again when we were around our 40 or 30 foot stop (I'd poked my head into the upstream section at that point).  Rob shot a few pictures of us in the open water area.  By the time we got to 20 feet, we had run out of ways to amuse ourselves, and I was super bored.  I was just leaning on the tree trunk waiting for the time to pass, when another team of divers came down to drop some bottles on the tree.  Doh, I was caught being a lazy diver, leaning on the tree :P

Eventually we finished our deco, and Rob asked me to pose at 5 feet on the way up from 10, so he could get some over-unders.  At this point, I was not exactly bringing my A-game, because I just wanted to get out of the water at that point!

Florida New Year's 2026: Photography Fun at Ginnie

For today's dive, I proposed that we do an "easy" dive at Ginnie and just get pictures here and there around the cave.  Of course Rob took that suggestion and put his Rob spin on it, and we ended up doing a photography dive at Ginnie that I would not necessarily describe as "easy".  But it was fun.

The plan was to go up to the jump to Mainland, and get some pictures on the mainline just past the jump, and then also just at the beginning of the jump, and then hit some spots on the mainline and the Hill 400 line on the way out.

We got going a little later in the morning, because the temperature dropped even more overnight, and it was below freezing in the morning, brrrr.  So it was almost 10 by the time we got to Ginnie.  But we still managed to get a prime parking spot, and get our gear to the water right quick.  It was still quite chilly out, so when we got into the water, it felt warm.  We had found and patched pretty gaping gap in aquaseal over the stitches on the overlay of my drysuit in the left arm pit. so I was hopeful I would actually be dry today.

Once we got geared up and going, we headed down the ear, and up the mainline.  We were making pretty good time, and before you know it, we were at the jump to Mainland.  We dropped our bottles and scooters, and then kicked from there about another hundred feet up the mainline, until Rob found a spot where we wanted to take pictures.  Today he brought the extra remote strobe (in addition to the one that was mounted on the back of my tanks) so that he could position it in the cave.  So he could position me even further away and the extra strobe would light the area in between us.  While he was setting up the strobe, I saw something on the floor of the cave, which I thought may have been part of the strobe, but wasn't sure.  Then Rob was doinking with his light, trying to adjust it, but it was super diffuse no matter what he did.  Then I put two and two together and realized that what I saw on the cave floor was his light reflector, which had popped out of the light.  Doh.  I pointed it out to him, and he put it back in the light, and then of course immediately fell back out.  Doh.

Anyhoo, Rob set the strobe and me up for some shots there.  It was a nice spot but rather annoying that I was back kicking against the flow to stay in place.  Or more like, trying and failing to back kick against the flow, and having to reset my position after every few shots.  I was kind of relieved when Rob finished up there and signaled that we should head back to the Mainland jump.  Once there, I put the jump in (which was exciting, since I never get to do that :P) while Rob scouted for a spot to put the remote strobe.  Once we were on that line, we were protected from the flow, which was a relief.  We took pictures in a few spots between the mainline and the part where the passage narrows.

Once we were finished there, we cleaned up the jump and picked up our bottles and scooters.  Rob suggested that we swim out to about the Sweet Surprise jump, so we could stop and take pictures along the way.  Rob kept his camera out, and led, and just periodically turned around and directed me to go here or there and took some pictures.  Rob was on his scout light, since he had given up on getting his light reflector to work :(  We found quite a few spots for pictures on the swim out, and it was nice to just drift in the flow in between shots.  Once we got back to around 2200 feet, Rob put his camera away and we got back on the trigger.  We took the Hillier tunnel to the Hill 400 tunnel.  

Rob stopped us around the 1200 feet or so, at a jump, and wanted to take some pictures at the entrance.  He had said he wanted to get some pictures at the entrance to the double lines, but that's not where we ended up stopping.  I think this was the back side of the double lines circuit.  We put a spool in and went just into the passage for a few shots.  It was kind of dusty back there to make for good photography, in my opinion.  After cleaning up there, we continued out, and a minute or two later we passed a bunch of divers at what I realized was the double lines jump.  Doh.  We continued out and a couple hundred feet before we got to the mainline, we stopped in one spot for pictures.  Rob set the second strobe on the bottom pointing up, and I was quite a bit up the line from him.  After several minutes of this, I thumbed the dive.

The ride out was uneventful, and before you know it, I was back on the ledge in the eye doing deco.  I was cold, because, surprise surprise, we had not managed to make my drysuit dry :(. While we were doing deco, not one but two more people showed up and managed to wedge themselves onto the ledge (Rob was hanging out next to the ledge, so there were only 3 of us there).  Eventually we headed out and after a few minutes in the open water portion of the eye, we headed back up the spring run, to exit the water in frigid conditions.

Florida New Year's 2026: Eagles Nest Downstream, Again

On Tuesday, we went back to Eagles Nest, to do the dive we originally planned for Saturday.  Today was the first morning that it got cold... it was in the low 40s in the morning, and we got going a little later to account for the cold.  When we got to the site, we were the only people there, though as we were getting geared up, another pair of divers showed up, who were going upstream.  One of them mentioned a kind of saltwater fish (a snapper I think?) that was hanging out in the basin, near the warm water vents.

We dropped down and after dropping my O2 bottle at 20 feet, I started to feel water pouring into my left shoulder.  Okay, pouring might be a strong word, but I was getting wet, and it was coming from my left shoulder.  I followed Rob down through the shaft into the entrance room, dropped my 70 foot bottle on the line, and then caught up with Rob at the bottom of the line.  I told him that I had a leak and might have to call it early.  We got going, and it seemed like water wasn't pouring in anymore, or at least it stopped bothering me as much.

The path to the T was pretty uneventful from that point.  Once we were there, we dropped our bottles but kept our scooters and headed to the left.  Very shortly after the T, there is a restriction, which was worse than I remember (but still not really bad).  I think it was worse than I remember because the one other time I did this dive, I thought it was going to be really small, and it was not.  So I remembered it being no big deal, and thus was surprised that it was a little deal :). After that restriction, the tunnel goes deeper, and it gets pretty deep (maybe 280 feet?) and there is a low-ish but not too low and wide passage for a couple hundred feet.  Then there is a chute up into a big room, which sort of reminds me of the chute up to the eye at Ginnie.  Except it's much wider and there are lots of paths up it to choose from.

Once we were at the top of the chute, we were in a huge room.  The line splits into 4 paths that go to various areas of the room.  The line straight ahead then hits another T, and those lines go to other sections on the far side of the room.  We only had about 10 minutes to spend in the room, so we went right at the first T, and then came back and took the straight path, and at the next T, we went to the right (which really goes straight).  The room is huge, and the floor is strewn with boulders.  It would be cool to bring some of those giant photo/video lights and a few divers to spread out across the room with them.

On the way out, when I came down the chute, I found a really easy to pass through path down, off to the right, where I could just sort of slide down sideways.  When I got to the bottom, I was like... where the heck is the line?  I knew I had gone off to the right from the line, but was expecting it to be like 3 feet from me.  Actually it was probably more like 8 feet from me.  Oops.  The ride out was otherwise uneventful.

As we were approaching the up line in the cavern, I saw that the other two divers were also heading up the line.  They were clearly doing a shorter deco than we were, as by the time we were at like 110 or 120 feet, I could see their lights pointing down at us, and looked up to see them almost at the top of the room.

We had a long boring deco, as usual.  Around 40 feet, I did see the snapper that that other diver had told me about.  They definitely looked more interesting than the usual fish in the basin.  They had a kind of glowing blue line on their faces next to their mouths.  And they were cowering around the vents where warm water was coming up out of the cave.  By the 20 foot stop, I really had to pee.  We tried to play some wordle in my wetnotes, but I gave up after a couple rounds as I couldn't really think.  I was also quite cold because I was totally soaked at this point.

When we finally finished up the dive, I was indeed totally soaked.  I guess those 4 leaks we patched last night didn't quite do it :(. We did a more "proper" leak test back at EE that evening, and did indeed find a bad aquaseal spot that could explain the leak in the shoulder area.  Would I be dry tomorrow?  You'll have to read on to find out...

Florida New Year's 2026: Mainland

On Monday, our first day of diving without Kevin :(, we decided to sleep in and go to Ginnie.  Rob brought his camera, and we planned to go to Mainland to shoot some pics, and possibly get some pics on the way out on the Hill 400 line.

We got there a little after 9 and it was pretty dead, for once.  Rob inexplicably parked in a non-ideal spot anyway.  We unloaded our bottles and scooters, and got into our suits.  As we were putting the gear into the water, we found that the water level was super low.  Standing at the bottom of the stairs, the water cam up to below my waste.  Definitely more annoying for moving bottles around and getting fins on.

As we were heading up the run, we passed some divers coming down the run at the end of their dive.  Rob stopped to get some pictures, and then got some pictures of me in the run too.  Once we were finished with that, we continued to the ear, and in we went.  The flow was about typical for Ginnie.  We made good time getting to the jump for Mainland.

We dropped our gear and headed into the tunnel to Mainland.  We had passed a couple of exiting teams on the way to the jump, and once we got into some of the narrower areas, it was clear someone had been there before us.  It was kind of milky, but not like the viz was blitzed.  Before you know it, we were at the low silty section, which I think Rob found slightly annoying to negotiate with the camera.  Though as the diver behind him, he definitely did not harm the viz.

Once we were through the delicate areas, Rob started trucking.  Man was he trucking, I told him to slow down and still could barely keep up!  Finally, we came to the T, and (thank god) Rob decided to set up for some shots just past the T on the left side.  I had noticed when Rob mounted the strobe on my rig that the coil on the cord was halfway up to my D-ring where the sensor was clipped, rather than right at the D-ring like yesterday.  Like yesterday, the coil had kind of become a knotted coil of cable, which was a pain to get un-knotted.  I tried to reach back to where it was and unknot it without seeing it.  I quickly gave up and asked Rob to do this for me, since he could see it.  There was a lot of gesticulating and sounds coming from Rob due to his frustration with undoing the knot.  I have to admit that I was pretty amused by this, since I'd had to go through the same thing yesterday!

We got a bunch of pictures in that area just to the left of the T.  I have to admit, it was kind of exhausting to play the model.  Lots of back-kicking!  After getting photos in that spot, we turned around, picked up our cookies, and continued a bit before stopping for some more photos.  We drifted along a bit, stopping here and there for photos.  Eventually, when we got back to about 3500', Rob said he was going to stow the camera and we'd head out.  The original plan had been to stop on the mainline, somewhere near the Sweet Surprise jump for a few photos.  But when we decided to get going, and I insisted on leading, Rob said we should skip that.  The swim out of Mainland was uneventful, aside like it feeling like I was waiting for Rob to come out of the low passage forever.  But it was probably just a minute.  When we got back to bottles and scooters, I started to second guess whether Rob had really said to skip the mainline photo shoot, so I asked him and he confirmed it.

So, I led us back to the jump to the double domes.  I was sure we were at the jump, but couldn't see the line, when Rob signaled to point out the line.  Then he headed into the passage and I followed, so he could pick where to stop for pictures.  We got to the second dome, and Rob said he wanted to get some pictures.  (For the record, I had suggested this before the dive, and he said he didn't think it would be a good spot for pics, but in the end, I think these were among the best pics of the day!).  I managed to pretty much silt out the entrance to the second room while I was getting the light sensor out, doh.  But luckily the silty cloud was localized to the entrance and didn't impact photos.

After getting a few photos, we headed back to the Hillier tunnel and then the Hill 400 tunnel.  We were pretty much going all out on the trigger until maybe 200 or 300 feet before we came back to the mainline, when Rob stopped us to get some photos.  I think this section of the Hill 400 tunnel, and the mainline just after the Hill 400 jump is one of the more photogenic areas of Ginnie.  Rob got some nice shots here.  From there, we headed out.  I spent the ride out debating with myself whether to plan the deco based on an 85 foot or 80 foot average depth.  I decided that since our 80 foot rule is ridiculously conservative for this length of dive (we got back to our O2 bottles around 140 minutes), I would just go with 80 feet.  One other notable accomplishment of the ride out is that I finally managed to take the keyhole bypass, which Rob always takes and I have never managed to find before :P.  It is indeed a superior experience compared to going out through the keyhole.

We paused in the 50 foot room for a minute and then Rob headed through the eye first.  I like to watch him go through so I don't get hung up on the spots he does :P. We hung out in the 30 foot room for a few minutes, and then I was happy to find that the ledge at 20 feet was empty, so I hunkered down there for deco.  Before you know it, it was time to drift out of the cavern and head back up the spring run.

After the dive, I was pretty wet.  I'd been wet the previous two days, but only from the waste down, and now I was wet further up too, and quite a bit more wet.  So after the dive, we flipped the suit inside out and found and repaired 4 different spots where there was aquaseal that was peeling.  Doh!

Florida New Year's 2026: Emerald Downstream

Kevin was at Emerald a couple weeks earlier and reported very good, clear conditions, so we decided to go there.  Rob brought his camera (which he hasn't brought on a cave trip in ages), so he came up with a spot he wanted to go to take pictures.  He said that there is a jump off to the left into a tunnel that has white walls, after the T to the left.  But he didn't know any more details than that.

When we got to the site, the water was indeed VERY clear in the basin.  When we dropped the line in to stage our bottles, you could see down the line quite a long way.  We loaded up all of our bottles, and then doinked with the remote strobes a bit, to figure out how to mount them (or not).  In the end, Rob managed to rig up a way to mount the strobe on the back of my rig, using a variety of things found in Kevin's van... including a bungee loop, and old scooter O-ring, and one of those velcro straps that is meant to bundle wires together.  It worked pretty well, though.  Kevin decided to just carry his and point the strobe behind him with his hand.  After that was all sorted out, we got geared up and got going.

When we stage our bottles on the line, we put the O2 bottles near the surface, and the 50% bottles a bit below those, and the stage bottles below those.  I was the last one down and I picked up my O2 bottle, and then by 50% bottle, and dropped my O2 bottle at 20 feet, and kept going and couldn't find my stage bottle.  I kept going down the line, to check one last bottle at the bottom of the line, to find it was Kevin's 50% bottle.  So then I had to go all the way back up to 20 feet to find my bottle, doh.  It was right at the bottom of the pile of O2 bottles so I missed it.  Rob and Kevin were waiting for me around 80 feet, looking at me like I was a ding dong (in my head, anyway... apparently Kevin didn't realize why I'd gone back up and thought maybe I was having an ear problem).  And then we were finally off.

In my head, the T is like immediately after you get into the cave, but in fact it was several minutes in.  I started to worry I had passed over the T without seeing it!  But alas, it was there, just further into the cave than I remembered.  We went left.  The viz was pretty good, and it was an enjoyable dive.  The line seemed much darker than I remember it though, so I felt like it took a lot of concentration to keep track of where it was.  There are spots where the line gets a bit strange, or there are two lines running at the same time, would be nice to clean it up someday.

So we were going and going and going, and Rob checked out a few possible jumps, but never found the one he was looking for.  But eventually we found a spot for some photos on the mainline.  I got the sensor for the remote strobe out, which Rob had done a pretty good job of tying up in a knot, but I managed to untangle it.  Kevin got his strobe and sensor out too, and Rob lined us up for a couple of shots.  Of course my sensor wasn't working.  After a bit of futzing and attempting to get it to work, I was excused from the photo lineup :(  So I hung back and watched Rob take pictures of Kevin, and attempted to shimmy into the picture next to Kevin a couple times.

Eventually Rob wrapped up the photo shoot, and I told him we should turn it and not try to find that jump any longer.  It's a good thing that I did, because Rob found the jump he was looking for on the way out, quite a bit further back from where we turned.  Next time.

When we got back to the basin, we posed for more pictures in the cavern zone.  It turns out that Kevin's strobe sensor was also flaky, so the pictures from the basin were the only ones that were keepers.

When we got to 40 feet, Kevin and I poked our heads into the upstream tunnel, and made it to the sign.  From there, we could look back out at the cavern and see Rob hanging behind the down line, and leaves falling through the water all around him.  Would have made a nice picture!

When we were at 20 feet (for a LONG time), another team showed up and was staging gear in the water, and then brought some bottles down to 20 feet, and then finally got going right as we started our ascent from 10 feet.