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.

Florida New Year's 2026: Eagles Nest Downstream

Rob proposed doing our first dive of the trip at Eagles Nest.  On the face of it, this seemed a bit nuts, but the biggest risk seemed to be that we would drive a long way and then someone would have to bail on the dive.  Which I've had to do before on non-shakeout dives, shrug.

We got going at 7:30, and made a couple of stops along the way for gas and breakfast, and made it to the dive site right around 10.  No one else was there, though the guy who checked us in (or watched us pay the use fee) said there were about 40 hunters already on the property this morning.  Eagles is so civilized now that there are covered picnic benches and a bathroom.  Especially the bathroom.

We were quite efficient about hauling all of our bottles and scooters to the water, getting into our suits, and getting the gear into the water.  Getting into our gear was not as impressively efficient, it seemed like everything that could get tangled did, but eventually we made it through all of our gear checks and walked to the water while finishing up our pre-breathe.  Before we got into the water, a few guys on bikes showed up, who were curious about the spot and the diving.

We planned to go downstream, to the T in the second to last-ish room, where we would go left.  I did this dive with Rob and Kevin once before, last year, after they did the dive without me (because I tore a wrist seal while getting geared up for the dive).  I think Rob and Kevin returned and did it again without me when Rob was in town for a work thing last spring.

I had two "gear" problems immediately upon descending.  One was easily fixed (by Kevin) at the O2 drop... the tow cord on my scooter was WAY too long.  Someone else has obviously been diving my scooter, hmph!  And the knot was super stuck and I could not get it to budge.  But Kevin could.  The other thing was that my mask was fogging on the left side of the left eye.  I never really fixed that, and just had to keep clearing it all throughout the dive.  Which is annoying, since I put defog on it as usual before the dive.

Once we got going from the 20 foot stop, things were pretty uneventful.  The viz was pretty good in the cave, but not epic.  In a lot of sections where I could pretty clearly see all of the patterns on the wall from the line.  We managed to get through the various squeezes and restrictions without incident, and made very good time to the T.  Kevin decided he wanted to bail on going left at the T, so we instead headed to the end of the line.  Well, not the end of the line -- since it has now been extended to go into the Tiny Murder Hole, as we call it.  But to the last room, where the end of the line used to be.  We went there and Rob and Kevin both looked longingly into the Tiny Murder Hole.  

Then we turned around, headed out, and took the Lockwood Tunnel jump.  For some strange reason, even though I was the middle diver, I put the spool in.  Apparently much too slowly for Rob.  The viz on the Lockwood tunnel was kind of milky, but then cleared up and it was crackling clear.  We went to the end of the tunnel, and then headed back out.  When I returned to the main line, I found my pigtail clipped to the line next to my cookie, placed there by one of my passive aggressive dive buddies.  Doh.  From there it was just a couple minutes until we started our deep stops up the slope to the downline.

Deco was long but uneventful.  Rob says we did too much deco.  Since no one got bent, we will never know.  We made a couple of changes to the deco that we've made in our deeper ocean dives lately -- more time at 30' and 10'.  Otherwise, pretty standard.  Kevin and I played wordle in my wetnotes for a bit at the 20' stop.

When we surfaced, there were a couple of tourists and yet another bike rider hanging out by the water.  They were very interested in hearing about the dive, and thought we were crazy :)

We stopped at the Freezer for lunch on the way home.  We got mussels, stone crab, and mullet dip.  Yum.