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.