Since I began cave diving, I have had the drive to explore. I did most of my training at the typical caves; Ginnie, and Peacock. While these are beautiful caves, they left something to be desired. In the last 10 years I have seen these caves get beat to hell, I hate the high prices and crowds this has led me elsewhere.
I have enjoyed spending my time in the canoe, the woods and in the swamp, poking into holes, looking for going cave. It seemed that everything I found had already been dove. I would spool out 100’ of line and then there, buried in the silt was old, broken, stained twisted line. These remnants of the former explores were depressing, and yet neat to find out who laid the line and when.
There was one man in particular that seemed to have been everywhere; Brett Hemphill. I contacted him several months back looking for info on a cave I had found with old line in it. We got to talking and we had similar diving interests. I’m not sure how it happened but a few weeks later I was hiking through the swamp looking for new cave with Brett; a modern cave diving ledged. I’m not going to lie, I was intimidated and honored!
About 3 weeks ago we returned to one site we had dove previously. I wanted a second crack at a tiny bedding plane that had thwarted me on my first attempt. I laid about 15’ more line in this crappy bedding plane and could push no further. I came up from the dive disappointed. Minutes after surfacing from the dive Brett popped out of the woods with a giant grin on his face, “You’ll never believe what I found!” Just one crappy hike through the swamp and there it was a beautiful pool of clear blue water!
It was dubbed BDB, Back Door Blue.
I had the privilege to free dive this cave, I made it about 20’ down and there was an upstream and a downstream. It was getting late so we decided to save hauling tanks for the next trip.
Brett returned that next week with a single recon bottle and laid 80’ upstream and 200’ downstream. It goes!
Yesterday we returned, I was the first to dive. I dove with a webbing harness and 2- LP45’s side mount., so I was very low profile. I got to the end of Brett’s line upstream, looked at the bedding plane restriction, and thought, “ You have got to be kidding me?!” It was low and appeared hopeless. I tied off my reel and analyzed the restriction. I thought, what the hell, I’m here might as well try.
I got into the plane and it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I rolled a few rocks out of the way, trashed the vis, and did some chest to back grinding for about 30’. I laid still for a few minutes waiting for the vis to improve. Looking ahead appeared hopeless, it was an even lower bedding plane with a solid coat of black organic silt.
Where does the flow come from? I pushed a few feet further and the left wall took a 90 degree left hand turn. I cocked my head to the left and blackness. “Woohoo!” there is cave! I squirmed foreword to a point to check my gas. I had nearly hit thirds in one tank already.
I swam forward analyzing the cave, it was beautiful. It was small passage, maybe 4’ high and 6’ wide, it had a diamond shape and a thin layer of grey silt coated everything. After a few hundred feet I came to a little breakdown room, the limestone was white and full of sea biscuits. After jogging around the breakdown the cave continues through a duck under.
Eventually I hit straight passage, the vis was excellent and my light could not reach the end. I swam watching walls without tank dings fly by, and the line pouring off the reel. It felt great.
All too soon gas was running short. I had small tanks, diving solo in virgin cave, with a major restriction behind me. I did not want to push it. I found a big column to tie the line off. I turned the dive.
It is the hardest thing to turn the dive with line on the reel, and unseen going cave in front, but it was necessary.
The trip out was easier than expected. When I surface after ~45 minutes I had a crap eating grin on my face. I wish I showed my excitement better. I would have loved to have screamed, sang, danced, streaked, anything.
All I did was smile, I was ecstatic. It was an awesome little dive.
After discussing the details and drawing a map; Brett decide he wanted a crack at BDB. We spent some time and knotted some more line, just in case….
I brought an extra set of LP98’s, Brett grabbed these and his armadillo harness. I thought quietly to myself, “that could be cozy,” but he has done more tight diving than me.
We took the long way back to the spring ( Stupid GPS) and he geared up and dropped in.
I entertained myself on the surface, ridge walking, taking pics, and listening to the swamp come alive at sunset.
After about 1:15 and a long conversation with an owl, bubbles cracked the surface.
Had he spooled out 1500’ of line? Did it go deep?
Brett snickered as his reg dropped from his mouth, “You skinny mother…”
I laughed thinking of him in that tiny bedding plane with all that gear. I turns out he had to no mount his way through, digging a trench the whole way.
It is a great story when he tells it!
He ended up reaching the end of the line and spooling out another 80’ discovering a pile of dugong bones, before turning to confront that bedding plane restriction once more.
So BDB is going cave! We have about 1000’ of line in there total, and it appears to continue. I can’t wait to get back.
I got to lay some line in a pretty cave in Florida and explore with a cave diving icon.
It doesn’t get much better than that!
