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Sorry, I did not know 603 was anywhere in the video and if it is it I is not a reference to anything. Cheers!

Did you mean 603 subscribers? I am up to 605 now.

Can see a major current pushing there. I could not do it ever I have watched too many cave diving incidents on RUclips 😂

Yes, in a cave. Takes a lot of training and equipment but we have procedures and or spare gear to handle about any issue. Cheers!

@@ThePiratePaddyTragedy gets clicks! With proper training, equipment, experience, and perhaps the right mind set it can be done quite safely.

true enough, but no one is immune to tragedy. ​@cavediver74

You are not wrong. It is a great deal of fun. I find it alluring in part because when I dive I find I think of none of life’s other worries all day. However, It also considered quite dangerous by just about everyone who doesn’t do it. There is a great deal of diving experience required to even be able to start cave training, or DPV, or Closed Circuit Rebreather let alone putting them all together. With proper training, redundant equipment, and the experience to remember your training and equipment if something does go wrong it can be done much much more safely. And you have to be safe to make it fun. Before very regimented and step wise training and safety standards were put in to place there were many fatalities. Cheers!

LOL, He was trying out a new way of clipping bottles that included a different location and a leash that was too long. Things often do not go perfectly the first time.

I almost wonder if a leash is even a good way to go with off-center D-rings that are not up high. If I had a butt D-ring it probably would be. Will be interesting to see how you rig the new Crush Depth hardware piece. I have D-rings on my steels but lateral trim is impacted the further away from center you clip them.

@ the new rings will be inboard of my door handles so I think it is going to be better. The leash was way too long and the clip is too big. I’m going to make the leash about the width of my hand. For the clip one of the XDeep with the big ring. What I was told clip one bottle to the leash and the other to the ring. Probably will help with a higher He mix as well. Evidently the 72’s ride much cleaner and I’ve actually seen that so I am debating on getting 3 or 4 of those.

2 are heavy on a leash 😊

@ needs a much shorter leash, and different clip. And a different mix would not hurt.

@@saturated_and_caffeinated7865 Jackson Blue is a first magnitude spring. The flow is usually pretty strong. Not Manatee Springs or Cow bad but similar to Ginnie Springs. Flow is less in certain side passages. You can swim it just like you can the others (I did swim it for several dives over a few yers before I had a DPV) but it is best with a DPV. That said, many people swim it.

@ sure, sure… I’m pretty familiar, I just meant Queen’s bypass. You know like when you take a left at the third T instead of going straight the flow is significantly stronger there. I didn’t know if it was strong in queens or not. I’ve looked at most of your videos and I just can’t tell. Anyway, I’m over here for the next week or so and that’s one of my goals.

@ There is flow but less than the main passage. If it wasn’t, one of my buddies would not like swimming it, LOL. Have fun and Merry Christmas!

@@cavediver74 yea… I didn’t want to call DR out by name lol. Cheers and Merry Christmas to you too!

Gonna be cold this time of year. River will be in the 40s. 😮 Will warm up again in April or May.

Yes, there is. The whole cave is not very photogenic. Dark walls, somewhat tannic water, and particulate.

They draw is always the size of the cave. There is a new map that shows much more than the decades old map. Place is bigger than JB. Multiple leads that go back up to 15000ft. At about 8000ft from Friedman there are two passages that go further in. Another than eventually comes back almost to Friedman in a close to 4 miles long circuit. How much of it is tiny I do not know.

There was flow for sure. I am not certain it was much different than the past few times I have been through it.

@@cavediver74 I remember more going in. And you can look at how fast silt moved it was up slightly in the jumps

Already posted. If you go to my channel and look at the last 21 videos posted (all listed as Jackson Blue followed by a number) then those videos are this dive. I have made many dives at Jackson Blue an Pretty much name them similarly but they are all under the Jackson Blue Playlist on my Channel. I number the dives chronologically. The best way to watch the entire dive it to go to the Playlist that corresponds with a sight and then have the videos play in order (organize the playlist with latest videos first) Cheers!

@cavediver74 thank you friend.

Maybe it is “have fun doing what you love.” I understand scuba diving let alone cave diving is not for everyone, and frankly for very few. With proper training, gear, and procedures it can be done quite safely (not as safe as jogging in you neighborhood or even along a busy street mind you). This channel was started as a private channel for my dive buddies to see themselves in videos and my friend and family to see my past time of nearly 25 years (sadly I did not have a GoPro for the vast majority of this time but I wish I did). At some point I made the videos public and was surprised at the amount of positive feedback. I was not surprised a few people who were interested in possible getting cave diving certified liked it. I was surprised by the people who would never want to do that that enjoy it. So, now I make all videos public. I will never be monetized and frankly I don’t care. I make an extremely good income doing my day job. But when I have the time, I love diving in caves. If there are even a few people who also enjoy these videos that is great. I understand, most people will not. Cheers!

@cavediver74 cheers

Very high flow. I was there last month when it was kicking. Definitely need the DPV. thanks for sharing

The way in? 😂

@@cavediver74 my view wasn’t quite as clear as yours…but it did clear up pretty quickly. I want to go back

@@cavediver2579 It is a nice cave. If only it had more passage. There is a syphon you are welcome to explore to the left about 20ft in from the open water. Big flow in there. Or…there was the only time I was in there. Perhaps it would have been less on this day.

I don’t mind the small ones. There are occasionally some big fish (foot long or bigger - some divers have tried to spearfish them) that supposedly are born outside the cave, end up going into the cave, becoming blind, and wallowing in the silt intentionally to displace crawfish and other much smaller creatures living in the silt that they then eat. Some of the decaying corpses of these fish are a couple of feet long. They really kick up the silt. I have seen video of it happening. In fact, they can destroy the vis in the entire cave.

@@cavediver74 I don't believe the idea that they become blind, that would take generations to breed that out of them. But them adapting is certainly believable. It is weird seeing huge catfish a half a mile back.

Thank you😊

LP 50s. There were a couple of scrapes but not horrible. Easier than I thought it might have been

@@cavediver74 I’ve only ever done it in my 50’s, I did go thru one time with someone behind me in 85’s he made it but struggled. I like that passage.

@@cavediver2579 I have done it with LP 120s. But that was open circuit. No scrubber canisters.

That would be a no. I thought he had swam it enough he knew it but he didn’t seem to. At first he tried to go too far left and then he tried to go into the syphon.

@@cavediver74 I’ve laid that jump a bunch and still have to think about where I start it. The spool end tie off on the second part can be difficult to see because it’s right down on the floor and tied to a small rock.

Not that deep. The whole cave is no more than about 100ft deep at its deepest. The section in this video has an average depth that is likely around 84 ft. It runs mostly horizontal. This was just a fun dive. No exploration. This section of cave was explored in the early 1970s if not even before then.

Thanks

It can get a bit dusty but with good trim and buoyancy it is quite workable. Cheers!

They probably were. But places like require side mount and a desire to dive in zero vis for extended periods. I use the KISS Sidewinder but I don’t love extended periods of truly tiny scraping to get through cave. I don’t mind passing restrictions if it opens up a bit and I don’t mind zero visibility for periods of time. There are people willing to do things way beyond what I am willing to do though. I have been doing this for 23 years and have nearly 600 caved dives logged. I have a wife and my son is in 7th grade. I don’t like doing things that I feel are not quite reasonable and safe. There are a ton of videos on YT of diving. Very few are unedited like mine. Editing gets you views. But unedited gives you more of the feel I think. My playlists are just videos organized by location. Cheers!

@@cavediver74 Some restrictions bothered me, others didn't, but I could never figure out why. I even took a bunch of "tight day" tutorials back in the 1990s from an instructor whose name I can't remember (might have been Brent) and who may be cavediving in Heaven by now. I remember they called him "Dip 'em and rip 'em" at Ginnie Springs. He was an old Vietnam War "Spooky" pilot and he was the most critical instructor ever, just gave brutal briefings after every dive, totally unsparing. But he was a great teacher and always planned the best dives. I could do tight restriction training with him and keep my sanity, but never trusted myself to do it alone on anything seriously challenging. Anyhow, I remember trying to get down the Martz Offshoot, it getting really tight but not being bothered at all, though I didn't get far. But Bonnet would creep me out. I'm a somewhat apprehensive cavediver at best, but oddly zero viz calms me down and usually I just bumble along unconcernedy. Like putting a blanket over a parrot's cage, I quiet down. This was before rebreathers, were common, but I certified sidemount and mixed gas. Have barely cavedived since ( been overseas and in West Coast), but still obsessed about it. Lived in Melrose, near High Springs, for years, had frontage right on Little Lake Santa Fe. Karst experts say Lake Santa Fe is aquifer-fed but there is no open rock on the bottom or spring openings. I know they're wrong, under certain conditions the lake surface roils in places and the water gets really cold. There's a spot near the narrow channel between Little Santa Fe and Lake Santa Fe covered with grass and cypress knees and if you look down jussst right from a boat (it's hard to find the spot) the water is crystal clear way down but all around it's dark and tannic. Pretty sure only I know about it. My hope is to get a sidescan radar and map the lake bottom when I finally get back to Florida. Thanks for posting your stuff, checking your other videos out!

Not as tight as some, LOL. 😂 It certainly is not large cave in this section though.

Cool. No fancy editing or music I am afraid. Just unedited video. I hope everyone is doing well!

My pleasure!

I would not say braver. Way more trained and experienced would be more like it. It takes a long time to comfortably and safely work up to diving like this.

Because you love cave diving?

I know, some of these guys give me a hard time about the level of gear maintenance I want to sustain. Not that I have not had issues. I just find preventative maintenance helps reduce them. 😅

Checkout my description. Certainly a sand bottom. I failed to pass and so did my buddy so I dug it out (this was my 4th of 5th dive in this cave over the past 15 year so. I knew it was passable). Cleared very quickly. Checkout the video series if you are interested in diving this location.

That what I kept telling GO in Gator Hole!😂

These caves are fresh water. In order to even take a cave diving class you have to have a fair number of dives (50 is usual minimum but for most people isn’t enough to have good enough buoyancy to pass the class). Buoyancy (up and down) and trim (basically flat on your stomach with your knees bent at 90 degrees to get your fins away from the bottom) are key for cave diving. To say nothing of other emergency procedures, redundant equipment etc. Most caves in Florida have only one entrance or exit. There are often alternative exits in Mexico. At a minimum we have twice as much gas saved for exit at we used for entering. In some cases, even more. My buddies and I use rebreathers which tend to bake in an even larger safety margin. Each of us has several lights. Several spools. On this dive we each had to DPVs (Diver Propulsion Vehicles).

@@cavediver74 why do most caves in Florida only have one entrance/exit? Is this because they haven’t been mapped as much? Yea DPV’s are cool… how long does the battery last one those and do you bring extra? Do you have to leave gear behind sometimes for tight squeezes or have checkpoints… there ever rooms with air pockets?

⁠​⁠@@zergtoss11)Not for lack of mapping in Florida. In fact, most all caves are explored unless the passage is very far back, very deep, very small, and/or on land where you are not supposed to be. The entire Yucatán Peninsula is full of caves and many of the passages connect to other sink holes. Yucatán caves were also almost all dry caves during the last ice age. Not so for Florida caves. 2) DPV batteries vary in size and of course, much like your care, the faster you go the less distance you can travel. However, even at high speeds lower end DPVs will have a range of 1.5 miles and some will have a 5 mile or greater range even at high speeds. If you slow down, range extends greatly. However, some higher end models also allow you to run lights or suit heaters etc off the DPV battery which does cut into run time. 3)My buddies and I do carry a backup DPV which we tow. We could swim out but we would have to carry a bit more gas to do it safely 4)In addition to DPVs which we might park as the cave gets too small to use them (they can really destroy visibility in smaller cave unless you are very careful) we also can carry additional cylinders of bailout gas that could either be too bulky to go through some passage or simply too much drag to bother carrying it for long distances. Sometimes you take bottles off to get beyond a restriction and then put them back on when you are beyond the tight spot.

As to the air pocket question in a different post, yes. Typically this means you have reached the surface of the water (zero depth on a scuba depth gauge) but you still have rock over your head. There are also sumps which are flooded sections of dry cave. I can’t say I sump dive but some people drag scuba gear through a dry cave to get to the sump. They then dive the sump to the next air pocket and carry gear to the next sump etc.

@@cavediver74 whoa that is crazy. Thanks for all the replies and info. What is the scariest event/issue you have encountered diving? Did you ever think you were lost?

@@zergtoss1I have never been lost. I have been in zero visibility a few times and near zero many times. The first time I was in very low visibility was likely the scariest event although I quickly got my head about me. I had plenty of gas, redundant gear, and many procedures for emergencies etc. A minute or two later I was back in clear water. Another time the line broke and my buddy had to repair it as he was in the lead. I was a bit worried as I wan not sure he was up to it (we hadn’t diving together for very long) but he was.

Thanks! Will do!

I am sure you will get it just right

Vis got dodgy for sure. There is always a guideline or we run a reel. If it was not there or it was lost we would have been doing our lost line procedures. True zero vis and/or lost line/broken line in a passage this large (relatively speaking) would be far far less than enjoyable. In a passage so small you can reach out motionless and feel both walls, the floor, and ceiling it isn’t so bad. The line can’t be far if the passage is really really really small. Of course, the smaller the passage the more likely you are to encounter no vis (not to mention the lower the vis is to start). These are things we think about in every passage. Cheers!

Glad you enjoyed it