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Scuba Articles > Gidds > Personal
7/3/06 Back Rolls and Freshwater Bugs
Gidds - 9/28/2008 2:15 PM
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Category: Personal
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July 2, 2006 we took a trip to Marriana, FL (a little Northeast of our current position). Initially we had wanted to meet up with friends for some ocean dives over the holiday weekend but that just didn’t pan out. We decided we’d shoot up to Marrianna to a state park to check out some caves (the dry kind, you won’t catch me dead in the submerged variety) but we got a late start and that didn’t pan out. While researching the caves earlier online we’d spotted something about a spring called Jackson Blue Hole in Marianna near where we were heading plus we have been wanting to take the boat to Cypress Spring to do some snorkel recon. "The Boat" still needs a name. As such we had the boat and our snorkel gear with us while driving around Marianna. The Blue Hole recreation area was a disappointment, teaming with swimmers and generally crowded so we didn’t even get out of the truck and got a refund. While we were aimlessly driving around the Monkey decided to call his friend Mat who informed him that we absolutely must take the boat out onto Merritt’s Mill Pond, which it turns out is the lower reach from where the Blue Hole spring is. This pond is unique in that it is fed by a series of springs, some of which have cavern systems and caves. It has been dammed and seems to be the source of the Chipola River system. After finally finding the boat launch we put in just before 4:30pm. We went out onto the pond, which is several miles long, and motored toward the end we’d just come from hoping maybe the spring was more interesting from the non-swimmer side. The water was a cool 72 F and outrageously clear. There were areas of sand bordered by forests of lake weeds and dotted with the occasional sunken log or cypress stump. We stopped so the Monkey could take some pictures.
Then THE LAW showed up!
The warden wanted to check that we had PFDs, weren’t intoxicated, and generally weren’t breaking any other laws. He noticed that the boat didn’t have any letters on the side and busted the Monkey for that. Apparently in FL one has 30 days to register a boat but since the Monkey didn’t have the title in the boat with us the warden wrote him a warning just so that if he saw the boat again he’d know if we’d been fibbing about the registration. He was very nice and answered all our questions about the lake and fishing regulations and directed us to the dive shop, which has a dock on the pond.
 Here are some more shots of the pond (courtesy of the Monkey) including one of me in the bow and a cormorant up a tree.

We stopped at the dive shop dock ( Cave Adventurers) and the Monkey ran up and they told us about a couple of spots in the pond: Hole in the Wall and Shangrila. The former is a cave that goes back into the cliff beside the pond and the later was a nice place to snorkel, also with a cave and spring. I got a crash course in boat driving which resulted in me nearly crashing the boat so the Monkey took the helm again as we approached Hole in the Wall. When we got to Hole in the Wall some jet skis had just left and there were 3 divers in the cave so it was pretty silty so we headed up to Shangrila. The water in the pond doesn’t seem to be more than 15’ deep anywhere except maybe the caves. We got to Shangrila at about 6pm after poking around all over the pond.

 

Now comes the fun part: putting on a wetsuit without capsizing the boat, remember it’s only a 12’ aluminum skiff, getting out of the boat, then getting back in. We were both wearing out thin wetsuits (3mm for me, 1mm for him) since it was a hot day and we didn’t know what kind of water temps to expect. I also wore a hood and a light vest over my suit. Fortunately the boat is very stable so even with me standing in the middle doing "the wetsuit wiggle" it didn’t go over. I was very amused when the Monkey backrolled out and immediately popped up spluttering from the thermal shock. We’d parked right in the flow coming out of the cave and could see the thermocline. There were two juvenile alligator snappers sitting on the bottom, many sunfish, dace, and a few juvenile bass. I backrolled in with an extreme lack of grace and had a look around. The Monkey had already shot off like his pants were on fire to take pictures. Unfortunately the light wasn’t so good by six but if these are the not-so-good shots you can imagine how awesome it is when the lighting is right!

I poked my head into the spring (brrr), menaced the turtle, snooped around under the rock overhang, picked up a GIMUNDUS crayfish claw, retrieved an old glass bottle, and got quite chilly in my 3mm in about 20 minutes. I then sat up on a limestone outcropping and looked for the Monkey since he wasn’t anywhere in my general vicinity and he was wearing all black and difficult to see in the low light. I was beginning to worry that he’d done more than stick his head in the cave when he hailed me from about 100 yards out in the pond. He came back saying something about crayfish and decided to see if he could re-enter the boat from the water. Being a buff chap he had absolutely no trouble but it was a rather different story for me otherwise known as she-of-no-upper-body-strength. After a couple of attempts I did the world’s most ungraceful bellyflop into the boat, ending up on my back with my face under the seat and my fins pointing skyward. With me riding the Monkey towed the anchor line and dragged the boat out to a submerged stump where he’d found a ton of rather large crayfish.
gave him my gloves and he caught crayfish, averaging 5-6" each, for about an hour and ended up with about 18. I sat in the boat and acted as crayfish wrangler for a little while but then I wanted to see what he was so excited about so I put my gear back on and got back in via another totally ungraceful back roll. I snooped around for a minute but he had silted it up pretty good so I Shamued back up into the boat. The crayfish were stowed in his gear bag and we headed back to the boat launch. They will be devoured later this evening.

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