Alastair(Offline)

Well back in the UK now after a truly excellent 10 days in Florida. One of the big elements of the week had to be the social side with lots of opportunities to meet people and chat about diving. Not only was the 9 of us from the UK but also loads of US based divers who came along for parts/all of the week. There was also Mark Messersmith’s cave-1 class who we met up with on many days.

One of the meals out


Extreme Exposure did a stunning job over the course of the week with the staff all being incredibly helpful. I have to say thank you to Doug, Corey, Bryce, Kevin, Paul and Andrew who often put in some long hours to make sure suits were mended and tanks were filled. We also owe thanks to Todd Leonard, Doug, AJ, Casey, David Rhea and Jarrod for loaning tanks to the group.

EE lined up some guides for the groups, along with some lunches and rental tanks. They also organised a big bbq on tuesday night which had an excellent turnout.

Coffee and pastries on Sunday at EE
Clare and Corey (JJ's sister)
Howard and Osama

The itinerary for the group was a little split. The Cave-1 guys had the following lineup:

Sunday – Peacock state park
Monday – Madison Blue Springs
Tuesday – Ginnie Springs
Wednesday – Merritt’s Mill pond (Jackson Blue, Hole in the Wall, Twin cave)
Thursday – Merritt’s Mill pond (Jackson Blue, Hole in the Wall, Twin cave)
Friday – Ginnie Springs
Saturday – Little River & Ginnie Springs

Madison Blue - gorgeous spring which the is set in a state park. We visited over the memorial weekend so the place did get busy with people just swimming in the spring.


The group needed a lot of fills


The alternate cave-2 group followed a slightly different schedule

Saturday – Peacock state park
Sunday – Madison Blue springs
Monday - Merritt’s Mill pond (Jackson Blue, Hole in the Wall, Twin cave)
Tuesday - Merritt’s Mill pond (Jackson Blue, Hole in the Wall, Twin cave)
Wednesday – Choice of caves
Thursday – Choice of caves
Friday – Ginnie Springs
Saturday – Ginnie Springs

Merritt’s Mill Pond - several hours north of high springs is an amazing spot with some stunning caves.



John Grogan, Clare and myself we very lucky to go get some diving with Jarrod for a couple of days and vanished off for wed and thursday. It was superb that he managed to fit the time in around his busy schedule and very nice to catch up with him and do some very nice scooter dives.

Gas and gear for our two days with Jarrod.


Jarrod, John & Clare

There were many stand-out diving moments for me. Some were funny - like when Clare sent me into a sidemount tunnel in Ginnie in double 104’s with a stage on and then giggled when I got stuck. Some were amazing - like scootering Hole in the wall or reaching the end of the line at Twin in an enormous chimney section of cave.

Hopefully everyone else had a great time. I’ll probably write up a couple of the dives at some point – hopefully a few others will chip in their thoughts of the week too.

Cheers
Al

Ginnie Springs

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Steve Blanchard(Offline)

Looks like you guys had lots of fun.

Thanks for the report Al

Steve B.

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dima(Offline)

Absolutely mindblowing trip - loved it all. Thank you to Claire and Al for organizing it. Have never seen so many caves in one trip. Will write a longer report a bit later in the week. Met a lot of great divers and wonderful individuls, with a very interesting sense of humor.

Here is a link with some photos .Mac Web Gallery Courtesy of DIR-X members who went on a trip.

Dear Members of the trip, please, upload your photos and videos by following up on the link and clicking on the Upload button. I didn't have too much time to get all your photos, besides Matt's and Howard's, as I had to miss the main dinner, which I regret a lot, but was committed to make the dive happen that night.

It will be great to have such kind of trips organized more often all over the world, diving in different environments, fostering for DIR divers to meet and bond throughout the world.

Warm regards,

Dima

Data(Offline)

What a great weekend it was.
I finally got to meet Claire, Alastair and so many more of you guys and girls.
You're a fun bunch to hang out with.

David

sasdasdaf(Offline)

thanks for the trip report. sounds like you all had a great time!

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cmalinowski(Offline)

I know that I had a superb time. It was great meeting all of you and thanks for adopting us students and welcoming us into your group. Coming back to the Inn and hanging out with everyone, the dinners, and the dives made for the absolutely best time I could have imagined for a week of being down there.

Thanks also for not laughing too hard at us when we did stupid noob things

Would love to do it again. It will probably take a good four years or so before the US dollar recovers, so you all will have to keep coming over here for a while

Chris

Jason B.(Offline)

Very nice report - we weren't with your group but we saw you guys at Madison on Mon.

We were the exiting team with double stages that had the primary light failure (it was my light) just as we met you guys (was about 6 of you). With 9 18-21w HID's it was hard to tell that my light had died. I thought it was one of you guys lights until one of you pointed at me - thanks.

Glad you guys had a good time in the US.

Matt Gentile(Offline)

Hi Jason,

So it was you with light failure....I was number two in the team passing.....the failure didn't seem to bother you though.

Florida was excellent and I'm looking to come back asap.

ATB,

Matt

Joe Hesketh(Offline)

Just to add to Al's write up, thanks again to Clare for making it happen and to everyone at EE for working so hard to make sure we all had a great time. This was my first trip to Florida and I loved it.

For me, it again vindicated in a very practical way one of the merits of GUE training. Over the week, I dived with 9 different people from around the world with whom I'd never caved dived before, 5 with whom I'd never been in the water and 4 of whom I'd never even met before. We did a bunch of dives and it just… worked. Perfectly and easily. Gear, planning, communication, execution, the whole lot, all on the same page from the get-go. Which gave me more time just to enjoy the dives rather than worry about the diving. And if it works for cave diving, well… you know the rest…

Joe

mer(Offline)

It was great to see/meet you all.

I was one of the random divers that dived with Joe H, and we had an absolute blast Thursday at Peacock doing the traverse from Peacock 1 to Challenge via Peanut and then generally messing around until the HIDs gave up the ghost. So great to be able to climb into a beaver poop filled basin, do some quick checks and giddie and go!

I was just down for a quick 4 day trip and hit up Peacock, Jackson Blue, Hole in the Wall, Ginnie and Madison. My report is up on North East Underwater Explorers - Home .

Paul Gore was saying how much fun he had with you guys up at Mill Pond. He is putting together another Cave 1 level Mill Pond trip in late Aug 2008 if any of you are across the pond then.

Make sure to holler next time you guys are stateside!

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