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RETURN TO MAYS CAVE By Brian Williams It had been raining steady for 4 days and the Suwannee River was approaching flood stage. The water was up high enough to cause the majority of springs to begin reversal. This phenomenon happens when the hydrostatic pressure of the rising river water becomes greater than the than the normal water pressure from the springs. Instead of crystal clear spring water coming out, you now have tannin stained river water pouring in. Sometimes the springs become whirlpools and the reversal is even evident on the surface. Needless to say, conditions for cave diving become grim throughout the river basins. Duncan Price was coming over from the UK for a couple of weeks of cave diving fun. Great timing! He did manage to get a dive in down at Wayne's World before it blew. The next couple of days were spent at Ginne, Peacock and Manatee. These springs are usually the last to blow so when the rains come, that's where the cave divers go. That is, that's where most of the cave divers go. Now if you happen to know someplace not affected by the rain, that's even better. I had just the place. Cindy Butler had told me of Duncan's upcoming visit and suggested we take a day to let him explore out at one of our sites near Archer, FL. We have been visiting a sinkhole cave, exploring and mapping, since it was discovered during a clean-up back in 2001. The cave is partially air filled and in times of lower water the dry sections were explored and mapped. There were still underwater rooms and passages to explore. Several prior visits this year had shown the logistics of underwater exploration in this cave to be difficult at best. Entry is via a 25 ft. drop negotiated through the use of rigged aluminum ladder. Normally we enjoy just rigging and dropping into these pits with single rope vertical gear, but when you are going down to dive it's much better to make entry and exit as easy as possible. You have enough other problems to deal with once you are at the bottom. Duncan Price spends most of his time sump diving in the United Kingdom near Nottingham, England. He has dove in many different countries but really enjoys the water conditions down here in Florida. In England, the water is an average 40 "balmy" degrees and the visibility is best described as "murky". Most of their diving involves long "sporting" crawls to small tight sumps that in turn, usually leads to more tight dry passage. The 72 degree blue water in Mays cave would be a welcome respite from the cold dark sumps of the UK. The rain had been hard the previous day but the underwater passage in this cave is not affected by the downpour and the visibility remains crystal clear... until you try to enter that is. It's impossible to enter the water in this cave without stirring up a minor storm of silt and debris. Once inside and geared up the journey begins.  The Blue Canyon  Duncan slips underneath the water to begin a dive in the Blue Canyon passage A trip into any submerged room in this cave is hypnotic. On the way in the vis is great and the passage is easy to explore. You better have your line laid in the right place for the trip out though, as the percolation from the ceiling leaves near zero visibility for the return trip. This cave is typical of the caves of this area in size and features. You do not expect huge underwater passage but you do find many small rooms attached in a maze of Swiss cheese. The water varies between 20 and 40 ft. deep in most of the passage. On this day, Duncan reached a max depth of 45 ft. but I believe that he only got that deep after backing down a body sized tube and digging with his fins trying to get through. I had already explored all the dry sections of this cave and we had dove several times in the submerged sections. We knew what most of the rooms looked like but had not laid any line or surveyed due to conditions. There were at least two more passages in the back Blue Canyon section that needed a push and there was another sink next to the owner's house that we had only briefly looked at. On today's trip we had a motley support team of "old-timers" including myself, Al Heck, Cindy Butler and Forrest Wilson. The logistics of diving in a cave like this deem it best to have one diver in the system at a time due to the size and silt conditions involved. Al and I had both had a crack at the back sink on a previous dive so I decided to rig the front sink for Cindy to dive, with Al as support and then rig the back sink for Duncan to dive with Forrest and I supporting. After Cindy was ready for the front, I headed back and got Duncan down in the bigger of the two sinks. I went in with Duncan to show him around and give him a brief idea of what we expected to find. After Duncan explored the main lake room and discovered it to be a series of small rooms joined together in a large semi-circle, we proceeded to drag tanks through the mud crawl and into the back section of cave where the Blue Canyon awaited. This is a 20 ft tall fissure with joint controlled passage above and below the water. I had only been back here briefly with a single tank and had not fully explored the area. Duncan tied off and headed down to find one passage at a right angle to the fissure that headed off about 5 survey knots on the line, which equal's 50 ft. He came back to report another fissure passage with depth at 30 ft. and ceiling up to 6 ft. I told him of another passage just below where we were floating. As he slipped beneath the water, the sound of his bubbles disappeared almost immediately and I was alone in the silence to wait. I poked around looking for invertebrates as there are some endemics in this area and it's always nice to find something new. Not today though and after about 25 minutes I began to see the bubbles and knew Duncan was returning. He reported that the passage was small but headed down at an angle and continued to a depth of 45 ft. where it was plugged….but could be dug. Ok, maybe another day. Meanwhile, Cindy had finished exploration of the front sink and found similar passage but all dead ends. Al had not even gotten wet but I think he did get to visit with the mosquitoes long enough to know them all on a personnel level. Forrest helped me in the back sink with getting Duncan's gear up and down via ropes I had rigged over the sink. One last thing was to borrow one of Duncs tanks and look for a wide angle lens that belonged to Cindy. I had dropped it the previous dive in here but after about 10 minutes of mucking around at the bottom, I came up empty-handed. Maybe next time. So we managed to wall out this little set of sinks and get a few pictures for the landowner. The Florida Speleological Society had done the initial sinkhole clean-up of this cave and we will be back this summer to get more trash from the bottom of the lake room. I observed several creek chubs and one pallidus on a previous dive. Next time I'm in this system I will look for other invertebrates and perhaps lay a permanent line. Thanks to Dr. Dunc for an enjoyable dive. He's a true caver and it shows. I even had to take his tank away from him to drag it through the muddy crawls. He just wasn't used to having sherpas drag his gear. Just a little southern hospitality for our friend from across the pond. Captions 1. Al getting tanks rigged 2. Al, Duncan, Forrest and Cindy at the edge of the sink 3. Cindy on ladder at the sink near the house 4. Duncan enters the sinkhole entrance 5. Duncan at the bottom of the main sink 6. Brian in the lakeroom 7. A view of the lake room 8. Duncan at the end of the Blue Canyon passage 9. Duncan in the clear water of the lake room 10. Duncan preparing to dive at the entrance to the lake room 11. Duncan prepares to dive Blue Canyon passage 12. Waiting for Duncan's return
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