Rattlesnake Sink, Alachua County
By Brian Williams
Photos by Brian Williams, Dan Straley, and Tom Turner

On Saturday October 4, 2003, Eric Amsbury led a group of cavers out to Rattlesnake Sink to explore the cavern area and any possible underwater leads. The group consisted of FSS and TBAG cavers: Eric Amsbury, Dan Straley, Tom Turner, Jason Richards Chrissy Jett, Al Heck, Cindy Butler and Brian Williams.

Rattlesnake Sink is a very beautiful sink area with two openings into one large cavern area. There is a small area of dry ground on both sides of the room separated by a large clear pool of undetermined depth. Undetermined until now that is. Eric, Tom and Brian rigged the sink to rappel while Jason, Chrissy and Dan expertly rigged the tank and gear drop.

The original plan was for Cindy to go in to do a solo underwater exploration of the sink. We wanted to avoid lowering too many tanks that may not be needed. When we all dropped into the big room we found the visibility in the water to be greater than 20 ft. At this time Al was pumped about getting in there too with Cindy as there was plenty of room and the vis was great. Jason, Dan and Chrissy handled the gear drop while Eric Tom and I helped get the divers prepped.

Once geared up and ready, Al and Cindy tied off to a log and began to explore. Although some turbidity was experienced from silting, the water would clear after a few minutes which lead us to believe there was some spring intrusion somewhere and possible going cave underwater. There may be some passage down there somewhere but all the divers found was basically one large cavern area. They did lay some line and obtained a maximum depth of 71 feet while attempting to dig out a small silty tunnel found near the bottom of the sink. Several species of fish were observed but no cave dwelling crustaceans.

We will be back for a sinkhole clean-up here one day and maybe some further exploration. The owners are quite nice and have agreed to let us come back for a clean-up. I’d like to thank all the cavers involved in this exploration dive. It took everyone working together to make this run smoothly and efficiently. I’d especially like to thank Jason Richards for his expert rigging, Cindy and Al for diving, Eric for setting up the trip, Dan and Tom for the photos, and Chrissy for dragging a ton of gear all over the place.

Captions:
1. Brian Rapping down.
2. Jason Richards lowers a tank to the awaiting divers.
3. Al Heck decends into Rattlesnake sink to prepare for an exploratory dive.
4. Cindy Butler (foreground) adjust her gear while Chrissy raps down the entrance.
5. Eric, Dan, Chrissy, Al.
6. Jason Richards helps Al Heck and Cindy Butler prepare for the dive.
7. Dan Straley brings down more gear to awiting diver Cindy Butler.
8. Cindy Dives.