Devil's Main Line to the Beetle Tunnel

We were now familiar enough with the Devil's System to scooter in it, and we couldn't wait. Ginnie Springs requires a DPV certification before you're allowed to scooter there. This was one of the main requirements that caused us to do the overhead DPV course with Edd Sorenson back at Merritt's Mill Pond. We were excited to let the scooters do the work of pulling us through the flow instead of swimming it. But we were also pretty nervous. I always get nervous before a cave dive, but today I was exceptionally nervous. The butterflies doing summersaults and flick-flacks in my stomach made me have to concentrate on thinking of the basics and slowing everything down. Why would this dive be different from any of the other's we've done passed 1000 feet so far? I'm not sure ... some days you just get a feeling and it's hard to shake it.

Our plan was to try and find the jump from the Main Line to the Beetle Tunnel and The Bat and connected to the Hill 400 line. We had no idea where the Hill 400 line went. We thought that maybe it bent around at 1000 feet and then carried on to Lins Line. We also had no idea if there would be any line in the Beetle Tunnel or along the Short Cut (which we were trying to miss) or from the Hill 400 line to The Bat. We were clueless. But we knew the distances on the Main Line and tried to memorise how the tunnels would look around where the Main Line, Roller Coaster and Beetle Tunnel join together.

The dive started out really well. I always feel better once I start diving, and getting the scooters in and down the chimney at the Eye wasn't nearly as difficult as I'd imagined it would be. Very soon I was using the scooter even in confined spaces just to hold me in the current as I manoeuvred along ... it was cool! All the fun of scootering came flooding back. We passed through the Key Hole, around along the canyon, and on to the Mud Flats in no time at all, feet pointed and straight behind us, ducking and weeving along the passages. The visibility wasn't as good as it had been the day before, but it wasn't bad.

Someone had left a reel in for the jump to the start of the Roller Coaster, so we passed over that. Then we flew passed the Maple Leaf and made our way into unexplored tunnel along the Main Line. At 1200' I slowed down and started looking for markings and bends. There was no need to go slow because at the place where all the tunnels meet there was a white line making a V that crossed from the Roller Coaster to the Main Line and back to the Beetle Tunnel. The reel was tied off onto a line in the Beetle Tunnel. This was definitely the right spot, but I knew from the map that there are two entrances to the Roller Coaster, so I wanted to be sure that the V went into the 3rd tunnel at this juncture. I swam a bit further to the 1300' marker and was happy that the V was making the connection we wanted. But now we had to decide if we should put our own reel in or if the V was a permanent fixture along the line. Kev indicated that we should follow the line. I pointed to my reel with a question mark, but Kev indicated no. I get nervous about following lines that I'm not sure about, but I decided it was ok to follow this jump along the V'd line into the Beetle Tunnel. We started the jump at about 25min (10min faster than it took us to swim to only 900' previously).

The tunnel was actually very neat. It's a narrow tube that reminded me of super-tubes at a water park, but all the rock is pitted and rounded off around you. We were pushing our scooters, and we didn't get very far. It was maybe 100' before the white line we were following had another jump off it to the right with a bright orange line. I had forgotten about this tunnel to the right before The Bats (it's the Hillier Tunnel) and I started to get really nervous that now we were just following some other person's jumps in the cave. So I turned us around. At least we had some idea of what this looked like for when we tried to come through from the other side along the Hill 400 line.

As we came out at the Main Line, I double checked the colour and direction of the arrows marking the jump and then confirmed all good with Kev. Then we had a blast scootering back to the entrance with the current and along the beautiful passages and canyons along the way. We passed one other diver who OK'd us forward with our scooters, and hit the Key Hole in just 50min of dive time! So at the Key Hole, when I turned to OK Kev for going through the restriction, he indicated that he wanted to jump to the Bone Tunnel again. I was chilly and shivering a bit, but another trip to the Bone Tunnel sounded good, so with Kev now leading we made the jump and scootered along.

The Bone Tunnel is much better when you're behind and scootering. I had time to check out the size of the tunnels and hold the light for enough time to sometimes make out the walls in the distance. I would say the visibility is about 50' (15m) at the moment, I would love to see this when it's Gin-Clear. After you've made the bend into the Bone Room you sometimes notice patches of white sand amongst the dark silty brown sand. I went down to feel it, and it is actually sea sand ... sand dunes like you would get at the beach! Super cool! We almost made it to the Big Room again when Kev turned us because he'd also started shivering. We quickly scootered home and did our decompression to complete a 90min dive.

Devil's: Scootering Main Line to Beetle Tunnel, then back to the Bone Tunnel

Devil's Spring - Maple Leaf and Bone Tunnel

On Sunday we wanted to get to Ginnie early to avoid the crowds, and it worked. We managed to get a full dive in before anyone arrived.

For our first dive we wanted to go along the main line to the Maple Leaf. This is where the Bone Tunnel (yellow line on my map) jumps back to the main line. I led this dive and was once again astounded by the beauty of the "canyon" that flows along from the Key Hole passed the Hill 400 line to the Mud Flats. As an added benefit, this time everything was clear as there were no crazy divers digging in the side tunnels and we were the first divers in the caves. The Mud Flats reminded me a bit of Jackson Blue, with the piles of silty dunes and the main line tied off against the walls and ceilings.

Devil's dive 3, main line to the Maple Leaf (swimming)

We passed the jump to the Roller Coaster after the 600' marker, then passed a structure in the middle of the passage and got to the second structure in the middle of the passage that doesn't quite stretch from the ceiling to the floor. This had to be the Maple Leaf, and there was a jump with a reel already laid from the main line to a white line in the direction I knew the Bone Tunnel must be. So we'd made it.

We'd taken 35 minutes to swim slowly out that far in the current with one 32% stage each. We turned around and enjoyed the flow dragging us back towards the entrance. Devil's on the way home is a really nice dive, you just float along with the current and enjoy the sights. The journey back took only 20 minutes and then 10 minutes ascending slowly and in decompression at 6m just inside the cave at the entrance. Max depth 30m, temp 22.2 C. It's 2 degrees warmer than Jackson Blue, but we're still feeling the cold in our wetsuits on the longer dives.

For the second dive, we wanted to make the jump into the Bone Tunnel and try to get all the way back to the jump at the Maple Leaf. Gas distance and cold were the limiting factors. With only one stage cylinder each, we're not really comfortable going further than 1000'. We could make at least 2000' each, so as a buddy team that should be 4000' max, but we both enjoy diving with our gas as if we were solo divers, which leaves a single tank gas max of 1000'.

I led this dive and made the jump to the Bone Tunnel, using the walls to wedge myself as I tied off my reel in the flow. There's a bit of a canyon leading from the jump to the first tunnel back to the main line on the right. After that the rooms and passages get really large and there is a lot of silty bottom. The visibility seemed worse than on the main line channel, and I'm not sure if this was due to the size of the rooms or more particulate in the water. It seemed as if divers had already silted up the cave, but the flow was quite strong and I could notice the green halo Kev's light made because of the tannic in the water, so it could just have been darker because the rooms were much larger.

We passed the breakdown into the Bone Room and then the third jump to the right and into the Big Room which really was very big. At this point we hit 1000'. We hadn't made it back to the jump to the main line, but I turned us around anyway. It was 40 minutes and 1000' so it was time to go even though the main line was probably 200-300' ahead.

Devil's, Bone Tunnel to the Big Room