The Russian from Moscow and his guide Kevin were just setting up to dive Twin, but they seemed less unhappy that we would be diving into the same cave as them. Kevin (the guide) even offered to point out the entrance to us before they descended. So we waited while they kitted up and once they'd disappeared under the still water we started to kit up ourselves.
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| Moored at Twin Caves |
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| Kevin, the guide from Alabama |
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| Me and the Russian from Moscow kitting up to dive Twin Caves |
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| Twin Caves above water, Merritt's Mill Pond |
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| Me on Twin Caves Platform |
We had been warned that there are two entrances. The first is a narrow side-mount entrance which apparently silts up very badly and shouldn't be attempted. The next entrance is also quite narrow but shaped more like a keyhole. We examined both to be sure we were heading in to the right one, then I led the dive into the keyhole.
I tried to fit myself through the narrow entrance without scraping in the mucky silty bed of moss-like plants at the bottom, but I was unsuccessful and the silt and plants billowed out behind me with some of it filtering forward into the cave. The start of the line is right at the entrance on the left hand side so there is no reason to lay your own line. The first room is flat and wide (about 1.5m high), and the line stretched directly in and then took a right turn towards a huge chimney. As I looked backwards and to my right I could see the other entrance. The floor was very silty with a fine mud that disturbs and disburses easily, causing the visibility to diminish and the cave to become cloudy.
Our timing wasn't great because as we were going in, the other two were coming out, and that's not the sort of room one wants to have a traffic jam in. I was so worried about that silty floor that I allowed myself to go to the roof, but I need my feet to extend above my head otherwise they drop down and my head pops up, and once you're in that position it's difficult to get back horizontal without using your fins and making a mess. So I'm afraid I made a bit of a mess right there at the entrance waiting for the other two to come out, but Kev says that they also silted a bit picking up a camera on the way out.
Once the path was clear we continued in and went to clip off our scooters. Then we followed the line to the large shaft and dropped down into Twin Caves.
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| Twin Caves Map |
After about 400' we passed the jump right to a side-mount passage which we'd been warned not to try. Then at about 1000' we flew over a beautiful chasm and came to the T where the line splits to make a circuit. The right line led down into the chasm and the left continued over it. We followed the left line and I got to just before where I could see the line head down into another chasm to the right. At this point it was about 1200' and 35min, so we turned the dive without trying to make the circuit.
It was a long slow swim back. On the way back up the shaft I was preparing myself to be on the line and expecting a very cloudy and silty entrance, but the mess had all cleared away and it was beautiful peaking up from out of the shaft into the flat room with the blue-green light pouring in from the two entrances.
We quickly took the scooters back to Cave Adventurers and Frank kindly said he'd fix the trigger wire on Kev's scooter while we went back out diving.
Hole In The Wall was next ... Woohoo! I'd been looking forward to this dive since the last time. Unfortunately, on the Twin dive, Kev's primary handset had switched off twice which was the same problem we had experienced before the service. So we decided that I would reel in this time so he could keep an eye on the handsets. When we arrived at Hole, the GUI guys were still in the cave, so we ate some yoghurt and waited for them to finish up. Watching them swim out was something else. They each had about 5 or 6 cylinders on them, as well as humongous scooters (at least twice the size of my Minnus), and the lead guy was towing a spare scooter. I thought I had a lot of gear!
Just before we started the dive, Kevin and the Russian arrived. Last time, as we reeled in, we'd really disturbed the sandy floor. This time I was determined not to. Knowing that divers were coming in directly behind me was added incentive. I tied off on the log and then floated in, allowing my face to be cm from the sandy floor so that I didn't hit the roof, and finning only slightly with my feet against the ceiling. Once I hit the chimney / shaft, I turned around and looked up and it was perfectly clear above me through the entrance ... Success! :)
I hovered there at about 14m looking for a place to tie off before descending, and also taking the time to switch my primary to 1.2 PO2. I run the machine manually while reeling at shallow depths so that the solenoid doesn't inject oxygen randomly, causing me unexpected buoyancy issues. So I hadn't noticed that at some point during my reel in, the primary handset had switched off - Murphy's Law that when I reeled in, my handset instead of Kev's would switch off! Our machines are both definitely not fixed! I switched the handset back on and continued down to find the main line leading upstream, which was down and to the right.
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| Hole In The Wall Caves |
The drop is about 8m down to 20m where the line is tied off against the ceiling, although the floor is lower. Then we started to follow the main line with Kev leading this time so that I could see if he had any problems with his machine.
Hole In The Wall is magnificent! The rooms are huge and you pretty much pass from room to room to room through wide passages. The bottom is brown and silty and some of the walls are also brown, but the roof is mostly white limestone, so it reflects back at you. I felt like we were swimming through massive cathedrals with arches and turrets all over the show. The water is not crystal clear though, apparently there is always silt clouding the visibility a little. If it were clear it would be absolutely amazing. At one point we swam up and over a big saddle and at another I noticed a one meter diameter peephole at the ceiling. I thought this dive was exquisite!
At about 600' I took the lead, and at 800' we discussed whether or not to go further but decided against it and turned around. You can see from the map above that we hardly even scratched the surface, and there is still the downstream passage to explore!
Kev kept our positions at the turn around, so once again I got the beautiful view from behind :) I spent a lot of time swimming about 2-3m higher than Kev just enjoying the view above and below. When we passed the peephole again, I swam all the way up and looked through it down to Kev and the passageway below. Very cool. Definitely a favourite dive for me.
