Wakulla Springs & Leon Sinks

My good friend and dive buddy, Cavey Curtis, reported today in rec.scuba that Wakulla Springs & Leon Sinks had their lines physically tied together on
Saturday by JJ & Casey McKinley of the WKPP.

Can you provide any more details. Is there a link to the story?

Thanks for the update.

I'll give him a call and see if he has more info

Well, Curtis said they tied it together yesterday. He was there from 0800 until 0300 this morning. The main divers went in two miles and were back out in 250 minutes (plus deco, I would presume). It was all filmed. They have cameras right in the nose of their DPVs. The video should be out in 4 to 6 weeks.

I saw something on TV recently and at that time they said they were REALLY close. I think one person said within 2 weeks. It has been a bit longer than that, but I knew it would happen.

Those divers are brave, I will tell you that much. PLEASE KEEP US UPDATED, I would love to see the video.

Now the next question, did they turn and go back the way they came or did they come out on the other side?

The went out the same way they came in. I asked Curtis what was next for them and he said they would probably do a swim through...go out the other side. Curtis posted a little bit more info on rec.scuba.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yohanson

Curtis posted a little bit more info on rec.scuba.

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Yohanson - any chance you can post on here what Curtis posted on rec.scuba, if anyone out there can't get/see that info.

Thanks

okay

Curtis said:
" I imagine JJ & Casey will give a dive report soon, the announcement was
made by onsite posting from their surface manager. Only details given were
tie-in run was 1220, tied in at 11,200 from Turner Sink, BT was 250 minutes.

To the newbies, that's over 4 hours at 270-ish FFW, one hell of a dive."

Latest info I had was they were just completing their Decompression obligations (about 18 hours worth). They were having difficulties with VERY LIMITED visibility. There was a hellacious rain storm Sat. Nt. that had dropped the vis to about 2-3......inches (5 cm.). The water run-off from the surrounding terrain brings a lot of mud etc. into the water basins.

Total penetration was almost 25,000 ft. (7700 m.). This project has been ongoing for 12 or 15 years. There were several years where the basin and Karst area conditions precluded any exploration. This exploration and research has already improved the water quality and started to rejuvenate the spring head and other down-stream areas.

In a few days there should be reports on this particular dive. The "Tallahassee Democrat" has been very good about reporting the accomplishments of these divers.

Stay tuned.

Bit of an email i got through the CDAA here. Few days old.

Matt

Greetings from Wakulla County...

The WKPP accomplished one of its long-term objectives today, when Jarrod Jablonski and Casey McKinlay connected the Leon Sinks cave system to the Wakulla Springs system.

Details will be posted in the coming days, but a few highlights of today's dive include:

- 1,220ft of line layed
- connecting line tied in at 11,200ft
- bt=250min

As I write this (9pm), John Rose and David Rhea are at deco in the basin, following their setup dive to 10,500. JJ and Casey are at deco in the 40ft trough just inside the entrance restriction.

Basin viz is only a few inches right now, which is an impediment to shuttling large amounts of gear past divers decompressing on the line. Now that they're on the log at 20ft and spread out a bit we're made the most of the space, and have all the scooters, breathers, and most of the bottles back on the surface.

A few more hours to go...

- Todd

Here's some video from WKPP of the connection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0nNXAB6_kE

And some pics
http://gue.com/Expeditions/WKPP/Updates/index.html