Cave Diving Peacock Springs, Florida
October 2002
In the world of cave diving, Peacock Springs state park is pretty famous well beyond its location in the state of Florida.
The park contains many sinkholes interconnected by a variety of tunnels and passageways, with widely differing characteristics.
Olsen sink. Crystal clear water with 200' visibility!
Peacock 3. Looks like an alligator filled swamp? Its no swamp but there are certainly alligators.
Challenge sink. Later we would dive a cave passage and look through a sink just like this from 40' below.
William setting up and checking his gear. At the water side the same meticulous checks are made again. With cave diving there is no margin for error with equipment.
I'm not quite sure of the name of this place. its at the back of Peacock 1.
Joan and I are about to enter the water here, getting our fins on. The tanks we are using are double steel 104's, which way more than 3 Al80 tanks that most open water divers are used too.
Ready to cave dive, or a least start the long list of in water checks and safety drills.
Peacock 1. Very murky until you dive to the cave entrance. From there the water is the same spring water that you buy in bottles at the supermarket!
It all looks a bit too chilly for me.William and Joan standing above challenge sink. Some people choose to enter the system from here. We chose to use the stairs at Peacock 1.
Cave Country Cafe with cave map tables! This really makes breakfast very interesting plaaning a cave dive between sausage and bacon.
William waving the DIR flag here..
Bobbing about getting comfortable adjusting gear and preparing for the in water checks and safety drills. Either that or we were waiting for William to put the camera away and get into the water with us!
