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REEFLINE NEWS
AKUMAL
In March the Reefline Group
began a trip that had been in the works for a
long time. We headed out for a week of diving
the world class cenotes and caves near Akumal,
Mexico. The trip encountered a couple of
glitches at the Dallas airport. You really do
need your passport to leave the country, right
Stephanie and Mike? The second problem was after
we boarded the plane; they decided we had three
departure delays due to air traffic at the
Cancun airport. Three hours in a plane on the
ground is a long time!!!!!!!!!! Thanks American
Airlines, I think the direct flight out of
Covington may be in our next flight plan to that
area. We eventually arrived in Cancun and began
our trek south to Villas DeRosa Resort.
The resort was great; nice
rooms and a great view of the ocean - right out
the front door!!! We were briefed on the next
day’s activities and after a good meal settled
in for the evening.
The next day our guides
took us to Dos Ojos for our first dives. This
dive was set up to be a guided cenote dive for
the divers not certified to cave dive. Joe, John
and I were the only cave divers left since Mike
had decided to go to Key West for the week and
our plan was to follow along behind the group.
John immediately demonstrated how to take the
head off a Dive Rite light while doing a giant
stride into the water!!! Very effective and
quick, right John? The dive itself was awesome;
the stalactites and stalagmites were incredible.
Couldn’t imagine it getting better than this,
however, every dive during the week had its own
special look.
One dive that really stands
out to me was a dive in the system called
Ponderosa. Our guide Lena led us up the mainline
through the halocline, a trip in itself!! We
made a couple of jumps and then she attached a
jump reel to the mainline and we surfaced in a
room called The Chapel. Large room with what
looked like millions of stalactites hanging from
the ceiling, we were able to glide around on the
surface and explore the room. Really awesome
place. Another dive that stands out is Temple of
Doom, not only a very pretty cave dive, but
climbing up the ladder with doubles on is not to
be missed!!!!!!!! Every day of diving brought
new sites and adventures in the many caves of
the Riviera Maya. We were limited in time on
what we could do, but certainly plan on making
more trips to this area.
Our evenings were spent
sitting on the balconies going over the day’s
dives with the group. Two divers bit hard by the
cenote/cave diving bug were Tom Thornberry and
Randy Walker. They plan on continuing their cave
training so they can see what is around that
next corner.
A trampoline located in
front of the resort provided lots of
entertainment during the week as Steve, Ann,
Martha, Joyce and Caitlin gave several
demonstrations and showed us the many tricks
that could be performed while flying through the
air!!!!!! Papaw Eads and Angie provide security
for the resort while we were diving during the
day.
BONAIRE
Reefline returned to
Bonaire on May 30th for another week
of fun, fun and diving at Buddy Dive Resort.We
were joined on the trip by several divers new to
the Reefline Group and a few that hadn’t been
with us for some time.
Jeff Browning who was
joined on the trip by son Blake and longtime
dive buddy Scott Murray made a request on the
first day to find a seahorse. He said he had
made dives all over the Caribbean and never
spotted one. We told the dive master and he
pointed out at least two on the first day of
diving.
James Keesee and David
Knisely were working on their advance open water
certification on the trip. On their first night
dive Charlie the tarpon came by and introduced
himself. (Always a thrill the first time you see
him)!!!! David also gave lessons later in the
week on how to spot lost fins and then drive
around the island to recover them. (At least he
had buddies who would wait on him to return)!!
Artie and Bill Janow were
also first time divers with the group. Artie is
an avid photographer and making her first
Caribbean dive trip, took several great photos.
Bill made his open water checkout dives on the
trip and is now a certified diver. Bill also
learned that photographers have their own dive
plan and follow it no matter what, right Bill?
However I can’t figure out why Artie was so
intent on taking pictures of a puffer fish while
a rather large spotted eagle ray was feeding in
the sand right below her!!!!!
Another request from diver
Donna Sublette was to see an octopus. Late in
the week this finally happened on a night dive
off Buddy’s house reef. Scott Murray spotted one
on top of the reef and the octopus did a great
job of changing colors, blending in with the
coral heads. We also saw three turtles that had
parked for the night and seemed to be resting
quite peacefully!!!!!!!!!!
Dylan, James and Blake took
up the slack of patrolling Buddy’s pool area,
since Ben Layne, Stephanie and Mike Booth
weren’t there for that chore. James, at the
request of a few young ladies, demonstrated the
correct way to jump off the pier. Looked like
the girls were really impressed!!!! Good job
James.
Congratulations to another
diver completing his open water dives on the
trip, Brandon Hay. After his last cert dive I
turned him over to friend Chelsea Amburgey. I
heard and saw her giving a few lectures on the
finer points of diving. Seems his air
consumption was not up to her standards, but she
had all problems worked out in a short while.
Also joining us on the trip were Chelsea’s
mother Michele and husband Greg.
Long time Reefline diver
John Ross provided lots of help and sometimes
entertainment for the newer divers on the trip.
Thanks John!!!
As usual it was another
great Reefline trip. Lots of really good diving,
good meals and the camaraderie that comes with a
group of good divers and friends getting
together somewhere near the water.
ROWAN COUNTY
RESCUE SQUAD
In early May I met with
several members of the Rowan County Rescue Squad
to certify them as drysuit divers. We meet at
their station for the classroom portion and then
went to the pool at MSU for our confined water
session. Here they were introduced to the basics
for drysuit diving, these included proper
donning of the suit, proper weight distribution
and ways to recover when the suit takes control
!!!! Right guys !! The following day
we met at crystal clear Cave Run Lake for the
open water portion of the class. It was a fun
and informative day and in the end Rowan County
Rescue Squad had 8 divers certified in the use
of a drysuit. Class members were Jerry Bowen,
Jarrod Gilliam, Doug Wright, Shawn Armstrong,
Anthony Spencer, Ken Adkins, Melissa Metcalf and
Jamie Stidham. Congratulations guys and gal
FLORIDA CAVE RENDEZVOUS
In late July the Reefline
Cave divers headed south for one of our
quarterly trips to visit the caves of North
Central Florida. The first night we stayed
in Valdosta, Ga. and drove to Madison Blue State
Park the next morning. Madison has an awesome
cave system and after getting our gear in order
Joe, John, Jim and I made our first dive of the
trip. Usually takes at least one dive to get
things in tune, but things went really well and
we had a great dive. Well except for John's
wings which were losing air at an alarming rate
!! (At least for John) After a surface
interval Jim and I decided to make another dive
and work on the final skills to complete his
Cave Intro class. During this dive Jim
demonstrated the Ross technique of air sharing.
Then we completed the dive without further
incident and during the debriefing we discussed
the disadvantages of this method. Final skills
were to be completed on another day!!!! We
left Madison and drove on down to Bill Dooley's
house where Joe and I would call home for the
next several days. This rendezvous turned out
great as was expected, with lots of stories
(some bordering on unbelievable), great food and
even Wild Turkey being spotted on several
occasions. One evening Bill cooked up his world
famous heathern shrimp and fish, we were all
stuffed by the end of that night!!!
Well, back to the diving
stories. The next day we dove at Peacock State
Park, where for a short time I thought I spotted
another Reefline Diver Don Bromagen, but it was
just Jim in Don mode. I'm not telling the rest
of the story and I doubt if you'll get it out of
him !!! We dove the Peanut Tunnel here,
where John assisted Jim with his air sharing
drill. Skill wise it went pretty well, but there
was some debate between the two on what should
happen with equipment that gets in the way. Just
a matter of whose equipment it was I guess !!
We left here, refilled our tanks at Cave
Excursions and then made a dive in Orange Grove,
a really nice cave with a large easy to find
entrance. The water level is really down and
exiting these caves can be quite a chore;
climbing up the rocks to get to the exit
ladders, where the gnats and mosquitoes are
waiting to escort you back to the truck. Oh
well, the price we pay to have fun.
The next day we went to
Little River State Park, one of my favorite
Florida Caves. This cave is around 100 ft. deep
and usually has a strong flow coming out, which
after a short run goes into the Suwannee River.
With the water levels down the flow in the cave
was not as strong as normal and we had a
relatively easy dive, right John ? We went
back to Peacock where Jim finished up his diving
for the trip with a trip up to Olsen. Great way
to end a trip and Jim headed back home.
The next day Daryl Hines
met us at Ginnie Springs where he finished up
his open water certification. Daryl did his
first dives at Cave Run and decided that was too
easy and wanted to dive where he could actually
see the bottom !!! Congratulations Daryl
The next day John, Joe and
I dove Peacock Springs again, we went up the
Peanut Tunnel and made the Waterhole jump. This
was John's last dive of the trip and a nice one
to end on. John came by early the next morning
to tell us he decided he was going to buy all
new diving equipment, except for a wetsuit which
he is very partial to and a set of fins that
even a thief wouldn't steal. With this thought
in mind he headed back to Kentucky. Joe and I
made one dive a Little River that day and went
home to rest up for our open water students that
were scheduled to arrive the next day.
On Monday morning we met
Wes McCrary and Allen and W.K. Prewitt at Ginnie
Springs to start their open water certification
dives. After getting them suited up we did their
first two dives in the cool, but very clear
waters of Ginnie. The boys did great and after a
surface interval we headed over to the Devils
System. Here we completed the skills required
for the third dive and the boys headed off to
other adventures and Joe and I made a cave dive
by entering Devils Ear and traveling over to
July Springs. The flow is usually very strong in
this system, but due to low water levels in
north Florida the current was light and we had a
nice easy dive. The next day we met our students
in High Springs and headed over to Manatee State
Park to complete their final two dives. After
arriving at Manatee we walked down to the
springs to check out conditions. Manatee was
very clear as usual and Catfish Hotel had its
normal covering of duck weed. It was decided
after a vote to dive both systems, sorry W.K.
When we exited the water the boys looked like
swamp thing with all the green weed hanging on
them !!!! Everything had gone really well
up to this point and we needed one dive to
finish up and move on to other things. However
one of those summer thunderstorms showed up and
stayed around for a couple of hours, delaying
our planned meal at Billy's Barbeque in
Chiefland until later in the day. We did
eventually finish and there are now 3 new
certified NAUI divers, congratulations guys.
With three new divers around, Allen and W.K.'s
dad Buck should be able to find a dive buddy
whenever he needs one and maybe the elusive Tom
Weller will show up with Terri's c-card !!!!
We were coming to the end
of a great diving trip and the next morning Joe,
Bill and I headed over to Parkside Inn for a cup
of coffee and some grits, sausage and eggs !!
Joe and I then started north where we stopped at
Madison State Park to make one more cave dive
before heading home. We entered the main spring
and traveled up the cave to Martz Sink where we
surfaced and did a short surface interval before
heading back. After exiting the cave and
breaking down and storing our equipment we
started the long drive home, however it had been
an awesome trip and we had lots of stories to
talk about to pass away the miles. We are now
planning for our next trip to Florida in October
and then its the Yucatan in November. Should be
an exciting fall season !!!
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