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EXPLORATION OF BIRTHDAY FISSURE By Brian Williams People that think there is no place left to explore in Florida just haven't gone underground enough ! Each month there is potential for new discoveries in sinkholes, solution pipes, fissure cracks, above and below the water. A fellow FSS caver invited me to look at some sinks behind his property about 5 years ago. Just off his property is a series of solution tubes and fissure cracks. Most of these drop down about 20 - 25 ft where water is encountered. We checked out most of the sinks and new openings in this area and decided that at least two of the fissures may contain possible underwater passage. Sometimes I put these projects on the list for future exploration with the appropriate equipment and support. Sometimes I forget about them for several years. I remembered this one a few months ago when we were doing some work on another project out that way so I decided to re-investigate it with Al Heck and Cindy Butler. I contacted the landowners and they graciously agreed for us to do some underwater exploration. The FSS caver allowed us to park at his house so we could access the site through the woods. We humped all our gear out there and this time we even took a ladder to make diver access easier. We rigged the ladder and dropped down the fissure and were pleasantly surprised to find the visibility at around 20 ft. This would aid us in finding any going passage in the narrow slot. The water was still tannin stained which was a good indication that it may be river water, which is what we wanted so the possibilities of connection would be there. We decided Cindy would get the honors today and so Al and I rigged a pulley and lowered her tanks and gear down the hole. Cindy climbed down and geared up for the dive. Al and I awaited her return as she explored the length of the crack searching for a possible lead to passage and perhaps more cave. A wider spot in the fissure allowed Cindy to squeeze down to a depth of 75 ft and into a dome room with breakdown and a silt mound. There were two passages that lead off from this room and she explored one to a dead end. The other one came to a dome room and she could only see darkness beyond. As she came back to report she suggested Al and I get our gear ready and go down to push the line. Al and I decided that Cindy should go ahead and use the rest of her time and air laying as much line as she could, so when we went down we could push as far as we could. Also, if it turned out to just be another room, we wouldn't waste time gearing up. Now we all like to lay line and push virgin cave but it's quite a job when you got to get all geared up and drop into a tight solution tube before you even start a dive. So Cindy went back down to explore while we waited. After 20 minutes she resurfaced with the disappointing news that the passage had just gone to another dome room and then ended with no leads anywhere in sight. We may check this cave out one more time to get some survey data and do one last check for leads. Even though Cindy was the only one to get to dive that day, that is the way it goes with exploration. You don't know till you go. At least we didn't waste our time trying to get more people and gear down that hole. We did do some further exploration in a recent collapsed sink and I discovered going dry passage that just needs some digging to explore further. This was a good find though as it was the biggest dry cave we had found out there so far. We'll be back to check out that lead... if I don't forget about it before then. Captions 1. Cindy gearing up 2. Brian and Al rig the tank drop 3. Cindy at the entrance 4. Splashdown 5. Cindy prepares to dive 6. Al prepares to wait 7. Cindy surfaces 8. New cave in the cemetary 9. A mossy entrance
Sketch map of new cave after drawing by Cindy Butler: Solution pipe entrance and part of the fissure are dry. The rest is entirely underwater.  |
