FINALLY a warm day greeted us upon arrival at Manatee Springs State Park. Manatee Springs is located in Chiefland, Florida, which is southwest of Gainesville. This is a first magnitude spring which means it discharges at least an average of 100 million gallons of water daily!!

Overall the objectives at Rose Sink today were to recon possible sites for future bacterial collections, photo documentation, distance marker placement and macrofauna collection.

Rock Springs belched today…meaning the outflow of the spring was huge…
Karl & Bob entered first with a mission to take photos to help illustrate the beauty & complexity of this cave system to those less fortunate than us…and it wasn’t long before Karl was wondering what he’d gotten himself into…

Team Ice Cube gathered at Kelly Park in the guard house to greet the park staff. Due to below freezing temperature we had the park to ourselves!
Today’s focus was to lay new line in the cave systems and map previously uncharted cave. However, a previous restriction had proven too small, and the flow too strong, for the divers to pass.