Today a portion of the team returned to Rock Springs with their minds set on pushing beyond a small restriction that has been considered to be possibly passable for a year or so. On Saturday it had been decided that the flow was at a reasonable level to attempt it. In sidemount configuration and a stage, Renee, Andy and George entered the cave. As usual, they passed numerous armored catfish on their way to the back of the cave, where the line splits. They dropped their stage bottle at the ‘T’ as usual, and pulled their way to the small room at the end of the line where the way on was barred by a restriction formed by a fissure which runs across the passage.

DeLeon Springs was the area of operations for today’s sampling. The team trickled in to DeLeon springs park and we began unpacking and getting ready for the day. We had a slightly smaller team today then we had on Saturday. Kris and the divers began rigging gear and reviewing the dive plan. Jeff, Katy and Rima got the sample bags and water chemistry kits ready to go. A short while later the divers where ready and began the dive!

Today’s destination was Rock Springs at Kelly Park, where the team’s goal was to collect water samples, bacteria and critters from within the cave. The dive team took samples from four different areas of the cave as well as the mouth of the cave. The surface team then ran the usual tests on the samples.

Today’s location was Wekiwa Springs, where our mission was two-fold. The first goal of our mission was to collect and analyze water samples from five different stations in the cave at Wekiwa as well as samples from the mouth of the cave. Our second goal was to collect bacterial mats from several pre-existing biomass sample sub sites at three stations in the cave. This was done so that Rima could return to the lab and analyze the bacteria as well as estimate a growth rate based on previous bacterial collection at the same sub sites. To do this, the dive team planned two dives to collect the necessary samples. They also added some new biomass sample sites at each of the three stations, including two new sub-sites at all three stations and one repair at station three.

Once again the very friendly gate attendants at The Springs community in Longwood, Florida welcomed us with smiles. Clive, Dan and the others made sure we were settled in properly and made us feel quite at home.

Today the team went to Sanlando Spring for bacterial sampling. This small cave system exhibits high flow up through a 45 degree shaft into a placid surface pool used for swimming and sunbathing by the surrounding community. The furthest a diver can get is to a depth of 45 feet where the cave passage is blocked by breakdown (broken rocks). The dive team today consisted of Karl, Renee and Andrew. Renee and Karl took the all-important water samples whilst Andrew took photographs. This cave is hard work to get water samples from because the high water flow tends to rip the sample containers out of the divers’ hands.

The dive team enjoyed another successful day of sample collection, this time at

To obtain the water samples required by the science team, Andrew Pitkin, Renee Power and Karl Shreeves fought their way upstream into Rock Springs. Andrew gathered the first set of samples just inside the cave, then after ferrying them to the surface team, the divers went to the second collection site, approximately 100 feet into the cave. Karl collected these samples, assisted by Renee who provided bright but brief lighting with her camera’s flash.

Today the team went to Wekiwa Springs, our tasks centered on the smaller of the two vents at Wekiwa. Our mission: to collect biomass and water samples from 5 different sites within the cave system. After the team had arrived at the springs, the surface team (Bob, Amy, David, Kris and Betsy) began setting up the water chemistry kits while the divers prepared to embark into the cave. We had a team meeting and the divers did a walk-through to finalize how they would go about collecting all the water samples required for testing. Terrence and Andy were responsible for collecting the samples, while Renee acted as a shuttle between the surface help and the divers.