"How do you fancy going to work in the Florida office for a month?" my boss asked me at work one day. "You can go diving off the Florida Keys at weekends."

Hmmm.

Go to Florida and then waste weekends diving off the Keys? I had a much better idea...

Having stayed in a fairly dodgy hotel in High Springs, Northern Florida I was fairly grateful to get up early and drive the hour to Cave Excursions, an outfit run by Bill Rennaker in Luraville. I got lost a few times but managed to find him before the allotted hour of 9 o’clock. The scenery was somewhat reminiscent of the film “Deliverance”, though fortunately the locals whom I asked for directions were nothing like that!

Things were slightly chaotic there; they had very sadly had an accident filling an O2 cylinder only a few days earlier and a girl had died. Very sad.

I was given an array of twinsets (Bill called them “doubles”) to choose from. The choice wasn’t helped as they were referred to as 85s or 105s. Haven’t they just got some 12s? A translation table from American to English was found and we discovered that the 85s would suit me fine. This was good as these were just about the smallest twins they had. I was somewhat relieved to find that not only were they steel but also were DIN fitting. Maybe Americans aren’t all totally backward.

Then my dive buddy for the day turned up – a pleasant chap called John Orlowski. We got chatting and it turned out that he’s been diving for 40 years (waaay longer even than me!) and cave diving for about 20. I began to feel that I would be in capable hands.

The rest of my kit was slowly sorted and before long I had sufficient to be able to go into a cave without being a total liability.

We drove off to Peacock Springs, only 3 miles away from Bill’s shop. It cost $10 to get in. Once there and parked we wandered to the water’s edge. This was a sophisticated spring. There was a set of wooden steps leading down and into the water! Cool! The spring itself was some 10m wide and 20-30m long. Most of it was covered with scum, but the area by the steps was clear and the water looked fairly clear and green. The spring was surrounded by thick undergrowth; the heat and humidity was very oppressive. There was a constant whirr of cicadas everywhere.

John said he was “looking out for one of the ‘gators”, but couldn’t see any of them. I suspected he was just trying to wind me up, and indeed said so.

It was back to the cars to kit up. This was unpleasant in the heat, but didn’t take long. The short walk to the water and we were in.

It wasn’t much cooler in the water – it was like jumping into a hot bath. We composed ourselves on the surface (John chatted with all the other divers – everyone else seemed to know him quite well) and then we dived. John led down the line and down a narrow crack into the tunnel below.

There was a thermocline as we disappeared into the darkness – the temperature became most pleasant. The water also became much clearer – the green tinge disappeared, to be replaced by the lovely bluish tinge of clear water.

Just beyond the light zone there was the reassuring “STOP! Prevent your Death! Go no further! There is nothing beyond here worth dying for!” sign that they apparently like in American caves. We went right on past :o)

The tunnels were generally bigger than the French ones – a good few metres across. They were also mostly round; the walls were nice white limestone, with the magnificent scalloped shapes I remembered from the French caves. The floor was covered with a black silt – fortunately I managed to keep my buoyancy sufficiently and I never stirred this up. John led off following the fixed line. The cave is much more complex than the French ones we’d dived. Generally, the French caves are a single passage – you can either go in, or go out. Not so the Florida caves. Think of a bath sponge and you’ll have more of an idea. This meant that as we progressed there were openings big and small off from the main passage on both sides.

The line was marked with cave line markers every 100 feet (about 30 metres ;-)

Soon the markers changed direction, something we’d never seen in France. This indicated there was another exit as the marker would always point to the nearest one.

I snapped away happily with the camera – something that’d prove to be pretty much a waste of time as these were almost without fail entirely black. Damn digital cameras – I don’t even have those few days to hope that I’ve taken some good shots :o(

I followed John into the cave – it was stunningly pretty. There was even some fish in there, they looked vaguely Catfish like, although obviously I am ignorant of their particular type. About 30 cm long, black in colour.

After 20 minutes I hit my thirds and turned the dive. I then led out. As I did so I had the weird feeling that there was current carrying me along – although looking at the particles in the water I could perceive no movement. Afterwards John would confirm that there was indeed a very slight current carrying us along.

Although the cave was just as pretty going out, I was now treated to a good light-show by John. He would shine his torch (flashlight!) directly at me – this would produce fantastic rays of light that surrounded me and shoot forwards from me, onto the cave wall in front. On the wall itself there would be my silhouette with these rays dancing around it. Spectacular.

The weird part of this was following the line out and when we got to the section where the line markers are apparently reversed as they point to the alternate exit. Even though I knew I was heading the right way, the fact that I was going against the direction indicated by the markers was hugely disturbing – it just plain wasn’t right. I overcame my instinct and continued regardless, as indeed I should have done.

Eventually we reached the exit, and we slowly ascended back into the light.

Not only into the light, but into the heat as well. The thermoclines in Dorothea have nothing on this – however where in Dot they go from freezing to “oh… thank goodness”, here it goes from just right to bleedin’ hot!

Back on the surface we rest a while before removing fins and climbing up the previously mentioned steps. Very civilised.

This dive was a maximum of 20 metres, for 40 minutes, on EANx 31.

Back at the cars the major difference with wetsuit diving compared to the drysuit diving I’m used to became apparent… I had no towel :o( The sun and heat helped here, but the humidity didn’t. Probably with the amount I was sweating it made precious little difference anyway.

It was back to Bill’s place for more gas and to eat some of the pizza I had left over from the previous evening. It definitely could not be called cold pizza, though. A morning in the boot (sorry… trunk) of the car and it was nearly as hot as it had been the evening before.

Talking to John some more I found out that not only did he know Kevin Gurr (my cave instructor) well, but had assisted in Kevin’s cave instruction. This is quite impressive. I remember when Kevin signed my cave qualification that I was most impressed by Kevin’s instructor number… it’s something like 6. That’s pretty cool.

However, there’s more. Tom Mount (if you don’t know who he is, go away and read about diving some more) is instructor #1. Fair enough. But… BUT… John is instructor #2. Cool or what? I know that numbers and all that aren’t important, it’s your ability that matters etc., etc., but that doesn’t obscure the fact that I’m diving with one of the top rated cave divers in the world. That’s kinda reassuring, and at the same time, more than a little pleasing.

I sent off gloaty text messages to Ryan and Ian bragging about what I was doing. I used up the last of the battery on my mobile (sorry… “cell”) doing so – I’d brought the charger for my mobile but American electricity is utterly incapable of charging it. Curiously, American electricity can’t even charge my toothbrush and I’ve had to get a complimentary manual toothbrush from the hotel. But I digress…

Back at Peacock we planned to do a different route through the cave. My gas consumption in the morning had been pretty poor and John didn’t think we’d make the round-trip that was possible, where we’d go in down one route, loop round and jump back onto the line we’d followed earlier, then back out. We’d go in and see how we got on, obviously following the rule of thirds regardless.

I decided to leave the camera behind (I didn’t even know at this point that the pictures from this morning were crap) as taking pictures underwater is hassle, even if they’re only snaps. I wanted to enjoy the afternoon, and appreciate the cave a bit more. What a good decision.

The line we followed in the afternoon is the “Peanut” route. I was sure at the time that John called it the “penis” route, but I’ve subsequently looked it up on the internet :o)

There was the same descent through the bath water into the nice cool, clear water below. I was following John, as you’d expect. The cave started much the same as the morning, but soon narrowed to a passage perhaps 1 metre high by a couple of metres wide. We used pull and glide technique through here (John had warned me we would) to avoid disturbing silt from the walls or ceiling. I was about a million times (roughly :o) more relaxed than the morning; the cave was fantastically pretty, we were shallower, I was a bit more used to the kit I was using, there was no pooey camera to worry about. We followed the line along through the narrow section for some time before the cave opened out a little and dropped down through a slit. We slowly descended this, floating sideways downwards.

The cave then opened out and now resembled more the cave from the morning. We continued in, following the guideline all the while.

Finally we came to the small jump where we made the transition from one line to the other. I still had stacks of gas left; I was 30 bar above my turn pressure, so we made the jump and started back along the other line.

I was expecting to recognise features of the cave from the morning’s dive, but didn’t. I put this down to my age and the fact that underwater I tend to just enjoy myself without actually concentrating too much on what’s going on at all.

We followed the new line back out – the cave was fantastically shaped; there were arches, pillars, holes and the usual scallops in the rock. There was also more life here; weird white shrimp-things that seemed to like falling from the ceiling to the floor of the cave in front of you. Ian would have liked them.

We followed the line further out – I’m still following John as we’ve not turned the dive yet. After another ten minutes or so John makes a series of signs to me that are obviously not out of the NSS cave diving manual. He seems reasonably happy with what’s going on so I give him an OK back without having a clue what he said.

After this, I subsequently start to recognise bits of the cave. I’m so daft that I still don’t realise that the signs John gave me meant “this is where you turned the dive this morning”.

Another ten minutes or so and I finally reach my turn pressure. We’re so blatantly on the exit now that I wonder whether I should give the signal, however I give the “up” sign anyway, followed by a “this way” to indicate that I know we should just carry on. We exchange Oks, and continue out.

I am slightly disappointed that we don’t actually turn the dive and re-trace our path back through the way we’ve come. It wouldn’t be right to do so as we didn’t lay a jump line between the first line we followed in and the line we were now following out. I would have loved to have gone back through the narrow section again nevertheless :o)

All too soon it was back to the light and heat. As we floated on the surface after the dive John was chatting with the other divers and the Ranger out on the side, again talking about the “’gators”. Once again I suggested that they made these tales up for the benefit of tourists like me. I am so cynical. The Ranger looked out across the spring… “<Southern US drawl> oh there he is. Over there”. I turned round, and indeed some 20m away there is this object moving across the water that looks just like the alligators you see on telly. It might only be James Bond in disguise for all I knew but I got out of the water fairly quickly despite John’s reassurances that “it’s only 6 feet long. It won’t hurt you”.

This dive was 19 metres maximum depth for 50 minutes, EANx 31.

After that it was time to drive back to Fort Lauderdale. It was just after three and it was about a six hour drive. On the way I stopped at a likely looking store and managed to buy a car charger for my now totally flat mobile, so I could send yet more gloaty texts.

The drive back was great. I took the long route… rather than taking the turnpike I drove down the West side of Florida to Naples then cut across back to Miami. I had the radio on and was happily singing along to the dodgy old records that both the Americans and I seem to like. I suspect I was grinning like an idiot for a lot of the time. As darkness fell I was then treated to magnificent lightning displays from the storms rumbling their way across Florida.

Fantastic.

I also saw the perfect thing for AndyB. It’s a cover for a tow-bar, shaped like an outboard engine. The top of the engine goes over the ball, and the prop dangles down. Of course as you drive along, the prop spins. Cool.

So; Chris’ 30th I got to drive Ferraris and Porsches.

Tess’ 30th I got to dive a Florida spring.

These 30th birthdays are only getting better and better. Whose is next?

Bill’s site

John’s site

Peacock springs