The KUR exploration team never ceases to amaze! Thursday night of last week was spent portaging equipment into the cave for Saturday's exploration dive and reviewing dive plans. The setup team brought in 4 42AH scooters, 6 cylinders, a video camera and video lights. The Salvo 50W HID video lights make an amazing difference in the cave! I was almost able to see the entire width of the first room (The Witch's Den). 

Saturday was not the best dive day we have had; the exploration team had to deal with numerous setbacks created by gearing up inside the cave and the clean up team had some issues removing gear from the cave. Although there were issues, we have been able to learn from them and improve our procedures.  The trouble was indeed worth it as there were some exciting discoveries made Saturday!

The first was a successful radio location and the second being a possible location of rhodamine dye that was introduced into the (Weeki Wachee F Well) a couple of weeks ago.  The dye was to be used in a dye trace study of the Weeki Wachee area.  It was expected to exit at the spring but instead is trapped in a dome almost 5,000' back in the cave.

The radio location dive was a coordinated effort between team members on the surface and divers 275' below. A radio location transmitter was placed at the River Tunnel intersection and the surface team carrying the receivers were able to pinpoint the diver -- under a maintenance shed!  The ever gracious Weeki Wachee staff provided our team access to the shed and also moved a golf cart so we could get the most accurate location -- in a maintenance shed and under a golf cart!  Why radio locate?  Radio location allows us to verify our in-water survey and also helps educate others on the importance of knowing exactly what our aquifer travels under and through.

The goals for the exploration team were to attempt to locate a strobe light that had been dropped down F well by SWFWMD, collect safety cylinders from the 2007 exploration and if possible, extend the exploration. As the exploration team approached the end of the 2007 exploration the team began to see what appeared to be thick milky visibility. As they got closer, a white milky layer creating a boundary on the leading edge of a dome room was clearly visible at a depth of 260'. The leading edge of the white cloud a ruby red color appeared. In this layer, visibility dropped to about 15’ and it was noted that the red which had previously been seen looking up into the lens was not present within the majority of the milky portion of the on top of the rock pile/dome room. A water sample was taken at this point and given to SWFWMD for analysis.

While all this was going on, the team was interview by both Bay News 9 and the St Pete Times. Unfortunately, the Bay News 9 interview was only aired at 5PM on Saturday and was not added to their web site. However, The article from the St Pete Times can be found here.

As you can see, last week was very exciting; we are learning from mistakes, improving our procedures and have made some significant findings. For those wondering how the exploration team stays warm for 12+ hours, a Silent Submersion UV26 was modified with a special nose cone provided Silent Submersion that allows the scooter batteries to be used to power a heated vest being work under the diver's drysuit. 

Thanks again to our volunteers, the very patient staff at Weeki Wachee, the Florida State Park system and our sponsors for making the exploration possible.

NEXT: We hope to start extending the exploration through The Pit (407') as this seems to be the main conduit for Weeki Wachee.