Coming through Peanut tunnel, Image credit
Deep-cave diving is as extreme as it gets. Total darkness surrounds you beyond the glow of your light in an eerie calm, which makes you feel as if you are in a distant, unknown place. Water currents push and pull to keep you within the caves, branching passages hope to get you lost and remember, in deep depths even oxygen becomes toxic and nitrogen stupefying.
It is a dangerous sport and requires extensive training and a wide variety of specialized techniques. If you choose to dive at any of these sites, you must take full responsibility for all consequences...remember it’s your life!
10. Cenote Esqueleto /Temple of Doom
Location: Off of Coba Road outside of Tulum, Mexico
Depth: 60 feet
Advantage: A swim around the hat’s brim at 60
feet is a tour of a multilevel maze of cave formations, boulders and stalactites dripping from the blanched white limestone.
Risks involved : Entry point is uncomfortable.
A cave dive here means going into Half-fresh water and half-salt water. If you also take a cavern dive, you will be able to spot many fossils in the clear water.
9. Henley’s Castle diving site at Peacock III
Peacock III spring, Image credit
Location: Peacock III
Depth: 185 feet
Risks involved: Solo diving is prohibited here! It has a lot of silt; the silt settles on the walls and makes the cave very dark. The Peacock III system is a siphon so unlike the other systems in the area, the water flows in instead of out. This means that it is more work to exit the cave and the visibility tends to be diminished.
The Peacock III system is a siphon so unlike the other systems in the area, the water flows in instead of out. This means that it is more work to exit the cave and the visibility tends to be diminished.
8. Challenge sink
Location: Located across the street from the Peacock Springs park entrance, it is part of the cave system at Peacock Springs.
Advantage: Upstream Challenge leads to Orange Grove while Downstream Challenge leads to Olsen.
Risks involved: Caution is necessary when climbing in or out of Challenge which has small, winding tunnels. Part of the swim is against a light flow.
7. Orange Grove
Cave Passage in Orange Grove Sink, Image credit: Steve Block
Location: It is part of Peacock Springs Park, north of the Suwannee River east of Luraville, Florida.
Advantage: Beautiful honeycombed passageways
Risks involved: At times, the water becomes infested with algae and it turns the spring solid green, with no visibility. With no visibility in the spring, it is difficult to access the cave. Another passage leads downward to ‘Lower Orange Grove,’ a very advanced cave with lots of silt and depths to 180 feet.
Orange Grove is actually an offset sinkhole, whose passageway has minimal flow until it intersects with the Distance Tunnel, over 800 feet downstream.
6. Devil’s Eye/Ear
Bob Cave Diving in the Devil’s Cave system at Ginnie Springs in Northern Florida, Image credit
Location: Santa Fe river, Ginnie Springs resort complex
Advantage: 30,000 feet of mapped passageways, here is a map of the system.
Risks involved: A breakdown restriction about 200ft from the entrance to the Devil System called ‘the lips’. The currents blow strong.
The caves of Florida are the result of underground water working upon soluble limestone. This type of topography, called Karst, characterizes most of the principal cave systems in the world.
Devil’s Eye is a circular spring with depths to 15 feet at the bottom of the spring. A cave entrance begins at the bottom of the spring and extends through several thousand feet of cave passage way. Great for the experienced cave diver.
5. Thunder Hole
Image credit
Location: An offset sink from the Withlacoochee River in north central Florida situated on a private property.
Depth: 460 feet
Thunder Hole Well: The Well is around 500ft penetration.The depth at the top of the well is about 65ft and the bottom depth is 120ft.
Risks involved: Poor visibility, tight corners
Thunder Hole is on private property and is an offset sink from the Withlacoochee River in north central Florida. Special permission from the owner of the property has to be obtained to dive this site. Several of his requirements include having an Abe Davis and no scootering.
4. Conch Sound diving site
Image credit
Location: Blue Hole cave system, Andros, Bahamas
Depth: 90 feet
Advantage: When you dive in the caves, at a depth of about 25 to 30 feet, you can see the fresh / alt water interface, or “halocline,” as a distinct line separating the liquids, and if you watch a diver passing through the halocline, their image is shortly blurred and distorted by the mixing of the fresh and salt water.
Risks involved: The ocean blue holes will “blow” and “suck” making it necessary to dive them at certain times. The “blow” usually pumps out cold subterranean water which may be milky with hydrogen sulfide and algae or, during the “suck,” the water will be gin clear as it sucks in the surrounding sea water. Too little light penetrates the depths for this drowned crater.
3. Diepolder II or III
Diepolder III, Image credit
Location: In Sand Hill Boy Scout Camp on Hwy 50 between Brooksville and Weeki Wachee Springs.
Depth: 300 and 360 feet
Risks involved: The visibility in the pond and shaft was crystal clear. Proceeding further the visibility drops further to 60 to 80 ft. Diepolder II is the deepest cave in the continental US.
Diepolder are two separated caves, measureless in dimensions, deep and just impressive. Only guided tours are allowed.
2. Eagle’s Nest Sinkhole
Image credit
Location: Weeki Wachi Florida, USA
Depth: 315 m
Risks involved: One of the Mount Everest’s of cave diving, Dive for the technically sound only!
Eagle’s Nest is considered one of the most breathtaking underwater cave systems in the world. Its intricacies have alternately been described as challenging and dangerous.
It begins in an ordinary pond, about 200 feet wide, in the woods. At the bottom of the pond is a kind of chimney that descends hundreds of feet into a cavern large called “the Main Ballroom” beyond which are longer tunnels and crannies that descend even deeper. How far do they go? Nobody knows.
1. Aussie’s Black Holes
Location: Andros, Bahamas
Depth: 2000ft
Risks involved: Black layer with zero oxygen and a very high level of hydrogen sulphide, that might be due to temperature reading, 37�C, and the low pH reading indicating an acid environment. A total hell hole!
The black hole is a vertical cave system, and has a more recent origin than any of the blue holes. It was here that the scientist, Stephanie Schwable discovered a new species of bacteria and the research is now being used by NASA.
This site is a total NO! and is only pursued for SCIENTIFIC PURPOSES
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