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Hernando Today

Divers bound for unexplored depths

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By TONY MARRERO

Hernando Today

Published: April 17, 2009

WEEKI WACHEE - In 2007, the worsening drought allowed divers to squeeze through a tiny opening below the mermaid stage at Weeki Wachee Springs and explore a new frontier of underwater caves.

They went as far as 4,600 linear feet into the caves and reached a depth of more than 400 feet, which is believed to be a record for the deepest underwater cave tunnel in the continental United States.

Now the explorers are back at it - and are pondering their longest dive to date in the coming weeks.

The continued drought conditions and the peak of the dry season have once again caused flow levels through the spring vent to slacken enough to allow access. A team from Karst Underwater Research, Inc., or KUR, hopes to continue the cave and passageway mapping project that made unprecedented progress two years ago.

"We're shooting for a five-hour bottom time so we can solve some of the mysteries," said Brett Hemphill, KUR's director and head of exploration for the project.

Among those mysteries is whether the tunnels connect to the so-called Twin Dees Spring and its network of caves about a mile south of Weeki Wachee Springs. A KUR team explored and inserted guidelines in that network of caves back in 1995. Divers starting from Weeki Wachee came within about 1,000 of the Twin Dees caves during the 2007 expedition.

Divers use special propeller-driven "scooters" to motor through the passages. Carbon dioxide "scrubbers" allow them to recycle air in their tanks.

The depth of the dives required decompression times as long as nine hours. That decompression time could extend to 24 hours if explorers do stay down as long as five hours.

The divers also take advantage of an airlock used by the mermaid performers. The airlock is roughly 25 feet below the surface but allowed divers to remove their breathing gear and even munch on burgers brought down in plastic bags while they waited for their bodies to adjust to the lower pressures.

Hemphill and his crew plan to dive today at the park.

Meanwhile, the Southwest Florida Water Management District representatives are doing some exploration of their own - but they're letting bright red and green dye do the work.

Researchers dumped the dye into a well on the east side of U.S. 19, just north of Northcliffe Boulevard. They want to know whether a tunnel beneath the well connects to Weeki Wachee Springs.

If so, the mermaids may have been among the first to know: They would have been swimming in the dye that would have been pushed out of the spring vent, said Dave DeWitt, a water quality expert with the district commonly known as Swiftmud.

As of Wednesday, however, none had appeared.

That could mean there is no connection. More likely, however, the dye is simply moving slowly through the system of caves or not at all because of extremely low flow rates, Dewitt said.

If the dye does eventually make it to Weeki Wachee Springs, it means that the underground rivers flow northeast to the spring before heading toward the coast.

And that, Dewitt said, would mean that the irrigation and fertilizer habits of residents in "the heart of Spring Hill" may have an even greater effect on the water level and quality at the spring than scientists thought.

"It's important that everybody realize that the water they're using and what they're doing with it can and does effect Weeki Wachee spring," Dewitt said. "I hope we keep getting that message out to people."

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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