The main attraction I was wanting to see is the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.  For those of you not familiar, the SR71 was a spy plane that is faster than any other plane ever made (and I think still is).  Here‘s a really neat site I found that has lots of information on the plane.

My favorite part of the museum after visiting was the flight simulator.  Whitney and I did the interactive flight simulator, where I was the gunner and she was the pilot.  The simulators allow you to do a full 360 degree turn while flying, or it will even hang you upside down for extended periods of time.  All in all the highlight of the trip.

This was one of those sinks that really makes you think about pollution.  It’s right by a major road in Tallahassee, and the land surrounding it is being used to dump all sorts of garbage.  If you recognize this site and decide to dive it, please be very careful, as homeless people are living here, littering the place with needles, beer bottles, liquor bottles, and various other trash.  Due to the pristine nature of this site, and how fragile it is, I’m going to limit my blog post to only surface photos.

Upon surfacing, we were greeted by four homeless people, three of which showed warning signs that they were on “meth”, and all 4 drunk. We were as nice as we could possibly be, but hurried back to the truck where we could take full advantage of our 2nd amendment right to protect ourselves.  They were very friendly, but I’m completely unfamiliar with drugs, so I didn’t know if they could become violent or turn on us.

Our first stop was Little Blue Spring.  This spring is gorgeous from the surface, and we were very excited to see crystal clear water flowing out of the spring run.  Since this site was on tampadiving, we were almost positive that we would find cave here. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any cave here, so we had to continue on.

We found another spring run, this time Garner, a very long run with several shallow spots and logs that force you to get out and pull the boat. We saw that there was line in this one, so we geared up and took a look.  The line here is extremely fragile, so we ran our own line the first 600ft of the system.  About 400-500ft penetration, there’s a T, which we went to the right at.  On exit, we were faced with zero visibility practically the whole way, and when I mean zero, I mean it was so muddy that I couldn’t tell my light was on at times.  I would suggest staying out of this system unless you’re extremely comfortable in zero viz.

After heading out, Big Blue Spring was our next destination.  We were told that this one had cave, but hadn’t actually been there before.  Upon arriving, we saw several swimmers, this appears to be a popular spot to park the boat, drink beer, and swim.  We pulled the canoe over to the side and started to gear up again.  The bottom of the spring is about 40ft deep, with a circular opening that’s like swimming through a fire hydrant, worse than Devil’s Ear or Jackson Blue.  Once through the entrance, there’s a no mount restriction (you might can do it with just one tank off, but no mount is easier on the cave) just before the mainline of the cave starts.  The mainline goes about 200ft and then dead ends.  This system is very pretty, but short.

Starting to get hungry, we packed our gear and headed home.  On the way, we decided to check out one more spring, this time Minnow Springs.  At first, I started to not get in the water, as the basin looked extremely small, but decided to give it a look just in case.  After looking, I saw that there was potential, and grabbed the sidemount tanks and suited up.  Once inside the cave, I was thrilled to see that there was no line!  This system is the first one I’ve ever been in without line!  I laid about 80ft and then hit a no mount restriction too small for me….darn!

We got in the water at about 10pm, and had to be out by 11pm.  Because of this, we limited dive time to 45 minutes.  Convict is a beautiful system, with rocks that look like egg shells, formed around something (possibly clay) that has been washed away.   There’s also a tree root growing dead center of one of the cave’s large rooms.  The system is incredibly fragile, and very silty.  If you’ve not been in many silt outs, wait to go here until you gain experience in them.

Here’s a few photos from the ceremony and afterward.  Unfortunately they had to all be taken inside due to a heavy rainstorm that we couldn’t wait out due to having to return the gown within 2 hours of the ceremony being over.

Our first place to visit was Blackwater Falls State Park, but first we decided to grab lunch at Blackwater Brewing Company, which appeared to have a decent biker turnout, so we assumed it would be good.  There was a group of 20+ bikers, and with this being a small place, they clearly weren’t staffed for the surge of people, so service time was almost 2 hours for lunch.  Not entirely their fault however, it’s a small town, and we realize that.  We each had the BBQ burger, which was decent, but nothing spectacular.

After lunch, we headed back to Blackwater Falls State Park.  The main attraction was the falls, however the entire park was a scenic drive.  We went to the falls first, which are off a very well maintained trail with new steps.  After that, we headed to Lindy Point overlook, which is about a 1/4 mile hike through the woods.  The view was amazing!

Here’s a video of the system shot by Wes Skiles

We pulled the boat over and were greeted by two brand new “No Trespassing” signs nailed to a log.  We geared up on the river side of those, and swam under the land bridge, then up the stream into the cave.  The cave is a series of 3 inline sinks, all with “Ginnie Clear” water.  This cave really is a gem, so close to everything, yet undamaged.  We swam about 1000ft with an average depth less than 15ft, and crossed 3 sinks along the way.