Jump In!

After spending yesterday talking to children at the Seminole County Library/Oviedo summer camp about ocean critters, we finally got to hit the water ourselves as part of our summer internship program! After filling our tanks at Scuba World, we headed north to DeLeon Springs. Today’s team consists of Terrence, Amy, Josh, John, Ricky, and Woody. Josh, John, and Woody are veteran Cambrian-ites from Farmville, Virginia, and they are joining us this summer as the 2005 recipients of the Legare R. Hole, III, Memorial Scholarship. Ricky Simon was awarded the Frank Scalli Internship at the 2005 clinic of the Boston Sea Rovers, and as such, will spend two weeks interning with the Foundation.

Terrence and Ricky dove into the cave located in the middle of the spring to collect cave animals for samples. Specifically, they were looking for stygobitic isopods, amphipods, and crayfish. This was Ricky’s first dive into a high-flow central Florida spring. Ricky did quite well considering the fact that this is one of the most challenging caves to dive – not only offering extremely high flow but also low visibility.

Upon the completion of the sampling dive, Team Hunk-a-Junk (Woody, Boz, and Josh) accompanied by Amy, proceeded to practice their open-water skills on their first open-water dive. It was an exciting voyage. The scenery was not extremely spectacular but the fact of being underwater for the first time in a natural environment made for an exciting day. Everyone breezed through the basic skills of mask and regulator clearing as well as controlled ascents and other emergency skills. After the first dive, the fledgling divers enjoyed a lunch by the spring. After a break, the team headed back down to practice the drills some more. The second dive proved to be as productive as the first, and today was deemed a success.

Team Members:
John Boswell
Woody Dunkum
Josh Owen
Ricky Simon
Amy Giannotti
Terrence Tysall