Eagle's Nest

I set my rebreather up on a picnic table to begin preparing it for the dive. A white pickup truck pulled into the parking lot, and two men stepped out. I immediately recognized them - we had seen them at a different dive site a few days ago. It's a small community down here. 

Map of Eagle's Nest.

With my gear all ready to go, I stepped into the pond and began clipping tanks to myself. Small black fish swam near the surface. Next to me, my husband did the same. "Can you believe it's going to take us 21 tanks to do this dive?" he asked. I paused. Three people, two rebreather tanks, one suit inflator tank, two trimix bailouts, and two decompression gases each - three times seven is 21. He was right. Of course, if everything went well, we'd only ever touch three each. The other four were back-ups. 

I swam to the center of the pond and watched as my dive instructor made himself horizontal and descended through a hole in the limestone. He looked exactly like a sky diver. I waited a minute and then followed him. It was dark below, but the water was clear. With my high-powered LED light, I could see the cavernous walls. 

Ten minutes into this dive, and I was 40 m deep. We were on top of a pile of debris in the center of the cave. Limestone rocks protruded from the soft, flocculent silt. I noticed some snails on the sediment and picked one up to discover it was alive. There were actually many of them, crawling across the sediment, presumably feeding on the organic matter that accumulates at the bottom of this pit. After the dive, I would identify them as Elimia dooleyensis. 

We swam farther into the cave, all three of us in a line, and passed through a limestone gate. We were at 60 m, my maximum depth. My bright flashlight caught a shadow, and I tried to focus on the mobile white fleck as I swam forward. It was an amphipod swimming through the water column. Another flash of motion, and I turned to find a white crayfish (Cambarus cryptodytes) scooting through the water by contracting its abdomen. Its spastic motion made me giggle. 

Back at the debris pile, my instructor pointed his light at a spot on the ground. I pushed myself forward with my feet to investigate. It was a small shrimp with a clear exoskeleton. I could see straight through to its green organs. 

A sea biscuit fossil from Eagle's Nest.

Another few kicks, and I noticed my instructor is pointing his light at a rock. I had told him to show me any invertebrates he could, and he had obviously taken that seriously. A few waves of the hand cleared away debris from the limestone, and dozens of fossils emerged. Scallop shells all piled up haphazardly, a sea biscuit encased in the rock. These were not freshwater creatures, my friends - this area used to be ocean. 

We ascended slowly through the hole, pausing at the prescribed depths for our decompression stops. For the last stop, we were at just 6 m deep, and I crouched near a fallen tree in the pond. I held perfectly still as I waited for my tissues to release the nitrogen and helium I had inhaled at depth. I was silent except for a small gurgle in my rebreather loop. A fish swam up tentatively and examined my fingers. I could see a prominent dark spot at the end of its gill cover, and a distant memory from college ichthyology class surfaced: bluegill sunfish. Later, I would determine it was a redbreast sunfish (Lepomis auritus). The curious little guy came close enough to tap my mask. 

As I swam away from the log back to the pond entrance, I noticed one more little fish hiding out in the hollowed-out wood. I think it was a black crappie (Pomoxis nigromaculatus). I arrived at the wooden stairs tired but not exhausted, enthralled, and grateful. I had been to the bottom of Eagle's Nest Spring, and it was an amazing dive.