Twin Cave 4 Skiles Passage to the Tight Restriction

Twin Cave Merrit's Millpond near Marianna Florida. 5/5/24. My buddy this day was a very experienced cave and rebreather diver but had only been somewhat recently certified on the Divesoft Liberty eCCR unit. She had never dove Skiles Passage in Twin Cave before and I had not done it since getting my KISS Sidewinder certification.

Our dive plan was to run DPVs to the Back to Back arrows in the main passage. We would each leave a DPV there and leave a stage. We tied a jump spool into the far end of the Skiles Passage line and we would then each use one of our other DPVs to run back to the end of Skiles Passage closer to the cavern. We would tie a jump spool in there and leave our other 2 DPVs there. We would then swim Skiles Passage and pick up the stage and other DPVs we had left deeper in the cave as we completed the circuit.

Much of Skiles Passage is fairly low and silty but there is one true sidemount restriction. We made it to the restriction. I let my buddy go first so she could see. The second diver generally has no visibility until the cave opens a bit about 20 feet or so beyond the short but tight restriction. She tried to pass but felt like she was hung up on something. I thought she had it since I saw her fins disappear beyond the duck under before I saw her start to back out.

Anyway, since that didn't work, we swam back to the DPVs we had left closer to the cavern then retrieved the DPVs and stages we had left further in the cave. Not quite what we planned but a nice dive and more hours on our CCRs.

Cave Diving. Technical Diving. DPV. Rebreather. Closed Circuit Rebreather.