Twin Dees to Weeki Wachee connection dive

10 years ago, Brett Hemphill and I connected Weeki Wachee and Twin Dees caves underwater. We had been searching for a connection for years, but it was not until 2 weeks earlier when Matt Vinzant spotted a lead on our way back from the far end of the Alph Tunnel in Twin Dees, that Brett and I were lucky enough to find our way through.

The video is from a head-mounted old GoPro which produced pretty noisy images in low light, but the content makes up for it.

As you can see, it was some challenging route-finding. The first passage to the right that I looked into we later found to be a dead end, and once again Brett's nose for cave passage played its part and we went to the passage on the left, although that was directionally not as promising. We had some trouble with entanglement and a sticky reel, but as we got further and the passage turned from due north to east we knew we had to be close. Interestingly, some of the tempting openings to the left (west) we have subsequently found connect through to Twin Dees as well. Finally we emerged into a huge void that we both knew was the Weeki Wachee main passage, but it took us a few seconds to see the existing guideline on the other side of it. Our screams of joy always make me smile.

Brett's reel ran out of line just short of the tie-off, and he was shouting at me to unwrap the old line and pull it over to him. But I decided I was going to do it properly to make the survey better, so I tied in my reel unhurredly keeping him hanging there in mid-water. I think you can tell he was a little annoyed with me from the way he cuts out my reel using my Z-knife.

An unforgettable moment, and one of the highlights of my many dives with Brett.