The Leon Sinks Cave system, encompassing the River Sinks system, the Emerald system and now connected to Sullivan Sink, was the longest underwater cave system in the United States. Other caves in the area were becoming, for the most part, walled out from an exploration perspective, as McBride’s Slough cave, Little Dismal Sink, Sullivan Sink upstream and Indian Spring were nearing the limits of traditional back-mounted open-circuit exploration. There were, however, several caves still with significant exploration potential at deeper depths – these included upstream Indian deep, Big Dismal downstream deep, Sally Ward, Wakulla Springs, and downstream Innisfree Sink (the southernmost point in the Leon Sinks system at the time). The WKPP turned its focus to these systems in the early 1990s.
The events of the 1990s unfolded in an all too familiar fashion as the 1980s with Herculean exploration pushes, technological advances, and tragic accidents claiming the lives of several explorers in the underwater caves of the area. In 1991, Bill Gavin developed the prototype Gavin scooter for use in deep exploration dives. There were several modifications incorporated from the Tekna DV3X and DV100 scooters. Additional improvements included larger capacity batteries with significant burn times over the Teknas and an increased depth rating. This would become the workhorse DPV for the WKPP for the next 15 years.
In an unfortunate geologic event in November of 1991, Parker Turner was killed when debris rained down from the cavern ceiling disturbing the sand slope in the basin. The sand slope, likely near the angle of repose for unconsolidated materials, slid and covered the entrance restriction to the cave. Bill Gavin, Turner’s dive buddy was able to wiggle through a small hole in the sand that Turner had cleared just before running out of breathing gas. The accident analysis was published by Gavin in the NACD Journal (Vol.23 No. 4, 4th Qt. 1991). Gavin assumed leadership of the WKPP following the accident.
In the Spring of 1992, WKPP explorers Steve Irving, Tim Norkus, and Greg Knecht connected downstream Innisfree Sink to Darkwater Sink. Shortly after that, Irving, Norkus, and Sherwood Shile connected downstream Darkwater Sink to Bull Duggar sink (renamed Turner Sink in Parker Turner’s honor).
In August of 1993, Sherwood Shile lost his life on a dive with Bill Gavin and Lamar English in upstream Cheryl Sink past the Bitter End tunnel following exploration of ~800 ft of passage headed toward Big Dismal Sink. Later that Autumn, the WKPP begin pushing downstream Turner Sink. Following a series of dives involving Bill Gavin, George Irvine, and Lamar English, they pushed the exploration to 4,252 ft of penetration at ~270 ft depth in a raging siphon.
In early 1994, George Irvine assumed leadership of the WKPP. WKPP was granted a Special Use Permit to explore Wakulla Springs and in January 1994, Gavin, Irvine, and English add 1,437 ft of line to A-tunnel where Exley and DeLoach had ended the line in bad visibility. The cave was now at a penetration distance of ~6,100 ft at an average depth of 285 ft.
Over the next 1 ½ years the WKPP pushed the limits of several systems including Indian Springs, Sally Ward, and Wakulla Springs B- and C-tunnels. The years of 1996 and 1997 would prove most fruitful. On June 1, 1996, Irvine, Jablonski, and McKinlay connected Big Dismal Sink to upstream Cheryl Sink at the Bitter End tunnel establishing the Leon Sinks cave system as the most extensive underwater cave in the United States and within the top 30 longest caves, wet or dry, in the United States.
In July of 1996, WKPP divers Irvine, Jablonski, and Scarabin reached a penetration of ~10,000 ft in Wakulla Spring Cave on open-circuit at an average depth of 285 ft. It was a World Record for Penetration at Depth in an underwater cave at the time. In November of 1996, WKPP divers Brent Scarabin and Rick Sankey set a World Record Penetration Record of 14,104 ft in Chips Hole extending the line that Exley had laid some 7+ years earlier.
In April of 1997, the WKPP received permission to dive Shepherd Spring Cave in the St. Marks Wildlife Refuge and added 1,418 ft to the old end of line put in by Exley and DeLoach. They extended the cave to a penetration of 4,056 ft. They followed this dive up with a New Penetration Record at Depth in Wakulla of ~11,000 ft using the new Halcyon PVR semi-closed-circuit rebreather.
On June 28 and July 24, 1998, they pushed Wakulla Spring O-tunnel to ~14,000 and 18,000 ft using the new rebreather. This would be one of the last dives in Wakulla for the WKPP, as Bill Stone’s US Deep Caving Team ran their Wakulla 2 Project utilizing the fully closed-circuit Cis Lunar rebreather and the 3D Wall Mapper technology.
The USDCT successfully mapped a large majority of the Wakulla Cave System completing 3D surveys of B-tunnel, C-tunnel, D-tunnel, and A-tunnel. They were able to map portions of O-tunnel and M-tunnel prior to the project ending in late February 1999. The USDCT also pushed previously unexplored passages in both B-tunnel and D-tunnel, adding 1,027 ft and ~400 ft, respectively.
In an unfortunate event, Nobel Prize Laurette Henry Kendall died from natural causes, according to the State Medical Examiner, when he entered the water in the Wakulla basin for a solo dive on the Cis Lunar rebreather. He drowned in 6 ft of water close to where he entered the water.
The 1990s ended with the WKPP diving the traverse from Big Dismal Sink to Sheryl Sink on May 29, 1999, when George Irvine, Ted Cole, and Jarrod Jablonski using conventional open-circuit scuba traversed nearly 14,000 ft breaking the traverse record of the Brits in the Three County System of Northern England in 1991.
