Over the past few decades, the Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP) has explored and mapped the underwater Chip’s Hole cave hoping to connect it to the Leon Sinks cave system in 2005 and 2006. Unfortunately, WKPP divers came to what appeared to be a terminus of the main downstream passage in 2006. WKPP divers revisited Chip’s Hole cave starting in 2013, hoping to find the missing flow and the ultimate connection to the Wakulla Cave system. After seven years of exploration, new passages were found in both Chip’s Hole cave and downstream Turner Sink, which brought the cave passages of each system very close to each other. However, the two were not connected physically via WKPP diver exploration.
To help the explorers find the physical connection between the two cave systems, a qualitative dye trace experiment was conducted to determine if the Chip’s Hole cave was physically connected to the Wakulla Cave system. Sixteen locations were determined for the placement of charcoal receptors for the dye trace design. The specific location of any positive receptor results would assist in focusing future exploration. The dye trace experiment was initiated on June 4, 2021, and the final charcoal packets were retrieved on June 20, 2021. Once the analysis was completed, there were two positive stations where exploration focused, namely stations #13 and #14, both in the downstream portion of Wakulla Cave south of Turner Sink.
WKPP explorers Steve Cox and Blake Wilson initiated a search for a tunnel from Turner Sink in Wakulla Cave to Chip’s Hole cave. They positively found a small passage that exploration had been abandoned in back in 1993. They performed nearly two dozen dives into the cave passage before pushing the exploration within several hundred feet of the initial dye release point in Chip’s Hole Lost Hope passage. After nearly 18 months, the effort of the two explorers was rewarded. On January 7, 2023, the WKPP exploration divers physically connected Chip’s Hole cave to the Wakulla Cave System bringing the total length of surveyed underwater cave passage in the system to 236,723 ft (44.8 miles).
Recently, two articles were written for the American Cave Conservation Association. One by Dr. Christopher Werner of the WKPP and the other by Dr. Julie Harrington of the Friends of Wakulla Springs State Park. Links to those articles can be found here. (https://caveconservation.com/acca-news-summer-2025/)
