Here’s an interesting little entry from the log books that Bill Main and I thought you might enjoy: June 27, 1987, (Saturday night around 10:30) Bill, Vaughn Maxwell and I were gearing up at McBride Slough, getting ready for a big dive. (McBride is a little spring just off highway 267, some three or four miles east of the entrance to Wakulla Springs State Park.) Bill’s tanks were already in the water and he had just finished putting on his second wetsuit. Vaughn and I were suited up in full cave gear and ready to go, so that’s just what we did! We climbed back into the van, Bill took the driver’s seat and we cranked up and headed west. (McBride is a decent dive and it’s also a pretty darned good staging area for certain clandestine activities like say…a sneak dive into Numero Uno!)

Time for a little history lesson: Sally Ward Spring, located in the northwest corner of the Wakulla Springs property, was named after the lady who owned the site and surrounding property in the early 1900’s. The first divers to explore the cave were Court Smith and Lewis Holtzendorff on November 10, 1973. They had planned to dive Spring Creek, but somehow Lewis forgot to pack his mask and lights, so that plan was a bust. They decided to go check out the source of blue water that they had seen in that little swamp on the way to Wakulla. Court suited up in his van and Lewis dropped him off, in broad daylight Court went through a gap in the chain link fence and found the spring. He only had 230’ of line on a spool, which he promptly laid through a beautiful little tunnel, down a couple of pits, and then ran out of line just after the tunnel leveled out at a depth of 110’. He returned, quite excited by the find and they switched roles. Lewis borrowed Court’s mask and three US Divers 3 cell flashlights and went to explore further. He laid only 70’ of line when the bottom, and the walls, simply disappeared. He stopped his descent at 170’ and tied the line off, still unable to see the bottom or any of the other walls. Lewis surfaced and told Court that they had found something “tremendous”. Six days later they returned, with Dana Turner, and extended the line to a depth of 280’ where they tied off at the entrance of the upstream tunnel. Lewis named the spring Numero Uno. For obvious reasons, it stuck. End of history lesson.

The plan was for Bill to drop us off at the swamp then go hide the van in the woods up the road a short distance, jog back and join us. This method had worked quite well in the past and we were confident it would work this night. Our excitement and anticipation grew as we neared our turn until we noticed the headlights behind us. This was no big deal; we would just continue on, make a U turn and come back when the coast was clear. Bill decided to turn left on highway 61, as he slowed to make the turn the street lights at the park entrance illuminated the vehicle behind us, a Wakulla County Deputy Sheriff. We took a left and so did he. No problem, we’ll just go slowly and he will pass us. He didn’t. We sped up and the deputy stayed on our tail. This went on for several minutes and Bill started getting concerned. Vaughn and I kept kidding about how we haven’t broken the law, yet, and it’s not illegal to drive around in scuba gear. As we slowed for the approaching intersection, it happened. Another deputy car came in on us from the ten o’ clock position, blue lights flashing, spotlights on, and they even hit the sirens for a little bit. As we stopped, Bill announced, “We’ve got a problem…” Not “this could be a problem”, or “this may be a problem”, he said “we’ve GOT one”. Neither of us ‘rear wheel well’ passengers could see what was happening at the front of the van, but Bill could and they had his undivided attention.
“Turn the vehicle off and throw the keys out the window!”
“I’m slowly rolling down the window, tossing out the keys now…”
“How many are in the vehicle?”
“There are three of us.”
Right about then, I decided it was a good idea to open the back door. If I had known that the deputy in the front had a shotgun aimed at Bill’s head… I wouldn’t have done that…As the door flew open, many things suddenly went through my mind. The first thing, however, was a massive surge of adrenaline, no doubt triggered by the unmistakable sound of a round being chambered into a pump action shotgun. (Adrenaline is some funny stuff, it heightens your awareness to the point that everything seems to be happening in slow motion, everything except brain activity, which goes into warp drive, processing information about six thousand times faster than normal – kind of like Robin Williams on speed.) Gun! Oh Shit, Shotgun: Remington model 870 Police Special, pump action, 12 gauge, 3” magnum. Target locked on. Impressive display of weapons handling by the officer. Could have taken down Wyatt Earp and the Waco Kid. Do NOT move, repeat, do NOT move. What happened to “Drivers license & registration, please?” If an O ring blows, I die, just like in Scarface: “Say hello to my little friend”. Will they kill Bill, too? Does it hurt to have your head blown off? Why did I open the door? As I’m standing there frozen like a deer in the headlights, the officer yelled, “Close that door right now!” He didn’t have to ask twice. Just as quickly as that door flew open, it was closed. The whole thing took maybe two seconds, but it seemed like forever. The only glimmer of hope for us that I saw was just before the door latched shut, the deputy raised his head from the gun sights ever so slightly and his expression went from I will kill you, to, what in the fuck was that? It wouldn’t have been any clearer it he had said it over the loudspeaker. Something was awry.

As I eased back over to my place on the wheel well and took a seat, I looked at Vaughn and said, “We’ve got a problem.” He just gave me a little “no shit?” look and shook his head. Meanwhile, up in the front, they finally got around to asking Bill for some identification. It was a good thing as Bill was a reserve officer for a law enforcement agency, and he had his badge in his wallet. Things loosened up after that. There was a prison escape that afternoon from the Mayo Correctional Institute and some inmates took off in a 1987 long wheel base cream colored Dodge van. Guess what we were in? You got it. The deputies thought they had the escapees. We thought we were busted. After a little “explanation” about why we were in dive gear. The officers said we had given them a little excitement for the night. We assured them that had given us some, too. After that, they told us to be careful, and then they left. We just sat there for a few minutes composing ourselves, then we headed back north.

With no lights behind us this time, we turned into the park and Bill dropped us off, hid the van and joined us. That water felt so good. We were all about to die from overheating. After cooling off for a few minutes, we made our way through the eel grass to the spring. Slowly swimming down the tunnel we soon reached the balcony and entered the Cube room. The ceiling rises to 85’ in this bell shaped wonder and the bottom is at 290’ directly underneath at the upstream side. Downstream is at 240’ straight across the room some 200 – 250’ away. The walls are snow white and today the water is cobalt blue, we can see the downstream tunnel from the balcony. We drift down, 150’, 200’, 250’ still going, 280’ we level off for a look into the upstream tunnel. Going tunnel as far as we can see, but not for today. We hit the inflators and ascend to 200’ and swim over to the downstream side. Through the restriction at 240’ we entered the second big room for a quick look around. It’s time to go. We turn and head out. At the balcony we stop for one last look. Twenty-five minutes at 280,’ it was a good dive.