The Community Paper

Snaps from the Past: The ‘Mystery Sink’ of College Park



ORANGE.WATERATLAS.ORG Emerald Springs Basin overview

ORANGE.WATERATLAS.ORG Emerald Springs Basin overview

With over 700 natural springs fed from Florida’s aquifer, our underground water system maybe the largest on Earth. Bubbling up in forest floors as river rises or a single spring, or perhaps as a sink, water courses under us in the limestone foundation on which we all live. From our springs flow the cleanest, purest water in the world, and it offers underwater views that are breathtaking. But until the 1940s, Florida’s underground caves within our aquifer were a virtually unexplored and mysterious phenomena.

It was Jacques Cousteau who opened the door to diving when in 1942 he coinvented a demand valve system, known as Aqua-Lung, that would supply divers with compressed air when they breathed. Florida’s underground system of porous limestone caverns has been thrilling divers ever since.

Evidence of human beings, along with mastodons, has been discovered in Florida’s underground honeycombed cave system, which at some point during the Ice Age was above water. Such discoveries, coupled with pure adventure-seeking, makes cave diving in Florida an extreme sport for professionally trained divers. Many of the beautiful caves in the aquifer are accessible only by way of another of Florida’s most surreal phenomena: sinkholes.

Orlando Evening Star, 22 August 1970, cover photo by Ray Powell for “Sinkhole Remains Mystery.” NEWSPAPERS.COM

Orlando Evening Star, 22 August 1970, cover photo by Ray Powell for “Sinkhole Remains Mystery.” NEWSPAPERS.COM

The very idea of a sinkhole opening in the ground and swallowing your home, or even yourself, is a strange reality that Floridians accept as a calculated risk. Not likely — but something akin to living with alligators, quicksand, sharks and snakes — sinkholes are the stuff of nightmares. Or adventures, if you’re into extreme sports like cave diving.

Our area’s most famous sinkhole opened in May 1981 along Denning Drive at the corner of Fairbanks Avenue in Winter Park. Today Rose Lake covers the sinkhole, and most people just drive by without recalling the national attention it drew when it swallowed Mae Rose Williams’ home (for whom Lake Rose was named), two Porsches (three others were hauled out by crane) and part of the city’s swimming pool.

Many do not realize Orange, Marion, and Lake counties lie in what is dubbed Sinkhole Alley, which certainly lives up to its name. Just last year, after Hurricane Irma, at least 400 sinkholes opened according to University of Florida’s emeritus professor of geology, Dr. Anthony Randozzo (1).

Hidden in College Park’s Biltmore Shores neighborhood is a lesser known but equally infamous hole, the Mystery Sink, which also lies near Fairbanks Avenue. A January 1922 article in the Orlando Morning Sentinel, tells us Mystery Sink, also called Emerald Springs, was first known as “the sink” and “the bottomless pit” (2).

The U.S. Department of Interior performed a geological study of this sink in 1959, and in 1966 the U.S. Navy sonar research department did another study. Documented as the deepest known body of water in the state of Florida, it has been estimated the depths reach 500 feet and beyond.

At one time, the sink was promoted as a roadside attraction, but today it sits within private property. In 1970 the hole was closed to the public after dual tragedies.

Hal Watts, Orlando’s famous scuba instructor and founder of the Professional Scuba Association, had leased the sink to use for training divers and instructors. On August 13, 1970, Watts, along with 16-year-old Fred Schmidt, a certified diver, dove into the Mystery Sink to recover an expensive diving jacket that had been left during a previous dive. Watts resurfaced alone after losing Schmidt to the depths.

Two recovery divers descended to 375 feet but were unable to find Schmidt. Underwater cameras were sent down but revealed nothing. Two days later, Watts, along with three other divers, attempted again to find Schmidt, but tragedy struck once more when Wythe “Bud” Sims lost his life to the sink too.

Neither Schmidt’s nor Sims’ bodies were ever recovered.

Watts’ attempt to save Sims nearly cost him his life as well when he developed the bends, decompression sickness, from ascending too quickly; Watts had to be taken to NASA Space Center at Cape Canaveral to undergo decompression treatment.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau once said, “From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free” (3). And, diving, though dangerous, allows those brave enough a chance to be free in a mysterious sink, revealing the underworld on which we live every day.

___

Sources: (1) clickorlando.com/news/orlandoocala living-up-to-sinkhole-alleyname as-geologists-brace-for-more (2) newspapers.com/clip/18561835/ mystery_ sink_ 1922/ (3) www2.padi.com/blog/2014/01/27/ jacques-cousteau-the-father-of-scubadiving/

One response to “Snaps from the Past: The ‘Mystery Sink’ of College Park”

  1. John Huckeba says:

    I was one of the divers on the attempted recoveries. Stabilized or got neutral buoyancy at 220 ft. Never found either of them. No want much deeper but I realize my limits and stopped at 200 ft. Took me another 20 ft to stop the decent. It was reported that Fred had a heart condition it might have contributed to his demise but will never know. For a long time Hal how’s the world record for descent using just compressed air. I’m sure it’s been broken by now.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *