Jacob's Well - Wimberley, Texas 

The Jacob's Well Project is an on-going study, archeological excavation, and preservation project of an underwater cave located on the Trinity Aquifer in Wimberley, Texas.  The team is currently working on a detailed virtual computer map, an underwater video, documenting cave species, and excavating gravel and debris that has washed in over the many years of flooding.  To learn more or schedule a presentation on Jacob's Well, click here.

Photographs of Jacob's Well - By SMART Divers
Click here for Photos.  See a video of this recovery operation

Diving in Jacob's Well - By Dan Misiaszek

The San Marcos Area Recovery Team (SMART) is a non-profit organization made up of primarily police officers, firefighters and paramedics.   We have been diving in Jacob's Well since 1995 and originally asked permission from the property owners to dive in the cave in the event the team needed to do a recovery operation.  Our cave divers are certified through the National Speleological Society Cave Diving Sections NSS-CDS, The National Association of Cave Divers NACD, and the International Association of Nitox and Technical Divers IANTD.  The team has a strict cave diving policy.  We wanted to know the layout of the cave, restrictions, hazards, etc, before we had to enter for a possible recovery operation.  We were granted this permission and gave one of the property owners a video tape recording of the dive.  This was the first time any of the land owners had seen the inside of the cave and they were very pleased.  This began a long positive relationship with the land owners that continues to this day.     
  

One of the land owners formed the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association and brought in biologists, hydrologists, chemist, landscapers, US Fish and Wildlife, Parks and Wildlife, environmental protection agencies, along with numerous other  individuals to study and protect the cave.  We were routinely gathering water samples for analysis at Southwest Texas State University at the Edwards Underground Aquifer research center.  The WVWA asked SMART to continue getting water samples, map the cave, produce some more informational videos, and answer an important question - Is Jacob's Well part of the Trinity Aquifer or part of Edwards?  To prove or disprove this, the biologist wanted pictures of some of the species in the well and wanted to see if there were blind salamanders or San Marcos salamanders present.  If there were, the cave would undoubtedly be tied to the Edwards Aquifer, the only know place where these species exist.    

During the "big" South Texas flood of 1998, much of the gravel was blown out of the cave or pushed aside making the previously impassable restrictions passable even without side mounted scuba gear.  The team  extracted tons of gravel with an air lift, most of the gravel extracted was blown out into the second chamber by flood waters, and the team it sucked out with the air lift before it could slide down into the third chamber.  Originally we thought the gravel was dropped in from the top during the flood, but later learned the gravel was blown out of lower chambers during the flood.  We had no reason to penetrate any further until the WVWA association asked for our help in their study and the search for endangered species.  We knew for a long time that the fourth chamber was penetrable but did not see the need until this study.      

For the sake of this report, we are calling the first chamber the main shaft that drops straight down for 25 feet, tapers off to 30 feet then stair steps down to 55 feet.  The 55 foot level is the beginning of the second chamber and goes underneath the false chimney.  The second chamber is similar a long funnel that brings us to the first restriction at 80 feet, the entrance into the third chamber.  This restriction is minor and you can pass through without even touching the side walls, but you will still scrape the bottom gravel slightly.  An occasional scuba tank bang on the ceiling is heard.   The third chamber is a small room with a gravel floor.  The floor is unstable moving gravel that should be avoided all cost and the room is about the size of an average small apartment bathroom, with a tall ceiling.  At the end of the third chamber and still in line with the second chamber is a long tunnel with larger rocks.  This is a tight restriction where we had to deflate your wings (buoyancy control device) to get through, but still passable without gear removal.    About 15 feet down this tunnel is the tightest restriction.  The ceiling has a "knife edge" type formation from left to right and fine gravel below it.    This is the tightest restriction in the cave and the cause for most concern.  Immediately after this "knife edge" formation, the cave opens up both in height and width.  This leads into the beautiful 4th chamber and all gravel stops.  The limestone karsts formations are fantastic however a fine silt and clay now cover the bottom.  

For those certified cave divers reading this report, I compare the 4th chamber at Jacob's well to the first few hundred feet of Madison Blue springs in Florida..    On October 10th Kathy Misiaszek, Jim Price, and I  entered the cave with the plan to penetrate into the 4th chamber.  We have all dove the cave before, planned extensively, and had a well trained topside team.   We had already placed a permanent line down to the bottom of the 3rd chamber on previous dives and this time took the reel into the 4th.  After passing through the restrictions without incident, I began to video tape (Hi-8mm) the 4th chamber.  This is a large wide room with about a 12 foot ceiling height (after leaving the tunnel) with a large key shaped hole in the floor.  The last restriction was at 102 feet and this large room was now a beautiful site.  We inflated our wings and hovered over the black hole in the floor.  As I video taped, I first noticed one femur bone, then a second, and as I descended into the key hole shaped tunnel, I could see a heavily corroded scuba tank and wetsuit.  It was obvious we had stumbled upon some human remains.  The beginning of the bones were in 113 feet of water and were spread out over 15 feet of the bottom at a slanted angle going down into the keyhole tunnel at a depth of 130 feet.   At the bottom of the tunnel lay the corroded scuba tank with an attached regular and visible hoses.  The tank was still attached to a shorty "beaver tail" style wet suit with weight belt.  We were pleased to see that the cave continues on well past the 4th chamber.  

We left our reel tied up to a limestone formation near the first femur bone found.   We thought it was a possibility that we might find remains and had already planned for such an event.  We had decided that if we did find remains, they would be left untouched and only video taped in following with the general rules of evidence.  This was done and we turned the dive after using less than 1/3 of our air, ascended to the 1st chamber and began our decompression.  We had two support divers in the cavern zone who collected our stage bottles from us and turned on the surface supplied nitrox lines for our decompression.  

As REQUIRED by law upon the discovery of human remains, we notified the Hays County Sheriff's Department of the find and gave them a copy of the video.    Our research on the cave indicated that two drivers, Mark Brashier and Kenneth Maupin were reported missing in Jacob's Well on September 9th, 1979.  They are two of 8 divers known to have died in the underwater cave.  Don Dibble, a local open water diver, was almost killed in a gravel slide attempting to recover the two bodies the following day in 1979.  A gravel slide in the third chamber tapped Dibble 90 feet underwater until safety divers could reach and free him.  Dibble ran out of air and safety divers brought Dibble's lifeless body to the surface .  Dibble survived but suffered barotraumas when his stomach ruptured in the unconscious ascent to the surface as he was brought out.  He spent 10 days recovering in the hospital after abdominal surgery.  Although well meaning at the time in 1979, these sport divers attempting the recovery in Jacob's well were diving with single tanks, open water equipment, and were untrained and not properly equipped for an overhead cave environment.  To properly dive in an overhead environment see CAVE DIVING.  In 1981 during a rain fed rapid flow discharge of the cave, the wetsuit of Mark Brashiers floated to the surface and onto the bank of Cypress Creek.  Upon this discovery, divers re-entered the cave and recovered some bones and a skull that had washed out of the forth chamber tunnel.  The remains were later positively identified through dental records as those of Mark Brashiers.   

Ken Maupin was never found or recovered despite the best effort of local open water divers and a professional dive team from Houston that spent a week removing gravel in an attempt to locate the bodies.   We felt that during the flood of 98, the bones and gear of Maupin must have been ejected out of the well and we were somewhat surprised to find some human remains in the cave.  The local media in San Marcos and Wimberley picked up on the story and it soon became a media frenzy.   One reporter with the Houston Chronicle took it upon himself to locate and notify the Maupin family of the find even though at the time we had not recovered any bones yet nor had a positive identification on the remains.  I had received a total of 64 phone calls in the next two days as indicated on my caller ID readout.  The Maupin family called the next day after hearing some wild rumors and they did not want a recovery made, even if the remains were that of their son Ken Maupin.  They feared that it may result in the death of a recovery diver.     When the Maupin family was convinced that SMART Divers were properly trained in cave diving and overhead environments and this operation was within our capabilities, they said they wished to receive the remains of their son and find closure.  The Hays County Sheriff's Department agreed and asked our team to recover the skeletal remains and dive gear.      

On October 12th the SMART Cave diving team again entered into the cave in an effort to recover the skeletal remains and scuba gear.  The press had invaded the small Wimberley community and Sheriff's Department deputies placed yellow police line tape around an access area to allow the dive team room to operate.  The divers returned safely to the surface with some of the remains after a 108 minute dive.   The media was ever present and looking for remains which we had in a mesh bag and put in a red plastic bag while still underwater and out of view.  The media saw nothing but a well protected red bag being lifted out of the water and delivered to the Hays County Sheriff's Department.   Due to some heavy silt conditions during the dive, we were unable to collect all the remains and dive gear until the following day on a second dive.  The safety of the team is always our first priority and silt out conditions prevented the team from recovering all the remains on a single dive.           

Many thanks to the support divers and topside team which included:  Kye Kennedy, Don White,  Wade Parham, John Moseley, Tammy Moseley for all their support.  A special thanks to Wade for his excellent photography and video coverage of the topside events.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Maupin and Brashier families who suffered this tragedy in 1979 and had the wound opened again with the discovery of the remains on October 10, 2000.  On October 30, the skeletal remains were positively identified as Kent Maupin and the remains were delivered to the Maupin family.  The family held a private memorial service in Pasadena, Texas and put closure to the 21 year ordeal.  Please read our cave diving policy to prevent any further needless deaths in this and other underwater caves.
 
                                                                           Dan Misiaszek

 

© 2004 San Marcos Area Recovery Team