The Bill McFaden Jr. Story
By Steve Penn Garrard
Bill P. McFaden, Jr. of Tallahassee, Florida, drowned on Sunday afternoon, May 15th, 1988 at Little Dismal Cave System also known as Hammock Sinkhole in Leon County, Florida. This sinkhole is located within the boundaries of the Leon Sinks Geological Area and within the Woodville Karst Plain area in southern and southwestern Leon County, Florida, United States. It is a mature karstic area on the Upper Floridian
Aquifer. It is one of the most extensive underwater cave systems in the world and connects to Wakulla Springs.. Bill was certified full cave through the National Association for Cave Diving (NACD) and the National Speleological Society – Cave Diving Section (NSS-CDS) during the summer of 1987 by me beginning with a cavern diving course and working his way up to full cave diver. Bill’s enthusiasm and love for cave diving were a growing desire ever since he made a cave dive from Peacock Spring I to Pothole Sink during the early 1970’s as an open water diver. That was a common and popular practice during the 1960’s and 1970’s for open water divers to dive that traverse. Several times such endeavors failed as there were many drowning accidents during those years.
Whenever someone brought up cave diving or caves in general McFaden’s eyes would “light up” and a broad smile emerged expressing his devotion. He was a career licensed land surveyor for Nobles Consulting Group, Inc. (NCG). Bill’s ultimate talent not only existed with his hard, sincere work.........................................
CDS, Bill was chairman of the NACD’s Exploration and Survey Committee and past President of the Florida State University Cave Club. Bill provided extensive exploration and surveying of the Climax Cave System located near Cairo, Georgia. Bill also served as #1 support cave diver for the Sullivan Sink Connection for the Woodville Karst Plains Project and was always there to help despite nasty, cold, rainy weather. He produced a Type 2 unpublished map of the connection and had just begun the survey work for the Hole in the Wall cave system in Jackson County, Florida.