I look down upon the blue-and-green-tinted waters of Jacob’s Well, the headwaters of Cypress Creek. Even barely full on this spring morning, the storied swimming hole remains enchanting. “See how it changes with the light?” muses Katherine Sturdivant, education coordinator for Jacob’s Well Natural Area.
In the receding shadows, Jacob’s Well reveals itself like an awakening eye. The dark, mirror-like surface transforms into a crystalline stone tunnel. A school of colorful sunfish and a slender Guadalupe bass circle the rim of the pool, “basically trapped in there,” Sturdivant says, due to lack of water flow. I gaze 23 feet to the pebbly edge of the Well’s floor, toward the narrow entrance of the cave that leads into the depths of the Middle Trinity Aquifer.
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