Cave Diver's Forum List of the Best Cavern Dives

If you have any information about a cavern dive site, please email us the information so we can add it here. Thank you! Caverns@Cavediver.net

International Cavern Dives

Mexico

USA

Florida

Two great resourses for information on Florida caves and cavern are:
A book called "Diving Guide To Underwater Florida, 10th Edition" by Ned Deloach - available in many Florida shops or online at Amazon.com.
User Comments: "Good reference for identifying potential dive sites both in the ocean and springs/sinks. It even gives you driving/boating directions to many of these sites, entrance fees where applicable, and whether or not it's open for diving."

The website Floridacaves.com - this site has directions, descriptions, photos, and maps of many diving sites.

40 Fathom Grotto: Ocala,FL
This is a deep site, with platforms at various depths.

Blue Grotto: Williston, FL (~$25 entrance)
Big cavern with a line run already. The owners let in open water divers.
DiveLog Comments: "A large, open cavern that ends in a smaller passageway in the back - loops around breakdown back to the main cavern."

Blue Spring: Orange City, FL
The overhead area starts at the sign at about 75'. The overhead can be easily penetrated into the cave zone to a depth of about 120'.

Cow Spring: Luraville,FL
There is a small cavern in several directions (downstream is the largest), none are more than 50' distance- but pretty.
DiveLog Comments: "This is a small opening in a spring system. Water enters from one side & exits thru another side, touching the surface on it's way. There were two large fissures on the rock that I played in, looked out from. The open water area was pretty full of trees etc."

Crystal River - Kings Bay: Crystal River, FL
At Kings Bay spring there is a 40+ depth small cavern. Visibility the past many years has been poor due to pollution, but still this site is very popular because of the winter manatee population that hangs out by the spring.

Cypress Springs: Vernon, FL
Relatively large spring basin with depths of about 25 feet deep. Aa small opening can be penetrated to a depth of 75 feet.

Devil's Den: Williston, FL (~$25 entrance)
There is an air filled cave with water at the bottom. To dive you must climb down stairs to a platform at the water level. There is a hole in the ceiling where there was a cave in at some point, which lets in light. The owners let in open water divers.
DiveLog Comments: "The entrance is underground, in the air-filled cavern. It is quite magnificent. We dropped to the bottom & followed the perimeter of the cavern. We passed through several "swim-through's" and looked into several grated-off cave areas. It was not a beautiful dive, but is was fun."

Ginnie Springs: High Springs, FL (~$25 entrance)
There is a small cavern at the eye, and another area at the ear that I enjoyed, and the ballroom is cavern. (The owners let in open water divers in Ginnie ballroom)
DiveLog Comments: "The ballroom is beautiful - shine the light at the ceiling & the while room sparkles like a chandelier."

Hudson Grotto: Hudson, FL
(~$20 entrance)
This is a large sinkhole. Visibility can fluctuate with the algae bloom and tanic water, the bottom flattens out around 100 - 110 feet

Jackson Blue: Marianna, FL
On the Merrit's Mill Pond. There is a huge cavern at this site, but the sheriff's office controls access and does not allow cavern divers. (Listed for the sake of completeness)

Little River: Branford, FL
The first area is a steep slope down, at ~60' there is a hard left. Before the hard left at 60' is the cavern.
DiveLog Comments: "The cavern goes down to about 50' then the passage turns left & the cave system starts. This is an interesting spring - it is not so much a "cave in" as a passage carved through stone at a steep angle. Floor ceiling walls - all stone. High flow - it kept trying to blow us out of it. It was beautiful, if not large."

Madison Blue Springs: Madison, FL (~$6 entrance)
There is a large cavern, but the vis is usually only 20' - 30'. There is a line run along one wall inside the cavern.

Manatee Springs State Park: Chiefland, FL
There are diveable caverns inside the main spring and at Catfish Hotel. The vis at catfish can get bad if there are many classes. There is more cavern at Catfish than Manatee.

Morrison Springs: Ponce de Leon, FL
This large basin has three main vent openings, with two caverns to dive. The first cave entrance begins at 30 feet and the other begins at 50 feet - to depths of 90+ feet in the caves.

Paradise Springs: Ocala, FL
A big sinkhole that is mostly cavern, goes down to 100ft and has some artifacts embedded in the walls.

Rainbow River: Dunnellon, FL

Royal Spring: O’Brien, FL
There is a medium open water area. The entrance to the cavern is very large with lots of space. Easy to stir up, but it is just about your textbook cavern.
DiveLog Comments: "There is an overhang & cave entrance at one side, low flow. There are lots of fish that feed off the sand at the bottom of the sink. The basin is appx 40' across & 30' deep."

Peacock State Park: Luraville, FL
Peacock 1 has a great cavern, there is room to stretch your legs.
Orange Grove is another large cavern, but runs deeper than Peacock.
Peacock III cavern is pretty large but sometimes suffers from bad vis and you really need to be good with buoyancy there (although it's large) as you can blow it up easily (it is also a slight siphon).
DiveLog Comments P1: "Cavern was really nice. There is a large room that goes left to a larger room & continues on. We stopped at the main line. There is also a passage to the right, we looked down it."

Telford: Luraville, FL
This is an advanced cavern dive. There is a spring entrance, and two other sinks that the cave passes by or under.

Twin Cave: Marianna, FL
On the Merrit's Mill Pond. The cavern at this site is very advanced, but shallow. There is a lot of fine silt, and the entrance is just large enough for two dives if the sand build-up has been removed lately. The sheriff's office controls access and may not allow cavern divers. Contact them (Jackson County Sherif's Office for info on access. (Listed for the sake of completeness)

Vortex Spring: Ponce de Leon, FL

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