Manatee Springs Conditions

[Serota]

According to their website, Manatee reopens for diving today. If anyone goes, please post a conditions report. Thanks.

[jeandiver]

According to their website, Manatee reopens for diving today. If anyone goes, please post a conditions report. Thanks.

Er , were thinking about sneaking over there tomorrow.
If we do , I'll post a report (SMILE)

Beano

[jdsffa]

We dove Manatee this afternoon. We went in the head spring and in catfish. The vis was about 20ft best, still a lot of tannin in the water. The head spring must have did some major siphoning because a lot of the rocks had moved, the log had slid even further in the opening, and the beginning of the gold line that is on the re-bar is now about a foot under the sand that has been pulled into the system. At catfish the vis was the same a lot of stuff in the water coming back out. Tons of silt and sand everywhere, even on the line. The flow is still down a little ( was able to run and retrieve a line in the head spring no prob) Water is still up about a foot over the bottom stair at catfish at low tide. Good dives all and all if you don't have to have perfect vis.

John

P.S. Drove over to Friedmans, lots of spiders and mosquitoes left a spider stick on the sign for the next person. The water looked like it had some tanic in it as well but Most the time it looks like that. It was higher than I have seen it in a while but we did not get in.

[jeandiver]

Dove this morning/afternoon in Manatee. (05/17)
We went in at Catfish (didn't want to try Friedman's yet).

Vis in Catfish was from 0-10 feet once you got into the cavern. Once I found enought tree's to do tie-offs on , we finally got to the gold line and headed upstream.
The vis improved once we got into the cave. (10-15 feet from Catfish to Sue's)
Didn't see any light coming in at Sue's at all.

From Sue's to about 400 feet from Friedman's (we turned at the 400 foot arrow from Friedman's) the vis varied from 10-25 feet.
It seemed to be improving the closer we got to Friedman's.
There were numerous times I could see the bottom quite easily from 20 feet above it (I was hugging the gold line quite closely , for safety's sake).

Turned around and drifted back downstream (again , no light at Sue's) and picked up our line in Catfish and swung around and did the Downstream Traverse to Manatee. (I had Ed J hold the end of the line in Open Water while I went down and found the downstream line).

Downstream vis was about 10 feet all the way. We used the same (hold the line) once we reached the end of the line in downstream to get to the cavern exit (5-10 foot viz).

Exit was ejection time , as usual.

Vis in the Manatee basin was about 20-25 feet.

Run time 110 minutes.
Approx 15 mins deco.

All in all , the cave seems to be flushing out the tannic water quite nicely. Flow was about medium.

It might take a bit for all of it to come out. Bottom line , the vis got a little better the more we got upstream of Catfish.

Thanks to the two Ed's for a wonderful time and dive today !!! (SMILE)
You guys were fabuloso... (wink)

Jeano Beano

[Ed Jackson]

Yup,

That's how I remember it too.

Jean will dive with anyone...
http://www.cavediver.net/forum/galle...p?i=8753&c=500

[jeandiver]

EEK !!!
NO WONDER the snake went into the water after that... (erp)

Beano

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Brown Water Snake? Its a biggun!

[jeandiver]

Brown Water Snake? Its a biggun!

Didn't look THAT big from my perspective. Maybe Ed used one of those WIERD lenses...
(ya never know with him...)

Beano

[DR2K]

Thanks to Jean and Ed for allowing me to tag along for a great weekend of amazing cave dives.

[Ed Jackson]

Send me your email. I have several pics to send you. Here is one of you at the keyhole.

http://www.cavediver.net/forum/galle...imageuser=1230