Have you been to King Spring at Crystal River, or done the Rainbow River dive? You could easily drive there in the morning and do both. During the winter, I bet the manatees would love to play with a diver who doesn't make scary bubbles.
why don't you just take a cavern course?
Originally Posted by Art Greenberg
Its on their website: http://www.devilsden.com/Information.html
Possibly later. Might even go for full cave, in time. In the meantime, we want to dive locally.
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Art
The manatees I ran into at Ginnie a few years back seemed fascinated with me (on a CCR). They were bumping into me, putting their nose literally right up against my mask. I think they were seeing their reflection in the lens. They were letting me scratch their belly. It was a pretty cool experience.
It's bad luck to be superstitious.
Art, the best sites that are closest to you will be Troy Spring and Orange Grove sink (part of Peacock Springs SP). They both have pretty significant OW areas (compared to many of the other sites) and only cost $4 per person or you can get an annual pass for $120 (15 trips and it's paid for). Blue Grotto also has a pretty significant OW area but you will pay $40 entrance fee. Paradise Springs, IMO, is not suitable for OW dives. The OW area is very small and then you get into a tube that drops down to over 100' deep. It can be extremely silty. Even though you and Tina have the skills to go through there cleanly, it's still an overhead that can silt out easily. There's also Alexander Spring, for variety, but there isn't much to the basin, there. It would be a day trip to relax and do 2 easy, shallow dives.
Rob Neto
Chipola Divers, LLC
Check out my new book - Sidemount Diving - An Almost Comprehensive Guide
"Survival depends on being able to suppress anxiety and replace it with calm, clear, quick and correct reasoning..." -Sheck Exley
Thanks Rob.
The entrance fee at Blue Grotto is high, but it compares very favorably with the charter fee on NJ dive boats. Its reasonably close by and we've been there for training so we have some familiarity with it, so we'll definitely be going there a couple of times this summer. But it will be necessary to dive other places, too. Before we moved we never spent an entire season diving Dutch Springs, and we're not going to fall into that kind of pattern here, either, if its at all avoidable.
Diving with manatees sounds like it could be fun.
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Art
I agree with RN to a degree. Although I don't know that I would describe Paradise as a "tube". The smallest part of Paradise Springs is the opening at the surface. The cavern is every bit as big as Blue Grotto, and has considerably more room at the deeper portions. Blue Grotto is EXTREMELY silty, but they put a lot of emphasis on staying out of the silty lower sections, and even have a tour rope that you are supposed to follow. I have dived Blue Grotto twice in 2 years, and consider it one too many times. It is worth doing once. I have been back to Paradise Springs three times in the last year. I really enjoy that place, as long as you have vis. I pretty much only dive Paradise on the week days. I had a buddy the dived there when vis was shot, came back thinking the entire system was a 10' bore hole all the way down to the sign.
I just got off the phone with Rowena at Devil's Den and confirmed no rebreathers. She said "they don't want people staying down that long". Problem is the owners are not divers. Their concern is people staying out of the super silty cave sections. Even with the cave barred off, they have had one death that I know of from someone getting past and exploring. Paradise had one too. Both were not cave trained, in the cave sections. They also wouldn't have liked the single tank side mount dive I did, but it wasn't against the rules per se.
Honestly, If you are interested in caverns or caves at all, just do the cavern course. It opens up a lot of places that are really cool. I wish I would have been able to do it 10 years ago.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." --JFK
IMHO , some overhead environment training as well as some advanced nitrox/deco procedures training if you don't already have that should be in your plans for the near future. It seems to me that a rebreather can easily give you enough rope to hang yourself and the emergency procedures taught in such classes could help you and your wife from becoming statistics. Not trying to worry you, just some food for thought.
If you are up for the adventure, beuford springs is an awesome cavern dive.
no one in their right mind would back a breather out to beauford
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