I dove it yesterday. We got to the gate at 7am to get in line. The flow did not feel like it was down and the vis was pretty milky. Maybe 35' in the front of the cave.
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I dove it yesterday. We got to the gate at 7am to get in line. The flow did not feel like it was down and the vis was pretty milky. Maybe 35' in the front of the cave.
I would be in favor of an online reservation system... place a $200 deposit... if you show up for your day of diving, money refunded and you pay normal park fees. If you are a no-show, you loose $200. At least this way if the system is getting popular during a time of year you could check on line to see if the spots are all taken up prior to making the trip.Originally Posted by Kelly Jessop
Another idea... no limits on divers. Works well at other state parks... not sure why Manatee has limitations. Is it based on ecosystem damage or other factors? I'm sure this has been discussed previously, still bitter about my windshield time yesterday.
Manatee
A couple of points...
One major problem is that UF did their rescue training there yesterday morning. On days that they show up they come in a big wave, all hit the water for about an hour or two, then they are gone. They used up the daily capacity and nobody (open water) can dive again that day so the springs sit empty.
A rolling capacity "at any one time" would make more sense rather than daily.
and now for something completely different:
On the conditions reports, people don't take into account that Manatee is tidally influenced. The flow and vis there changes throughout the day, so if someone goes on Saturday at the right time and gets low flow and great vis, the next day someone shows up at the wrong time and gets high flow and crap vis.
I *suspect* the best time to dive it is probably a half hour to an hour after high slack tide but I have no data to base that on other than what I observed one day when I dove early in the am and late in the afternoon. I think a GREAT project for some aspiring grad student might be to correlate tide data with flow rate there on an hourly gradient. Is there hourly flow rate data available or would that take new sensors being installed?
My wife is a grad student at this lab https://www.gareylab.com/ at USF. They are doing tons of research trying to connect our caves/aquifer system using phylogentics (crazy DNA stuff) of microbes. They currently focus on the springs all around tampa bay because it's easiest for them to get to. Over time the research will move further and further out. They already have quite a bit of understanfing of tidal influences on caves such as Manatee. I think it's just more shared within their community of science. I personally want to know what the exact best time to dive Manatee is as well, but I haven't gotten that info either.
I'm don't think they get a lot of divers during the week. I have shown up there around 1pm on a wk day and got in with no problem.
It's too bad the UF people tie the whole capacity for the day for something they could probably do at Fanning. ...assuming that's clear at this point.
The "epic" dive we did about 4-5 years ago was during high flood state and we dove at high tide... we entered the water about 30 minutes before high tide and had one of the most peaceful and beautiful swims to about 300' past friedman's (entered at catfish). Nearly zero flow, 80' viz. On the swim back we noticed the flow start to pickup (probably 1 hour into the dive) and after lunch we went in for a second dive and the flow had massively increased and viz dropped. On that swim we only made it about 500' into the system before turning the dive... it was a lot of work!
Lesson: always dive Manatee based on high tide if possible... split your total estimated dive time and enter before high tide. (ex: planning a 2 hour dive, enter 1 hour before high tide) Unfortunately the tide gods are not always on your side. I believe high tide this weekend was at 3am and 4pm (roughly) which neither were very conducive to making a dive during regular park hours. Even with scooters, high tide is best as you will get better viz.
Manatee did change the carrying capacity so open water and cave divers don't count together. This past weekend was unique because Ginnie was closed and everybody went to Manatee so they hit their limit of divers at the start of the day very quickly. Anybody that was told they were full was asked to wait a short period of time so another team finishing, then they could enter. Realize Peacock has the same limitations, the only difference is unlike having a ranger station to check in, they have parking spaces, and when someone leaves, that parking spaces opens up, and now you can enter. Manatee has been real diver proactive and has made the separate carrying capacities so a bus load full of open water divers wouldn't prevent cave divers from entering. This was unique weekend because other sites were closed.
"Not all change is improvement...but all improvement is change" Donald Berwick
This could easily be done using the data on the Suwannee River Water Management District web page. Check out their data portal. Manatee has a whole suite of continuous data.
Jason Gulley
Wow, just looking at the last three days (I need to check this again to make sure I'm reading it right) but it appears the highest discharge is at high tide and the low discharges are at low tide.
That's exactly the opposite of what I would have expected.
I need to look at this further.
Under normal conditions, when the gage height is hovering around 1-2 ft, tidal fluctuations affect discharge (flow) as much as 20-25%. However, under high water conditions, like now, the tidal fluctuations appear to have very little, if any, influence on discharge.
I dove Manatee back into the Spring Tunnel on Sunday and despite the high water conditions the flow is back to normal for Manatee, which is much stronger than it was earlier in the summer. This shows that the Summer rains have charged the aquifer and it has the static head to push back against the rising river waters.
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