We are planning a scooter dive at Manatee in a couple of weeks. What is the best entrance, Manatee or Catfish Hotel?
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Manatee
We are planning a scooter dive at Manatee in a couple of weeks. What is the best entrance, Manatee or Catfish Hotel?
hmmm
I usually enter at catfish and leave any deco bottles there, on return, grab bottles and either deco there and then make the traverse to the main spring or take them with me to the main spring. The flow gets moving a bit more near the opening of the mouth, but I prefer not to have to get out at catfish when there is all the duck weed that gets all over me and my gear on exit from there. Plus the ride out of the main spring is a rush... don't pop to the surface!
-Matt
I've been there when it was physically impossible to enter at the spring. I don't know what kind of scooter you have, but it isn't fast enough to pull you in.
Enter at Catfish
You can exit there also. There is a shower located at the right side of the steps to Catfish where you can de-weed. But should you choose to exit into the Manatee Spring it is a rush. Once you're in the grip of the discharge into Manatee, there is no turning back and you go from about 45' to 22' in only a few seconds. Controlling a DPV at that point might be probable?
'You can say what you want about the South, but I ain't never heard of anyone wanting to retire to the North'
Deweed? Nah. When you get near the surface underneath the stairs at catfish purge your regulator until there is a large clear area to surface and get out of the water. That's what the safety reserve 1/3rd is for.
Have you ever been in Manatee? From the question, sounds as though you have not. It is hard enough to see (learn) this cave cave swimming, much less on a scooter. It is big, very dark, and usually poor visibilty. If you have not, I would think diving without scootering first there would be encouraged.
Why would anyone want to scooter a cave they have no familiarity with? I guess for some people just zooming up a line and back is their idea of cave diving.
Scooters can, when properly used, be a valuable exploration tool. Unfortunately, since about the late 80's and early 90's have been very misused.
Scooters in large part any more, simply level the playing field for divers lacking skill and ability. Allowing them to go farther than they probably should.
Kevin is absolutely right. I can't believe I let that slip by me.
Manatee is not the cave to scooter where you haven't swam. Not that any cave is, but especially not Manatee.
There are times I will use a scooter on a high-flow cave I am new to, but it is usually to avoid gasping for breath and not to get anywhere fast. I set it low (or high enough to make forward progress at about a swimming rate) and sight see... having the scooter allows me to check out both sides of the passage going in and out, get up into domes, and peak into the corners. I probably cover a lot more cave but don't go in further than if I focused on swimming into a heavy current ; )Originally Posted by Kevin Gonzalez
Just an FYI...Scooters are not allowed in the head spring. Learned that the hard way. Obviously Friedman is a good entrance.
Really? We saw someone with one of those silly yellow snorkeling scooters in the basin of the headspring yesterday, I guess whoever was playing with it was not aware of the rules....if any.
On a different tack, does anyone have a decent map of Manatee? Everything I have seen so far is not really that great and NSS-CDS does not seem to have anything about Manatee...
Dive safe,
Celia
"Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others."
...Buddha
''Life's tough, pilgrim, and it’s even tougher if you're stupid.''
- John Wayne
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