question concerning Manatee

[Xaryo]

I have heard that the number of teams diving at the same time in Manatee is limited, for example "no more than 6 teams inside", and you have to wait for a team to exit if you wish to enter in the case that number is reached.

It is correct or I am imagining thing?

[lv2dive]

IIRC it's 8 people in Catfish (could be 2 teams of 3 and one of 2, or four teams of 2), plus 4 people in Friedman. They also allow up something like 30 OW divers in the Catfish basin. At one point, I had heard they weren't enforcing but they have been, the past two times I've been there. We got there well before 8am last Saturday to ensure we would be able to get in.

[mer]

8 Catfish, 4 Friedman - cave and cavern combined at one time, no daily max however. It's not just divers in the water, if maxed out they won't let another overhead diver in until cards are picked up.
35 OW divers max per day. The overhead and OW numbers are completely separate.

Or so says the white board in the ranger station.

[gasdiver]

Who came up with these rules and why?

[FW]

Who came up with these rules and why?

There is an article about that, in one of the earliest issues of UWS. I will try to find it, and post the text here.

[SkimFisher]

When I was there last month the front desk couldn't explain it, and it sounded like they didn't quite understand it.

[aquadog196]

When I was there last month the front desk couldn't explain it, and it sounded like they didn't quite understand it.

.....and it can depend on who is at the desk as to whether the 4 person limit in Friedman is a per day limit or at any one time limit.

[FW]

There is an article about that, in one of the earliest issues of UWS. I will try to find it, and post the text here.

I found the article. It doesn't cover the carrying capacities, but it is interesting, since things have changed a lot since then. At the time of the article, the rangers inspected each divers gear.

Diving Regulations

Thanks to the efforts of the Florida Skin Divers Association and the National Association for Cave Diving, cave diving is permitted in Manatee Springs State Park. There are, however, certain minimal regulations which are rigidly enforced by the park rangers to help prevent the possibility of accidents. These include:
1. All divers must leave their certification cards with park authorities while making a cave dive.
2. Dives must be made in designated areas only (normally just Manatee Springs and Catfish Hotel unless special permission is obtained).
3. A dive group must consist of two or three divers.
4. There will be no more than three dive groups in the spring at any given time.
5. All divers must have a tank pressure gauge (sea view).
6. Each diver must have 1200 psi minimum.
7. Each diver must have one light and one knife.
8. There must be at least one watch and one depth gauge per dive group.
9. Use of safety line is strongly advised, but not required (there are perma-
nent guidelines in the cave).

[DiveRoy1]

Forrest, we dove Manatee today and we were the last team to be allowed in until another team checked out. There were 6 teams in with a total of 12 cave divers at Catfish. We were a team of 3 and checked in diving from Friedman. Talking to the Rangers, they are expecting to be limiting teams this weekend due to other systems being closed. That said, swimming upstream is the easiest I've seen it in 6 years. The visibility during the one plus hour dive was wall to wall and we could see the surface light shining into Sue sink from a 80 feet away. The bottom of the system under Sue was lite up unlike anything I've seen in the past. My suggestion is try to see Manatee soon before conditions change. Get there early if you go this weekend and stay away on Wed.as I am headed back to take advantage of these conditions.

As a side note for anyone using Friedman sink as their entry point. Bring multiple cans of the strongest bug spray you can buy! The bugs we met today must not have eaten since birth and numbered in the thousands. There were so many and they were so large that had they been trainable they could have airlifted my doubles to the entry point. Seriously, no bug spray and you may need a transfusion.

Roy

[lv2dive]

Forrest, we dove Manatee today and we were the last team to be allowed in until another team checked out. There were 6 teams in with a total of 12 cave divers at Catfish. We were a team of 3 and checked in diving from Friedman. Talking to the Rangers, they are expecting to be limiting teams this weekend due to other systems being closed. That said, swimming upstream is the easiest I've seen it in 6 years. The visibility during the one plus hour dive was wall to wall and we could see the surface light shining into Sue sink from a 80 feet away. The bottom of the system under Sue was lite up unlike anything I've seen in the past. My suggestion is try to see Manatee soon before conditions change. Get there early if you go this weekend and stay away on Wed.as I am headed back to take advantage of these conditions.

As a side note for anyone using Friedman sink as their entry point. Bring multiple cans of the strongest bug spray you can buy! The bugs we met today must not have eaten since birth and numbered in the thousands. There were so many and they were so large that had they been trainable they could have airlifted my doubles to the entry point. Seriously, no bug spray and you may need a transfusion.

Roy

Just to elaborate on our experience - it is VERY dependent on the ranger... there has been one day in the past month we ended up at Friedman because there were 3 teams totaling 8 divers ahead of us at Catfish. And I concur re: bugspray and would suggest multiple tick checks - at minimum, one immediately following the dive and another as soon as you get home. I believe we pulled at least 20 off of 2 of us.