Manatee Springs

[jj1987]

From my last dive there 2 weeks or so ago that I had commented on how shocked I was at the flow, the flow/siphon is way down in catfish, but manatee is still very strong. I took a look around the siphon side with no real fear that it was sucking me in, very very tame today (you could notice it, barely, certainly not the system that I decided to avoid 2 weeks ago).

All in all 3 very good dives. For some reason the manatee side intrigues me more than the catfish side, but it makes a turn really fast and kills the cavern zone, I'm going to revisit the site after my intro class.

Viz was average for this system, maybe 100ft, but my light was killed by dark walls and floating debree, so at times it didn't seem like it.

We had a "dive master" ask my dad and I to dive with us in the parking lot, proclaiming he had several cave dives, but didn't see the need for a even a cavern class due to his experience. I told him I didn't feel comfortable diving with him without at least a cavern card (since we were doing a cavern dive), but he seemed to think I was being rude. I finally had to blame the park's light policy to get him to leave me alone and let me finish gearing up, I'm not sure where some people go about missing the basic healthy fear of a cave. Hate using that reason, because it makes the state parks sound like the bad guys, but that's the best idea I could think of.

For the last dive I had a board member recognize me from some pics I had posted and join me on a short dive over in catfish, always nice to meet new dive buddies.

[Line Squirrel]

Viz was average for this system, maybe 100ft, but my light was killed by dark walls and floating debree, so at times it didn't seem like it.

Glad you enjoyed your dives.

100ft is nowhere near average for Manatee. If it truly was anywhere near 100ft consider yourself lucky to have experienced some of the best vis that system has seen in years.

[cavemark]

We swam 1000' upstream from Friedman (Full Cave and previous experience required) on Friday. Vis was about 40'-50'. Flow was high where constricted, but manageable if you know where to swim.

I would avoid swimming into the siphon side after Intro unless you first enter at the main spring and swim up to catfish on your allowable sixths. Intro will not prepare you for a siphon, especially with relatively few dives in your new drysuit. I got flipped over in the Ear at Ginnie during Intro in a wetsuit and the flow is stronger at the Manatee main spring.

Have fun in Intro, you will be mentally exhausted at the end of the day (we did three dives each day). I hope your instructor treats you to lunch like ours did every day of class. He cooked us lunch at the dive sites, including salads and drinks, while going over material and while we took our written test. Our last day of Full cave we had T-Bone steaks!

What type of Engineering are you studying? I have my Civil P.E..

[BgDadddy]

Lol... You must have had the same intro instructor that I did. Carried his little propane grill in his truck every day and cooked us lunch.

Between that and his numerous jokes throught the whole class, (as well as being an awesome instructor) my intro class was great!

[stairman]

sounds like Birdman to me.

[FW]

We had a "dive master" ask my dad and I to dive with us in the parking lot, proclaiming he had several cave dives, but didn't see the need for a even a cavern class due to his experience.

The accident analysis is full of this type of diver
You did the right thing! How did he get in the park solo anyway?

[jj1987]

The accident analysis is full of this type of diver
You did the right thing! How did he get in the park solo anyway?

He got into the park as a non diver, and wanted us to go to the ranger station and check him in as a diver. It amuses me that he stated his experience as a reason to let him dive with us. If 1 in every 500 cave dives completed by OW divers results in a diver death, his chances are 20% up, and his odds are looking worse and worse each dive.

100ft is nowhere near average for Manatee. If it truly was anywhere near 100ft consider yourself lucky to have experienced some of the best vis that system has seen in years.

Might have been less I guess.....it's very hard to judge because of how that cavern eats light, maybe I'm crazy here but it seems there were times that my light limited viz because of all the random crap in the water that reflected it. I'm pretty sure I was correct on saying vis was "average", the 100ft would have been off however.

sounds like Birdman to me.

Who's that?

[Line Squirrel]

I'm not sure where some people go about missing the basic healthy fear of a cave.

As usual with these types, they just flat out don't understand the risk they are taking. They also think much more highly of their skill set than they should.

[Rich]

Who's that?

James, he's talking about Bill "Bird" Oestreich who runs Birds Underwater in Crystal River. He's an all around great guy and can pretty much teach anything, rebreather, cave etc. Hope this helps...

Safe diving,

Rich

P.S. He also has a great sense of humor, as an example scroll down the page to look at his photo on the NACD instructor page.... http://www.safecavediving.com/instructors.asp

[zlyrack]

Haha... Now that's funny!