Finally Full Cave! Recommendations for best sites in FL for new divers.

[DarkSloss]

Dear All,

I've been diving down in Mexico over the last few years and just finished the Full Cave course with Nando at Protec. What a thrilling experience, especially the longer guided dives at Na Hoch after certification. WOW!!

I'm currently in NYC and looking to dive the FL caves. Thy are more convenient for a long weekend trip, and I hear they are a completely different experience compared to MX.

My question is what are the best cave systems for a newly trained diver looking to practice complex navigation and work with minor restrictions, while avoiding high flow? Also, is there a more optimal season to dive in FL?

Perhaps the best answers are in a book, but that would't help me to become active on this Forum and get to known some of you.

Cheers!

Andrew

[sskasser]

Congratulations and welcome to the forum!

Peacock (Wes Skiles Peacock Springs State Park) would be a good low-flow system to "get your feet wet."

caveatlas.com is a great list of sites.

Dive safe,
Shirley

[whodunit68]

I'm currently in NYC and looking to dive the FL caves. Thy are more convenient for a long weekend trip, and I hear they are a completely different experience compared to MX.

My question is what are the best cave systems for a newly trained diver looking to practice complex navigation and work with minor restrictions, while avoiding high flow? Also, is there a more optimal season to dive in FL?
Andrew

Andrew, welcome. I'm sort of from NJ and go a lot to FL to dive the caves. I'm going this coming weekend to Marianna. As SSKasser suggests, caveatlas is a great site for information about specific systems and general knowledge. It's a great resource.
Agreed that Peacock I (Wes Skiles Peacock Springs State Park) is a good place. Orange Grove (same park) is another entrance to the same system that is good.
If you want to start to have fun with flow, Ginnie Springs is good, Jackson Blue (though the flow I'm hearing is way down here - I'll let you know after this weekend), and Little River are fun, "popular" caves. I'll do Twin Cave and Hole in the Wall, both great systems with low flow.

The caves in Florida, as you probably have heard, are quite different than those in Mexico, as a general rule.
have fun!

[K Mejean]

Congrats!!!!

[Walter Pickel]

Congratulations!

If you look at a specific cave system on CaveAtlas.com, you can click the "nearby systems" tab and see what it in a range. You can also read a bit more about those systems and what recent conditions say.

I hear Jackson Blue is great right now. You can do navigation as well "minor" restriction kind of things.

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Jackson Blue is very low flow right now, makes for a very easy swim dive. I was there on Saturday.

[LCF]

As a Mexican cave diver who occasionally dabbles in Florida, I have enjoyed diving the Mill Pond caves. JB is lovely when the flow is down, and Hole is the prettiest cave I've been in in Florida (although my experience is far from vast).

You do owe it to yourself to try out some caves with more flow in them, just to get the experience. I'm sure you could talk someone on this forum into meeting you at Ginnie for a day of diving (at least, I did). It's an entirely different relationship with the cave from the delicate, elegant diving one is taught in Mexico -- much more up close and personal (and a lot more work!)

Upper Orange Grove was fun, and I liked Madison, too. But be prepared for deeper, darker caves, no decorations, and MUCH nastier silt!

[DarkSloss]

Fantastic! Thank you all for your responses and support. This really seems like a great forum and I'm sure to become more and more active as I get experienced. Even though I've only been back in the states for a week, I'm already craving some zero gravity. Looks like I have a lot of options for my first run.

I actually dived a cave in MX named Xunaan Ha which had a decent amount of flow (quite noticable in the cenote and in entry/exit times). I did circuit training there and had a blast.

Man, is this going to get addictive! Please feel free to PM me if you do guiding at places like Peacock and Jackson Blue.

[John L.]

Andersen

[Sludge]

There's almost no "guiding" in Florida. What a lot of people do is find someone who is very familiar with a system and just buddy up.

PM me if you want to go to Jackson Blue - I go about twice a month.