What Conditions for Crystal River?

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Crazy Fingers

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What are the ideal conditions for Crystal River? High Tide or Low tide? is Tides.Info accurate in predicting the tides for King's Bay since it is so far inland? If not, how many hours behind/ahead is the actual tide in the bay?

I'm just so sick of driving 300 miles for 10' viz...

Thanks!
 
Crazy Fingers:
What are the ideal conditions for Crystal River? High Tide or Low tide? is Tides.Info accurate in predicting the tides for King's Bay since it is so far inland? If not, how many hours behind/ahead is the actual tide in the bay?

I'm just so sick of driving 300 miles for 10' viz...

Thanks!
Are you diving the bay or the springs in the bay? AFAIK, its not tidally influenced.
 
I think you get blooms there, don't you?
 
Well, we went. We rented a small john boat from Port Paradise Marina and it was pretty decent for diving. Price was certainly reasonable at $15 for the first hour and $10 for each additional hour, including gas. Split that 4 ways and it's pretty cheap!

First we went to King's Spring. During the swim from the boat to King's Spring, the visibility was 10 - 15 feet. This didn't seem too bad to me, and expected much better once we got to the spring. Boy were we wrong! Vis at the spring was 3 - 5', brown, and snotty! Even flat out gross. We descended and came upon the cavern. At this point I was thinking, "Man, if the vis in there is as bad as it is out here, this thing is a death trap." But we saw a couple other divers with lights (we had none) in there and that indicated the water in there was fairly clear. We went in and it opened up to around 30 or 40 feet of vis, but very, very dark. I could just barely see with the faint light in the cavern, and the opening was brownish orange and glowing. Very halloweenish!

Then we got out and snorkeled with a manatee, which was pretty cool. I like the munching sound they make underwater as they feed. It sounds like a fat man just shoving his face full of lettuce. They don't seem to be afraid of boats, at least at idle. It was difficult to avoid them because vis wasn't perfect, there were so many of them, and they just wouldn't get out of the way. Had to pop it into neutral a few times to save their hides, but thankfully no manatees injured by me. I'm glad to see the area is an idle only zone.

We then motored up to Three Sisters Spring and dove that. Very pretty, but not a whole lot of diving enjoyment. We did find some fossils in one of them. There was a pretty girl in a mermaid costume to oogle underwater too. :eyebrow:

Then we went looking for Magnolia Spring but couldn't find it. After talking to the guy at the marina, it turns out it was under the small bridge we passed. Doh. :11doh:

Headed back home, had some Hardee's Monster Burgers, and averaged 22 mpg in my new truck, the best yet!
 
Glad you had a good time. Viz in King Spring basin varies with the skill of the divers in it, of course.
 
I was under the impression that three sisters was not open to diving. Has that changed?

tony
 
I hadn't heard that. There's certainly nobody there to stop you. Just anchor and walk upstream against the small run and you're there.
 
"The spring is one of several manatee sanctuaries in Crystal River, and access is restricted from November 15-March 31 each year. "

I know on at least one trip in the past my access to the three sisters was denied.

On another I had a spectaculat dive and got my favorite all time u/w photo snorkeling.

tony
 
Ah, it wasn't Nov 15 yet so that's why it was open.

But it sure seems like it would be hard for a manatee to swim up in there!
 
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https://xf2.scubaboard.com/community/forums/cave-diving.45/

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