Florida Springs diving trips

I am a certified diver with about 14 dives so I would say I am a beginner at this point. I live in the Atlanta area & am looking to try and do some dives this summer (May-Aug) in some of the Florida Springs. I have seen Ginnie Springs & Manatee State Park. I'm sure there are PLENTY more to choose from & I'm open to any.

Here is also my situation surrounding the trip; I plan to go with some friends in my area and meet some others from the Miami area. We are planning to just hang out and want to maybe get a cabin at a state park (although camping would work too). I am the only one certified in our group so I was looking to maybe join some outfit in this area that does trips while I'm in the area. Again, I will be solo so I will need to hook up with a group that supplies the trip, others to dive with, and equipment. It will most likely be a weekend trip (Fri-Sun).

While I have initially figured out that Manatee State Park might be a good place since they have camping facilities & is somewhat centrally located for me and my friends to meet, I would still need to maybe find someone who does full diving tours of some kind in this area. I am maybe willing to drive to another location if this isn't a good place. Or any other suggestions on how to approach this?

We are flexible in planning our get together, but I would like to be able to make reservations of some sort since I will be traveling about 6+ hrs to get there.

Man - If you are from Miami - go to the Bahamas or the keys ....

I was in your situation 3 weeks ago. I camped at Manatee springs for a week because it is centrally located to many springs. I dove Rainbow River with Birds Underwater ( a great outfit). They usually have other divers on there boat, in fact they need four to schedule a boat. Although Rainbow River is a been there done that dive, it is very nice and relaxing drift dive ranging from 6 to 20 ft. I really recommend Blue Grotto, but you will need to find a buddy and You should be able to find someone here.

Hebron Hill, I'm in the Atlanta area so I will be heading south. I'm meeting my friends from the Miami area and looking for something in the middle. I wish I lived in the Miami area, but that might prove to be costly on my wallet with so much good diving being close

jhayes75, you mention Birds underwater as a place to go with. Funny you mention that cause it was one I actually found on the internet. I called them after I made this post. They said Rainbow river would be good for my situation and I could probably just call the week before to see if they have anything set up or to put my name on a list.Is that what you basically did? I was hoping to get something set up farther out than a week, but maybe that isn't being realistic.

Blue Grotto looks cool too & I would like to maybe try that as well, but like you said, I would have to find someone to go with for that location. I would assume I would have to bring all of my own equipment though for this dive, correct? I don't have any yet, but if this is the case, I do happen to have a local dive shop that I'm thinking I might be able to rent things from for the weekend. I'll have to call them. Is that how others do it? Or do they happen to have a local dive supply shop on site that I can just rent the stuff directly from?

Sorry for the newbie questions, but I'm trying to get an understanding at the best way to go about this for future trips & my options when I would be alone. Also, could my buddies (probably about 4) go snorkeling as well with bird underwater or is it usually just divers? Thanks

mcf57:

jhayes75, you mention Birds underwater as a place to go with. Funny you mention that cause it was one I actually found on the Internet. I called them after I made this post. They said Rainbow river would be good for my situation and I could probably just call the week before to see if they have anything set up or to put my name on a list.Is that what you basically did? I was hoping to get something set up farther out than a week, but maybe that isn't being realistic.

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Yes, this pretty much what I did.

mcf57:

Blue Grotto looks cool too & I would like to maybe try that as well, but like you said, I would have to find someone to go with for that location. I would assume I would have to bring all of my own equipment though for this dive, correct? I don't have any yet, but if this is the case, I do happen to have a local dive shop that I'm thinking I might be able to rent things from for the weekend. I'll have to call them. Is that how others do it? Or do they happen to have a local dive supply shop on site that I can just rent the stuff directly from?

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Blue Grotto has a rental shop on site, although i don,t know what they rent since I have my own gear.

mcf57:

Sorry for the newbie questions, but I'm trying to get an understanding at the best way to go about this for future trips & my options when I would be alone. Also, could my buddies (probably about 4) go snorkeling as well with bird underwater or is it usually just divers? Thanks

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Questions are not a problem, thats why were here. Yes they can snorkel while you dive, thats what my family did.

American Pro Divers in Crystal River is another good outfit. They rent equip as well. They can do snorkel trips on the Crystal River with a dive for you on the end. They also do drifts down the Rainbow where your friends could snorkel above you. As the weather warms, Ginnie offers something for everyone as well. Tube down the river and diving the springs. Blue Grotto is a fun dive, but really not much for your friends to do. Hope this helps!

I just came across Ginnie Springs and this seems like it might also be a good middle ground for all of us to meet (about 5.5 hrs from Atlanta or Miami). Is this a worthy place to dive for beginners or is this really for more advanced divers? I've been getting some info from www.ginniespringsoutdoors.com and there seems to be an outfit called divers4heros that I was gonna look into and give a call. Any other dive shops in the area that would be able to take me out on a dive?

Not familiar with that group. My wife and I stopped/camped there on the Ginnie Springs grounds enroute to a manatee dive weekend. We dove the next day just in the springs. Kids stayed topside in the water. Its a cavern that is fairly open. Has a grate closing off the cave. Try holding on to grate. You don't need anymore than the 5 minute video you watch at the country store to prep you for the dive. We didn't do Devil's eye/ear. Our logbooks look about like yours and we were very comfortable with the spring. As far as equipment, you can call the shop at Ginnie Springs. I know they rent tanks, don't know about whole package rentals. Very friendly group. Sidebar- we took an RV. It got stuck in the soft sand campsite. It was night time and we had to find a wrecker to tow us approx. 10 feet to solid ground. The first guy we called was only 6 miles from the spring. SOB wanted $800.00 to pull us 10 feet at 7:30 pm on a wednesday night. Fortunately, we found Eddie Gainey with Gainey Towing who did it for MUCH LESS. Theres my plug for Gainey-(Thanks Eddie!). Aside from that, we had a great dive/experience at Ginnie and will be back there on more than one occassion this year.

Addendum- Just checked Ginnie Springs website. They do rent whole scuba equip. packages.

I'd like to maybe do Ginnie Springs. It sounds cool, but I would also need to find a partner(s) to meet there if I did that. I'm thinking (& hoping) it woon't be too hard cause that seems like a popular place. We're looking to maybe go in June too.

I don't think they have cabin rentals there, do they? Otherwise, we would probably do the camping.