Need advice of the local experts! Gulf Coast and Central Fl

Hi, I will be visiting my sister in Sarasota in February. While I will be there I will doing 1 week of diving. Aim of the diving will be photographing.
I am planning to go for a couple of days to central Florida/Crystal River for Manatees and a couple of days on the east coast for wrecks. I will have my own car and all my gear, except for a tank.
So here are some questions:
- where are the best sites for photography? Especially manatees? I prefer diving during the week
- what to expect from the Gulf Coast? Some good wrecks?
- is there a possibility to buddy up with local divers, or will I be forced to dive with a dive centre? I am an belgian CMAS-instructor - over 900 dives logged, but never dived in Florida. Can I join some local dive clubs to do some dives. My family in Florida doesn't dive, so they are not able to give me some good information…
- if I dive with a local dive shop. Can anyone give me some good recommendations (small groups - I have to be able of photographing on a individual basis)
- can I rent somewhere steel 7 liter twin-tanks, or a 12 liter steel tank for 2 weeks?
- I saw some shore dives on another thread-I guess there must be more shoredives around Venice…

Any tips are very welcome.
Reine Vandenweghe
www.vissels.com

Manatees - Crystal River and Homassassa Springs are your best bets - always boats going out to see the tee's during this month through early spring. Try American Pro, Birds Underwater or the other couple of operations out of Crystal River. (About 2.5 hours drive)

Gulf Coast - still havent dove there beyond the beach diving, but i hear viz could be a little less than great for photos, the east coast might be a better bet (3.5-4.5 hour drive). The shore diving off the gulf coast is not a photography type of adventure, its all about teeth and patch reefs in fairly poor viz - still fun though

See if you can get Ned Deloach's Underwater Florida on amazon - it will fill you in the dive sites around here. If you go out on charter boats, i would think that you would have to buddy up with someone. There are lots of us who dive regularly in this state and if you have an idea of what areas you want to dive and when we might be able to join/show you whats around. This is about as good a dive club as you can get!! You can rent tanks pretty much anywhere, only a few places might deal in steel though, i can think of a couple in cave country and a few on the southeast coast.

If I can buddy up I with a local diver , I'll be glad to do so.
Springs, East Coast - West Coast (not the keys…) - also if you Conch guys would organise a local dive, I'd be glad if I could join you. For me it's just more fun to dive that way, than going to a divestore on my own.
There is no problem for me to do a couple of shore dives. Here in Holland we mostly do shore dives.
Weekend of feb 25 is not possible (family obligations). I haven't decided on my flight ticket, so I am still quite flexible between half feb and beginnging of march.
Please let me know if anyone would be interested.
Thanks,
Reine

Reine,

As for the East coast, you MUST dive in Fort Lauderdale. The Sea Emperor is a must do dive for anyone wanting to "play" with the sting rays. They are extremely friendly and love the attention. I'm pretty flexible when it comes to diving and would be more than happy to buddy up with you (except in those way to cold, for me, springs)
Just send me a pm with all the information of when you'll be here and when you'd want to dive on this coast.

Cheers,
Vickie

Reine - keep an eye on the various threads on this forum for upcoming trips - its a little far ahead to plan anything yet, but there will always be someone up for a dive should dates/times coincide.

I have had great success at Blue Springs (Orlando Area) taking pics of manatees. Pompano Beach has some great wrecks. Let me know when you get closer to nailing down some dates and I can help you make some arrangements with charter boats. I am an avid photographer and videographer and might be able to dive with you depending on dates, etc.

Brian