NFLFan92
Registered
Just wanted to share my experiences last week diving Blue Grotto and Devils Den in Williston, Florida. First I need to thank this great dive community for reaching out to my ask for a dive buddy! William drove 2 1/2 hours to buddy up and brought me some dive gear to explore these two awesome sites. If anyone is looking for a great instructor and great guy to dive with, I'll put you in touch (or I'll add your screen name with permission William) I can't thank him enough for the amazing hospitality and being an awesome dive buddy to some random guy from Canada he met on the internet.
This was my first foray into freshwater/cavern/not diving freezing cold Canadian waters in drysuits, hoods, gloves and a half ton of lead weights ... diving in a 3mm wetsuit and 10 pounds of lead in 72F water was a dream!!! You guys are so lucky down here to have these great dive spots! I am jealous and can't wait to go back and explore some more. Here's my two cents on my day of diving.
Blue Grotto - the staff at Blue Grotto were very friendly and accommodating once you arrive on site. We were given a briefing of the site conditions and offered a 10% discount because the visibility wasn't up to their standards due to the high water. Viz was probably 20-25 feet in the first part of the cavern and opened up significantly after that between the dive platform at 15 feet and at 30 feet. You could clearly see everywhere in the cavern (though my video light picked up a little back scatter here and there, not Blue Grotto's fault I don't know how to use my GoPro) William and I did two dives at Blue Grotto, the first dive we were joined by a dive group of 6 or 7 divers who were in the water before us and the second dive it was just the two of us in the cavern. What a great site to explore and get a feel for what cavern diving is like. Facilities to shower after your dive and the picnic bench areas to set-up your gear are great! Top notch facility and I highly recommend anyone to check it out! We dove on 32% Nitrox and did two half hour long dives on the site. Looking forward to a return trip and what staff promised would be better conditions (which were pretty fantastic that day in my opinion)
Devils Den - We did two dives in the afternoon at Devils Den (both sites are very close to each other, maybe a mile or two apart) and again the facility and staff were awesome, very friendly and helpful. Some dive classes were just finishing up as we arrived so we had the place basically to ourselves along with some snorkelers. I found Devils Den a bit more of a challenging dive with lots of swim-throughs and having to be more mindful of your buoyancy and trim over the big open area of Blue Grotto. Not a negative at all to the site, I just didn't want to be "that guy who kicks the crap out of the viz" and some of the swim-throughs you do need to be mindful of banging into the bottom/sides/overhead. The entrance into Devils Den down the stairs is worth the price of admission even before the dive (just watch your head at the bottom) Visibility was very good at Devils Den through the entire site and it was a lot of fun navigating around the swim-throughs (and getting to see the famous do not continue if not properly trained cave signs was cool to me). We had another two great dives at Devils Den, each around 40 minutes on 36% Nitrox. I definitely will return there some day to dive and again highly recommend checking it out.
Both dive sites were above and beyond my expectations and its definitely worth making the trek to Williston. I stayed just south west of Orlando so it was an hour and 45 minute drive up with coffee and breakfast stops included. I would definitely go back and dive both sites again and even look at taking a cavern course to improve my dive skills at either site.
Big thanks again to William and both Blue Grotto and Devils Den for these bucket list dives. If anyone wants to come north and dive in Atlantic Canada, message me and I'll help you out anyway I can!
This was my first foray into freshwater/cavern/not diving freezing cold Canadian waters in drysuits, hoods, gloves and a half ton of lead weights ... diving in a 3mm wetsuit and 10 pounds of lead in 72F water was a dream!!! You guys are so lucky down here to have these great dive spots! I am jealous and can't wait to go back and explore some more. Here's my two cents on my day of diving.
Blue Grotto - the staff at Blue Grotto were very friendly and accommodating once you arrive on site. We were given a briefing of the site conditions and offered a 10% discount because the visibility wasn't up to their standards due to the high water. Viz was probably 20-25 feet in the first part of the cavern and opened up significantly after that between the dive platform at 15 feet and at 30 feet. You could clearly see everywhere in the cavern (though my video light picked up a little back scatter here and there, not Blue Grotto's fault I don't know how to use my GoPro) William and I did two dives at Blue Grotto, the first dive we were joined by a dive group of 6 or 7 divers who were in the water before us and the second dive it was just the two of us in the cavern. What a great site to explore and get a feel for what cavern diving is like. Facilities to shower after your dive and the picnic bench areas to set-up your gear are great! Top notch facility and I highly recommend anyone to check it out! We dove on 32% Nitrox and did two half hour long dives on the site. Looking forward to a return trip and what staff promised would be better conditions (which were pretty fantastic that day in my opinion)
Devils Den - We did two dives in the afternoon at Devils Den (both sites are very close to each other, maybe a mile or two apart) and again the facility and staff were awesome, very friendly and helpful. Some dive classes were just finishing up as we arrived so we had the place basically to ourselves along with some snorkelers. I found Devils Den a bit more of a challenging dive with lots of swim-throughs and having to be more mindful of your buoyancy and trim over the big open area of Blue Grotto. Not a negative at all to the site, I just didn't want to be "that guy who kicks the crap out of the viz" and some of the swim-throughs you do need to be mindful of banging into the bottom/sides/overhead. The entrance into Devils Den down the stairs is worth the price of admission even before the dive (just watch your head at the bottom) Visibility was very good at Devils Den through the entire site and it was a lot of fun navigating around the swim-throughs (and getting to see the famous do not continue if not properly trained cave signs was cool to me). We had another two great dives at Devils Den, each around 40 minutes on 36% Nitrox. I definitely will return there some day to dive and again highly recommend checking it out.
Both dive sites were above and beyond my expectations and its definitely worth making the trek to Williston. I stayed just south west of Orlando so it was an hour and 45 minute drive up with coffee and breakfast stops included. I would definitely go back and dive both sites again and even look at taking a cavern course to improve my dive skills at either site.
Big thanks again to William and both Blue Grotto and Devils Den for these bucket list dives. If anyone wants to come north and dive in Atlantic Canada, message me and I'll help you out anyway I can!
