pdoege
Contributor
Hey guys -
Went to Manatee springs with Pat on Sunday. Had a great time.
Manatee is around 2 hours north of Orlando. It is at the end of Alt 27, so you drive by Devil's Den, Blue Springs, and Blue Grotto on the way there.
That may be one of the most densely populated dive roads on the planet.
The park itself is very nice and the rangers are extremely polite and knowledgable. A nice change from Blue Spring. There is a lot of parking and the campsites are clean and well situated.
There are two dives here. Well, three if you count the "Experienced Cavers Only" dive, which I don't.
The first is Catfish hole. This is a really nice 65 ft dive. The river surfaces and then sinks right back down again. So there is a really nice cavern about 65 feet down (the source), and there is another one (the sink) about 50 feet away.
The source blows you out, and the sink sucks you in. The "sucks you in" was new to me and it was a fun experience.
This location is very easy to silt. A good place to practice bouyancy.
We saw a turtle on the bottom. Very cute. The source is full of catfish. I'll attach a picture of one of them.
A OW class hopped in and completely silted the bottom out. Oh well, we needed a break anyway.
We did 2 dives here, one to get used to the location and the other to screw around and take pictures.
The 2nd dive is the spring proper. Manatee puts out 81,000 gallons a minute. That is a lot of water. It was impossible to swim against the current, and "pull and glide" became "pull and pull". Maybe if I had a scooter.
I had protected my regs against free flow, but the current was strong enough to activate my drysuit inflator! Wow, never had that happen before. Took me a while to figure out why my bouyancy and trim had gone to hell.
The water is crystal clear. There are turtles, catfish, bream, and bass in the spring. The bass are funny in that they are not particularly afraid of you.
I think that is about it.
We had a great time and I recommend this location.
Peter
PS> Get Pat to pack lunch. She does a great job.
Went to Manatee springs with Pat on Sunday. Had a great time.
Manatee is around 2 hours north of Orlando. It is at the end of Alt 27, so you drive by Devil's Den, Blue Springs, and Blue Grotto on the way there.
That may be one of the most densely populated dive roads on the planet.
The park itself is very nice and the rangers are extremely polite and knowledgable. A nice change from Blue Spring. There is a lot of parking and the campsites are clean and well situated.
There are two dives here. Well, three if you count the "Experienced Cavers Only" dive, which I don't.
The first is Catfish hole. This is a really nice 65 ft dive. The river surfaces and then sinks right back down again. So there is a really nice cavern about 65 feet down (the source), and there is another one (the sink) about 50 feet away.
The source blows you out, and the sink sucks you in. The "sucks you in" was new to me and it was a fun experience.
This location is very easy to silt. A good place to practice bouyancy.
We saw a turtle on the bottom. Very cute. The source is full of catfish. I'll attach a picture of one of them.
A OW class hopped in and completely silted the bottom out. Oh well, we needed a break anyway.
We did 2 dives here, one to get used to the location and the other to screw around and take pictures.
The 2nd dive is the spring proper. Manatee puts out 81,000 gallons a minute. That is a lot of water. It was impossible to swim against the current, and "pull and glide" became "pull and pull". Maybe if I had a scooter.
I had protected my regs against free flow, but the current was strong enough to activate my drysuit inflator! Wow, never had that happen before. Took me a while to figure out why my bouyancy and trim had gone to hell.
The water is crystal clear. There are turtles, catfish, bream, and bass in the spring. The bass are funny in that they are not particularly afraid of you.
I think that is about it.
We had a great time and I recommend this location.
Peter
PS> Get Pat to pack lunch. She does a great job.
