Manatee Springs in January?

[Tollie]

I’ve been in the water on several occasions with American Pro. My wife and I had a fine set of dives with them. At King’s Spring (Crystal River) you do a skin dive first with the Manatees. Next an escorted cavern dive. If you don’t want to do it you can stay outside of the cavern. It is a ton of fun. My logbook shows water temps about 70 in the cavern. If the weather turns cool… it will be the surface interval on the pontoon boat that will chill you down… dress for the weather topside. Am Pro also offers lodging and a trip up to Manatee Springs… no manatees but crystal clear water in a deep spring. DUI does Dog days there. Have fun.

 

[simbrooks]

Three main local operators are Bird's, Dive Lodge and American Pro you can find them at:

http://www.birdsdivecenter.com/index.html
http://manatee-central.com/
http://www.americanprodiving.com

We are going up this weekend doing the manatee snorkel in Crystal River, day and night (another $35 for the night) drift diving at Rainbow River and Manatee Springs (2tanks) over one weekend. That is with American Pro, i liked the sound of the other places too, but Bird's was more expensive ($57 per trip) The whole diving package cost $110, plus rentals and fills. The accom they suggest is pretty nearby in Homassaa (about 4/5 miles south of the store in Crystal River) - it cost us $79 for a one bed cottage, they also have villas and efficiencies, whatever they are!

I believe the all those places mentioned above have a variety of trips/packages, ours was the Americana with Am Pro. Also you can do a devils den, blue grotto for a day and other springs too if you want.

If you didnt want to dive (for some reason?) after doing the manatee thing, there are also trips in Homassa springs that are just sit on and snorkel, probably has similar park rules as Manatee Springs when the manatees are around.

Hope that helps, i can let you know how the whole package thing goes when i get back to work on monday if you like.

 

[cudachaser]

Get's a lot off manatee...last year one pup nuzzeled with us for at 30 mins before we decended .... Park Rangers don't like interaction...but "Oh Well"

Joe

 

[foamer86]

thank you for the info, yea let me know how it went when you get back that would be great, hope you have a great time

thanks
craig

 

[dutchfin]

Look me up when you come down craig. We can rent our own boat to see the manatees. If you want to do the Rainbow River, my friend has a Zodiac that we drift and dive from.........@4hr drift but a nice day on the river.

 

[foamer86]

ok rick,
if i do go down i will deffinatly look you up, i would love to have the pleasuer of diving with you, even if it is just snorkeling, but you deffinatly got to show me those manatees.

thanks
craig

 

[simbrooks]

Here is a link to the trip report i just wrote if any of you are considering going to the Crystal River area to do the manatee swim or diving around that immeadiate area.

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42669

Hope that helps some of you to think about your options. Sorry the report is so long, didnt bother to re-edit it to shorten.

Simon

 

[divebomb]

Simon,

Thanks for the report. My wife and I and hopefully some other couples are going in January. Good info!

Beck

 

[simbrooks]

Just to let you know, i have no affliation with American Pro Diving - the only reason we didnt go with another store was price. The packages were similar apart from on price - dont know if the quality was better on any other operation though - didnt see many other reports in this section about any others, this was just what we experienced.

As for the other options available, all i would suggest is that you are comfortable in slight overhead environments if a little silt stirs up, we are new divers and found it only an inconvenience, i understand how dangerous it can be IF this were to happen in a 'cave' cave that carries on in a maze, not just deadend large rooms like we went into. Just a word of caution - also the siphon was pretty intense!!

I would be interested to see if anyone has a trip report on paradise springs, i believe there is an operation there that also does the silver river. Sometime next year we will also do blue grotto, devils den and ginnie springs, but this weekend was a blast and a nice break from Orlando!

Hope all who go to this kind of area have as much fun as we did.