Open Water Friendly Florida Springs?

[mheaster]

Thanks to all! My son and I are leaving Virginia this morning for a long weekend of Florida Springs Diving!

Should be rolling into the Cadillac Motel in High Springs this evening in my little white Dodge loaded to the gills with Dive Gear!

Is Floyd's Dinner open again? If not, I guess dinner at that other good Restaurant downtown is on the agenda!

Thanks for all the suggestions! We've settled on Friday at Ginnie Springs, then Troy Springs on Saturday and then probably Alexander springs on Sunday and then the LONG drive back to Virginia on Monday.

 

[LMM1967]

be careful coming through GA - damn roads are still in really bad shape. Stay in the RIGHT lanes on the freeways

 

[Dive-aholic]

Floyd's is now called something else. CRS is pretty bad this morning and I can't remember the name. The Great Outdoors is also a good restaurant.

 

[sskasser]

Floyd's is now called something else. CRS is pretty bad this morning and I can't remember the name. The Great Outdoors is also a good restaurant.

Fleetwood Diner, and it's yummy. Save room for the baklava.

 

[ucfdiver]

The Great Outdoors is also a good restaurant.

Excellent atmosphere and food, but worth noting that it's very expensive for the budget diver.

 

[mheaster]

Great Outdoors one night and Fleetwood Diner another night. We just got in but have been eating junk food all day driving so just had a light meal tonight at Subway. Will eat BIGTIME tomorrow night/Saturday night!

Excellent atmosphere and food, but worth noting that it's very expensive for the budget diver.

Budget? I have plastic for grub!

 

[mheaster]

As a wrap-up of this thread, my son and I had a Great long weekend in Cave Country diving the Springs! We dove Ginnie Springs the first day. We had been there before and picked it because Richard had not been in the water for a while and it was a good spot to get back into the swing of things for him.

Saturday we dove Troy Springs. We really enjoyed it and had the place to ourselves for our first dive and as we left the water another group of 5 divers from NC arrived. We let them complete their dive as we ate our lunch and then walked down the bank to see the Civil War boat Madison. After they exited the water, we made our second dive. 3 large turtles!

Sunday we visited Wes Skiles/Peacock Springs State Park and dove Orange Grove Sink twice and then rode around the remainder of park and saw Peacock I and Peacock II.

I am convinced now that in future, we will be frequenting as many of the other Florida SP Springs versus remaining locked into the Standard Privately-owned Commercial operations such as Blue Grotto and Devil's Den. They are great spots to visit once but the costs are getting quite out of hand when there are the other options.

I was puzzled that Troy still seems to charge Divers $15 each at the Park gate (Honor System) although Peacock Springs only charged the $4 fee for the car (NO Diver Fee)

I would think the State Park's would be standard fee-wise?

Thanks for all the suggestions!

 

[Black Jack]

Fees vary slightly depending on how much the park gets used but last time I was at Troy it was $5 not $15.