1998's USA Diving Adventures

Having spent most of the 1st half of the year in the tropics, I got back to Boston full-time around June. I bought a new car with A/C, and was forever being told by my friends to turn it up. (Oops, I seem to have become used to the heat) Oh well, I'm sure my semi-dry will be warm enough for the summer.

Early July: Jack, Alan and myself hit Bass Rocks, Gloucester for a couple of shore dives. On the 1st dive, disaster, as soon as I submerge my Octo free-flows, so I crawl back to the beach and try to fix things while the others restart their dive. I manage to flush the pebble that has jammed things while I'm waiting and we decide I'll be ok for the 2nd dive. So off we go exploring the nooks and crannies, scaring the lobsters, rays and other flatfish. While I worry about the cold (10°C) and mask fogging, Alan manages to find a silver coin.

A month later and they've talked me into having another go (the blue seems to have left my face). Using Alan's boat we visit the "Charles S. Haight". Oh goody, as soon as we hit the thermocline my watch refuses to record the dive "No, no", it says "I refuse to work below 5°C!". A 2nd dive at Folly Point records a 7°C temp. That's it, I'm getting the dry-suit fixed, or swearing off this cold water diving ...... Must be time for another Florida trip.

Diving the "Charles S. Haight". Image courtesy Alan Restell.

It's mid-September (peak Hurricane season), Hurricane Georges is on its way, there is constant rain in central Florida because of a depression over the Gulf and I'm flying down to Tampa for a weeks diving with Jack. Fortunately this year we have a "Plan B" - if we can't get out in the Gulf, we're going to to try the freshwater springs and caverns Florida has to offer.

Finding "Paradise Springs" is not that easy, the spring is near Ocala, but set well back from the main road along a dirt track. When we 1st visited it had been pouring with rain most of the day, so out white hire car turned mud brown pretty quickly. When you get to the spring it's quite amazing. A short path leads down to a platform on one side, and opposite is a viewing platform. Once in the water (a constant 24°C it seemed), there are two chambers either side of a central cone of debris. The first drops to well over 100ft; not being qualified cave divers, we did not explore beneath this point. The second is only about 20ft deep. The walls of both chambers are rich in fossils. Sand-Dollars the size of dinner plates have been found and, if you know what you are looking for, there are the bones of some unidentified lizard to be spotted. Minnows and catfish mill about in the shallows and have little fear of the diver.

It was both unnerving and exciting to be in my first cavern. Air bubbles pooled and danced along the limestone ceiling, looking for all the world like mercury in a world turned upside down. Soon enough, though, the dive was over and we were showering off before hitting the road.

About a 30 minute drive from Ocala is the town of Williston where both the Devil's Den and Blue Grotto caverns can be found. The Devil's Den was a roughly spherical cavern with an opening in the top (complete with dangling ferns), where the roof fell in. An opening cut off to the side has steps for divers leading down to the water, which half-fills the cavern. There are various swim throughs and nooks and crannies to explore. Here again, lots of catfish and minnows, plus the odd carp. Maximum depth was around 16m, with 25°C water temperatures.

Just across the road is the Blue Grotto. This is more like an open basin with entry on one side and the cavern opposite. At around 10m a rope leads you around a circuit of the cavern with the 30m max. depth at the mid-point. Near the top of the rope is a fresh air-bell where a handful of divers can remove their reg's and have a chat. The basin is about 8m deep and teaming with fish. The minnows here with actually pick at your hands, while the larger fish cruise by very close to check you out - I suspect feeding by divers is a common practice. The water here was a little cooler, dropping down to 21°C.

Ginnie Springs is a resort near High Springs with a number of diveable springs, however most are shallow caverns of limited interest to divers not trained in cave diving. Ginnie Spring itself is beautiful, a short surface swim leads to the twin openings to the cavern. The cavern itself is a wine sack shape, with the deepest point at 15m, where a grille prevents unqualified divers entering the cave system. The nearby Devil's Springs System has 3 springs, the "Little Devil", "the Devil's Eye" and the "Devil's Ear". The first two springs look like deep tears in fabric of the riverbed. The 'Eye' being the larger and more rounded of the two. A cave system runs off the 'Eye' at 10m to the 'Ear', but not being cave divers we could not investigate.

Near(ish) the city of Crystal River are two spring-fed rivers that can be dived: Crystal River and Rainbow River.

Rainbow River is an interesting spring dive in that the whole of the river is a series of small springs. It makes an interesting freshwater snorkle/drift dive, with turtles(terrapins) and small alligators vying with the fish for your attention.

Our Crystal River dive was more aimed at snorkeling with manatee than serious cavern diving (and these fantastic creatures really are worth trying to swim with), but there is a spring/cavern that can be dived, and we did. The cavern is not especially large or deep (only 15m), and nothing special after the others we had seen that week, but if you are in the area, worth a splash.

With Georges becoming a serious threat to the Keys & West Coast, we retreated to Ocala for our final days, and signed up for a Cavern Diver Specialty with Paradise Springs, diving twice more the cavern there and again at Blue Grotto.

I can't believe how disorienting it is trying to follow a line in zero visibility; or how difficult it can be to run the thing in the first place. One thing is for certain, I want to lay my hands on some surgical tubing and a 7ft octopus hose.

With temporary C-cards in hand, and George passed on, we trudge back to Tampa to fly home. We will probably never dive another of Florida's springs, but we had fun, managed to keep diving while the world went mad, and hopefully learned some skills we can apply to future dives.