ok. thanks for letting me know about the weather. at the last minute, i was able to rent a car, and drove from Fort Lauderdale to Crystal River. Along the way, i used my mobile phone and laptop to book a stay at the Best Western, as well as an 8am snorkel with the manatees tour.
The plan was to swim with the manatees, then book a boat and dive King Springs or other sites on Crystal River. then the next day (Saturday), visit the Blue Grotto and Devil's Den. and maybe more sites on Sunday before we head back down south.
well, that was the plan. Friday morning, we got up and put on our wetsuits to snorkel with the manatees. it was FREEEEEZZIING outside.. the boat ride was sllloooowww and very windy. after 10 mins in the 72deg water, my head was frozen and i was ready to go back home. my wife and i had to wait by the boat in the water for the other couple to complete their swim. there were a few manatees there, but we could only play with one because it followed us everywhere. very cute, so we kept on scratching that one guy. Crystal River vis was horrible, maybe 5 ft. anywho, i thought i wouldn't make it back alive, it was so cold. in the 30s, with wet wetsuits, and a strong breeze.
after thawing in the hot shower for a while, we forced ourselves to do one dive before cutting our trip short and head back south to warmer Pompano. with the poor vis, we skipped any diving on Crystal River and drove to Devil's Den. diving there was.. eh. i think we were done in 10 mins. much smaller area than we thought. we stretched the dive out as much as we could until we were too cold to continue -- about 35mins bottom time.
since we lugged all of our gear around, and drove so far, i wanted to do another dive. according to the weather report, it was 31 degs F on Saturday morning. so we waited till noonish, checked out our hotel, and headed towards the Blue Grotto. it was much nicer and about 60 degs then. the diving was much better than Devil's Den, but still pretty small of an area to dive.
we then drove back to Pompano and spent the next day on the Everglades taking tons of pictures.
overall, i don't regret driving up there and doing the dives, mainly because the manatee experience and i always wanted to try out FL springs. but i would not dive there again. Blue Grotto was about 120 bucks for tanks and some weights. Devil's Den was slightly cheaper at 100 bucks (for two). We could have saved ALOT if we rented the weights and tanks from the dive shop at the hotel - Crystal Lodge Dive Center. also, although clear, there were alot of particles in the water. this made flash photography difficult.
thanks for the weather tips again!
G.
