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Ginnie allows solo diving at the full cave level.

That is one thing that’s nice about Ginnie - I don’t always appreciate how crowded it is, but it also means there are often folks around if you DO run into trouble. I had the hose on my SPG blow once as I was exiting; the bubbles were pretty impressive. As I shut it down, several incoming...

There’s a very interesting interview with Chris Brock (cave instructor and training director for NSS-CDS) about his experience participating in a GUE Cave 1 and Cave 2 class as a student. https://indepthmag.com/gue-cave/

NACD effectively no longer exists as a training agency. NSS-CDS is probably the closest equivalent (National Speleological Society - Cave Diving Section) today. Lots of great CDS instructors out there.

As several people have already said, I could name several top-notch cave instructors who teach for both TDI and IANTD, and could offer cards for either. It’s the instructor, not the agency.

I prefer warm water, because I get cold easily, even in a drysuit. That said, I dive our “cooler” (72 deg) Florida springs and caves 3-4x/week because that’s where I live and what we have!

I dive a 7’ long hose on sidemount and doubles, but prefer a traditional rec setup on my recreational regs. That said, if you’re going to try a long hose on a recreational BC, I would go with a 40” hose or 5’ hose. It can tricky to stow a full 7’ hose when you don’t have a real waist strap like...

My Teric is also currently at Dive-tronix waiting for battery replacement; they quoted me a fairly lengthy turnaround and said that Shearwater had cut some of their support (thus the delay/backlog). They also told me they are no longer allowed to send loaner units out, and to contact Shearwater...

My go-to recommendations for Key Largo are Horizon, Conch Republic, and Silent World.

Okay I’ll play. One very common thing that a lot of instructors (don’t think I’m doxxing anyone here) around here will tell you straight-up, is that they only run a line at Devil’s Eye and P1 for classes. All three of those lines start very very close to the cavern entrance, and tend to be...

Mostly just divers - lot of cave classes in there today.

Ginnie was cold but busy today! So - yes, in cave country, we are!

The North Florida Springs Alliance (non-profit) does assist with repair and maintenance in many of the state parks, and helped get Madison/Peacock back up and running after the hurricanes. Unfortunately there’s a lot of red tape and some stuff that the state won’t allow volunteers to assist with.

I really think it’s personal preference; try both if you can and see what you prefer. I’m primarily backmount because I just like it better, but do switch to sidemount when it’s a better choice for the cave - maybe 70% backmount, 30% sidemount? If you prefer sidemount, you don’t have to do...

Reception to OP's post on r/scuba was markedly different - interesting reading through the comments there vs here.

You might check on some of the Facebook groups - Florida Springs Dive Club, Scuba Monkey Dive Club, It’s Dive O’clock somewhere in central Florida, etc. If you’re looking for tech rentals, Extreme Exposure and Cave Country (in High Springs) should have you covered. Most of the local dive...

Oh that’s awesome to hear! They’re one of my favorite dive ops I’ve been out with, just super nice, fun and flexible, while still being safety-minded and professional. So glad to hear you had a similar good experience!

Another Florida local here - southeast Florida/Orlando/etc is like any other typical big city/tourist destination, I wouldn’t be concerned. And even up here in north central Florida there’s a large Hispanic/latino community; cave country is loosely near Gainesville, which is a very typical...

Echoing others’ concerns…I was scheduled once to do a coral planting dive in the Keys which was cancelled when other operators’ were found to have been planting diseased coral that was spreading pathogens to the existing reef. The situation was dealt with, but I think the biggest challenge with...

Yup. I’ve haven’t been in myself but know people who have - by all accounts, it’s quite tight, very high flow, and nothing worth seeing. There’s a similarly tight entrance in Rainbow River to a sidemount/no-mount cave maybe ten minutes downstream from where the water taxi drops. For a somewhat...