Any face to face with gators?

[jlayman800]

We dive with them regularly when fossil diving, and they aren't a problem. ... When I surfaced, she was patrolling the bank, spotted me and came out and stayed on my fintips all the way to the boat.

Wow, what an experience. I would have been real hesitant to get back in that water.

When I lived in Charleston, there was a woman who lost a big chunk of leg because she was fossil diving in the Cooper River and reached in and touched the gater. That was about 1986 or '87. That made me think twice about jumping in the next time. We still did it, though. I believe if I knew a gater was in a specific body of water, I wouldn't go in. Maybe I'm too cautious.

 

[Alamo]

Plowed down by a big one last year at Morrsion during low vis dive.

A small one at Alexander. By the way,..the reason they want you out of the water by five is ot a life gaurd thing. It is when the gators come out to feed. I thought that was some good need to know info that should have been in their brochure.

On that dive my wife got her refresher, the danger signal does not mean go over and look!

Normally they will stay clear of you,..just keep small children and dogs away from the waters edge. A few years ago while living in Orlando, a small boy was playing by the water with his dog. It was believed the gator was after the dog, he got the kid instead,..and drown him

 

[Alamo]

when Jim Hollis stil owned his shop in Orlanda, around 97 , one of his instructors told me that gators did not go into the head spring, it was too cold. He was very wrong, they love it.

I often saw gators in alexander> Normally in the early morning you would wee a small one laying at the bottom near the cave. Often I would fins them on the far side of the spring sunning thenselves on the bank and then slide into the water to cool off.

the one at Morrison was my fault. It was low vis. there was only one small group doing check outs near the platform. I swam over to the Spring. At the bottom I saw a very large gator laying on the bottom. I dove the other side of the spring for a while. When I came back he was gone,..so I thought. He had only backed up into the brush. I was working the edge looking for items under the silt. then I was covered in a blanket of silt, so much that it pushed me down. I forced my way up thinking that it wa one of the students that I had seen earlier. It was not. It was the belley of a gator going over the top of me at full speed for the mouth of the river.

 

[cra2]

Growing up in Florida, we would swim, tube & ski all the murky waters of rivers like the St. Johns. I can remember seeing them around every corner and on every bank..even while you're sitting in the water 20' away putting on your skis.
Never had a problem.

Later, as a stupid teen, we'd do things like chase & grab them while canoeing.
(which, by the way, I think is a crime. No molesting the gators/manatees.)
Like any wild animal, if you're bigger than they are - their first instinct is to get away.
But just like the "tame" nurse shark, if you corner it or step on it, you may get a surprise.

I wouldn't worry about it. Snorkeling, or diving, I've seen them underwater or on the bank sunning themselves at Blue Springs and Silver Springs. They've never had any interest in us. If I'm in the water, I've kept a healthy distance from the big ones, but the ones smaller than you are no more threat than encountering a strange dog on the street. You might lose some blood if you provoke it, but in the end you can just lift it out of the water and bash it if you had to convince it to let go.

I think the statistic is that every single body of water here in Florida has about one gator per square acre. Heck, we've got a half-acre retention pond behind our homes in this subdivision and there's a curious little 4 footer in it. Any time you walk along the shore of the pond - he comes close and follows you around. Probably getting fed by some idiot.

When you're down here next time, I'll take you over to Lake Jessup. lol.
It has the largest ratio of gators in America.
You go out on the water at night in a small boat and sit in the dark with a flashlight and you can count hundreds of pairs of eyes staring back at you.

 

[ScubaKris]

In 97 I ran into a small one at Alezander. It ws sun bathing on the shore. in entered the water, swam 15 feet from me along the shore line. I took a picture from that distance. I returned to where my wife was collecting pebbles. I gave here the danger signal. Never staying up on here signals, she bolted over the rock into it before I could stop her. She did the same thing in 2000 with a nurse shark in a hole in Hollywood, FL

Back at the snack bar we were talking about it. The clerk overheard us and asked if wew had reported it. I said not. We were than approached by a ranger who gave us what for for harrasing protected species and not reporting the danger.

In the early A.M. you can find one laying on the bottom of the spring.

About 3 years ago, I was diving Morrison, solo. There was an instructor with two students doing accents at the platform. Water levels were up, vis down.

I swam to the side of the spring basin. I saw a large gator, about 2' accross at the shoulders alying on the bottom. I decided to dive the other side of the spring. a little later I returned and he was gone. I started fanning the top of the basin for lost items. All of a sudden what seemed like tons of silt came pooring down on me, it was pushing me down, I could not see. I became angry thinking that the students were coming down on top of me dumping silt. When I got above the silt, noone was there. I did a 360 and so a slow 1' wide silt trail heading for the river, a gator tail was all I saw at the end of it.

I decided I had enough diving for the day.

The best defense for gators and sharks,....have a dive buddy that swims slower then you!

 

[wjefferis]

I have saw the new warning sign at Morrison Springs warning of gators, though I have never seen any. I wonder if there was a recent encounter.....

As far as sharks go my experience is that if you are not spearfishing you will almost never, ever, ever see them. If you do and you don't have a bleeding fish attached to you they will go away quickly.

 

[ScubaKris]

I owuld have to agree with that about sharks,.....unless you are a Florida Tourist!!!

The sign at Morrison has been ther for a long time.

The past year there has not been any gator activity that I am aware of. The rivers have been down and the vis very good. People there almost daily. very few fish.

The past years Morrison was rarely divable. a few months out of the year and then only every couple of months. It saw very little activity. Gthere were lots of fish and the gators would come on up. With all of the recreational activity there this past year ,..they have stayed out.

Morrison also has a very bad cottonmouth problem. I have seen kids sitting in the water and the snakes swim by them.

I do not recommend diving it,..or into the lower cavern with high activity. When people walk around the spring to fish, park boats etc, they drive the snakes into the spring area and down into the cavern. I was there early last year at about 4 P.M. when almost everyone had gone. I saw two snakes, one very large come out of the lower cavern and head back to the shore line.

It's not good to hang out on the shoreline under trees. The snakes will climb the trees, cotton mouths and rattlesnakes to get food, bugs, lizards. When a boat or hiker comes under them, they panic and try to get away. Falling on the hiker or in the boat. You may have heard stories of snakes jumping into the boat. They are actually trying to get away.

It's a good idea to motor in the middle of the river and not along the banks.

 

[diveprof]

I've dove with gators a number of times. Perhaps the most interesting/humorous(?) time was a dive in the Savannah river near the N. Augusta Boat landing. This part of the river is fairly shallow (10-15'). I swam to the surface to check our position in the river while my buddy remained on the bottom and continued the slow swim up current. When I surfaced I was about 2' from a 10' gator who was swimming upcurrent with us. Our dive flag (that my buddy on the bottom was pulling) kept bumping the gator on the tail as he swam up stream and the gator would move forward. I was perplexed over whether to bang on my tank so my buddy would surface (unfortunately this would probably be underneath the gator) or wait and see if the gator would move off. I decided to wait. Finally the gator moved off to shore and I was able to signal my buddy to surface. Two days later there was an article in our local paper where the Dept. of Natural resources caught and relocated the 10' gator.