Fall MegaDive Oct 19-21, Ginnie Springs, Turkey Roost

[Scuba_Jenny]

$27 a day to dive, something like $20 a night to camp. It's outrageously ridiculous. But we only do it twice a year. If you come Saturday morning and dive all day Saturday, and camp Saturdya night and leave Sunday night, you'll only be out $50.

marchand--sounds like a plan. We can make a run up to CE during lunch or something to re-fill your "arsenal"

Too put the $$ in its true form....consider that a 2 tank boat dive runs $65+, then add air, crew tip and something to eat, and it's easily a $100 day! Ginnie becomes a good deal by those standards!

 

[ONESPEED]

Too put the $$ in its true form....consider that a 2 tank boat dive runs $65+, then add air, crew tip and something to eat, and it's easily a $100 day! Ginnie becomes a good deal by those standards!

You know there are no puffers up there, don't you?

 

[jeandiver]

You know there are no puffers up there, don't you?

Do CRAZY , INSANE Cavers fit the bill??? :11:

Da Bean

 

[jeandiver]

CAR DIVER
oh boy, does this mean we can take Mania's rental car into the ballroom a piece at a time. This should be fun. Jeano was watching her car the last time I was there, it had been suggested her car to be the wreck dive in the ballroom.

Oh , now see , you HAVE TO BRING THAT UP AGAIN...
(or down again , per se)

Mania:
DO NOT LET THIS MAN near your car. !!!! :11:
(even for Vodka)

Da Beano

 

[JahJahwarrior]

Too put the $$ in its true form....consider that a 2 tank boat dive runs $65+, then add air, crew tip and something to eat, and it's easily a $100 day! Ginnie becomes a good deal by those standards!

At the same time, there are four state park springs within an hour of Gainesville that are $10 a day to dive. Granted, some of them don't allow camping, and the ones that do are about the same price as Ginnie...
Manatee--you have Manatee and Catfish, both for $10. Camping is available, but I think it's $17.
Troy--no camping, but for $10 you can dive as much as you want It even counts as a deep dive, I think, for AOW training purposes.
Royal--ok so most people hate it, but it's FREE! It might be a county park, I can't remember.

Then you can go to Ocala, and dive at Alexander for $5! You can camp there for free, just a few minutes from the spring.

So compared to a boat dive, is Ginnie a decent deal? Yeah, Isuppose. But why does Ginnie feel the need to charge more for OW than for cave divers? They wouldn't be willing to lose money on cavers, would they? If the answer to that is "no, they wouldn't operate at a loss," then they are raping us OW people for an extra $10 or whatnot (didn't prices go up?) for no reason at all! And we can't even see as much stuff! Then we get to shell out $20......last dive, I slept on a picnic table. Why did I have to pay $20 for the right to sleep like a bum? I think they should pro-rate it by how much square feet you take up or something.

Every megadive we argue about the value of the dive, and whether it's worth what Ginnie charges. My answer is that it is not worth it unless it's a megadive. I'm willing to have my wallet raped for the pleasure of seeing old friends and meeting new ones, but I would never consider paying that much just to get some more dives under my belt, when for $8 more in gas I can drive to Royal. Heck, now that I'm in Orlando, Alexander is closer than alot of other places, and that's only $5. They do have a ridiculous rule about no sharp objects (you wouldn't believe it, but they almost refused to let my tongue in the water. Gotta be careful with what you say to the smart-donkey workers....) but apparently are fine with solo diving.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Clean fascilities, and lots of them. Hot showers, rinsing stations, full dive shop and fills onsite. Food and basic necessities onsite, power, water, ect. Yes, they make a proffit, its called business.

You can make the trip cheaper... Dive from a boat and squat somewhere else in the area. I've done it several times. I bought a station wagon to carry my boat, my gear, and when I don't have my boat, its got plenty of room for me to lay down flat and sleep easy.

If you want to argue spring prices as being a rip-off, we should talk about Blue Grotto.

 

[cardzard]

OK OK OK
Yes they do charge more than state parks and cave diver get a better break than open water divers.
However MEGA-DIVE weekends are priceless, where else can you find the following.

Andy and buttercups duets around the campfire
Ken and his trebechet terorizing tubers on the river
David and the firewood pile that would make any firebug envy
Stories around the campfire that I cannot talk about here :11:
Drift dives down the Santa Fe river that make the fish nervous
Galaxy dives that are unlike anything you have seen before and if you have seen one you still never want to miss another one.

Oh and you get to meet SCUBABOARD divers from around the state and other places.

Roxanne and I look forward to this event and will NEVER miss one if at all possible and this time we can catch up with Mania all the way from Poland.

now on a more serious note heres a link to ginnies website that has all pricing information. Looks like Ginnie Springs have raised the OW rate to 30.00 per day.
http://www.ginniespringsoutdoors.com/admission.php

We are SO MUCH looking forward to seeing everyone agian this fall.
David Looks like there will be 3 more people in our group this year. Let me know what we are doing for the Saturday Dinner and what you need us to bring.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

Clean fascilities, and lots of them. Hot showers, rinsing stations, full dive shop and fills onsite. Food and basic necessities onsite, power, water, ect. Yes, they make a proffit, its called business.

You can make the trip cheaper... Dive from a boat and squat somewhere else in the area. I've done it several times. I bought a station wagon to carry my boat, my gear, and when I don't have my boat, its got plenty of room for me to lay down flat and sleep easy.

If you want to argue spring prices as being a rip-off, we should talk about Blue Grotto.

I don't require hot showers, infact, I have never used their hot showers. The bathrooms are never extremely clean, and since I'm inthe water so much, I just shower when I get home. I don't need a rinsing station. There is a full dive shop and fills 5 minutes down the road, and I like that shop better I have also never eaten any food from Ginnie, I bring my own. Likewise, I have my own power and water. I'm ok with people making a profit, I'm also ok with diving elsewhere most of the year. If they charged $15 to dive, I'd be there al lthe time. They'd make more money from me than they do now, I view the "extras" as being worth $5 more than the state parks per day. I would also gladly pay $15 to camp.

And no, lets please no talk about Blue Grotto, or Paradise, or Forty Fathom. Any commerically operated spring in Florida seems to cost 2-4 times what the state parks charge. There is a reason that I have never dove Blue Grotto, Paradise orForthy Fathom. I have only gone to Hudson Grotto because they had a free dive day. Then I went to Crystal River, and I daresay King's Spring is cooler than the ballroom at Ginnie. That was free. Then Alexander, for $5. 8 dives, three days, and I only paid $5 to access springs. (had to pay for food, and for the gas, and then gas for the small boat I borrowed from my dad to get to King's Spring)

I really wish Ginnie would give us a group discount, or let us do a cleanup dive like they have in the past. Seems like we bring 50 people out, that's 50x50, or roughly $2500, without counting any food, dive shop or air fill purchases, and assuming you only dive one day and camp one night, and that we have 50 people there. You'd think they could cut us a slightly lower rate or something, show the love, you know? How much do they appreciate us?

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

You should really use those hot showers, after all, you are paying for them - LOL. I don't need any of that stuff either, but its there for convenience and I use it if I'm in the area for more than a few hours. Not everyone else wants to run all over creation to get fills/food/whatever. Ginnie has the amenities, other places run a bit short. Its not necessary to dive at Ginnie every day, I didn't at that last two Megadives I attended('04 & '05 or any other time I've been to Ginnie for that matter). I paid one day(despite always being in the area for more than a day), and dove other springs in the area to fill in the rest of the time - you just mentioned several that are cheap(or free).

Like I said, Ginnie is free, by boat, there's your free pass.

You'll never know what your missing if you don't try some of these places out. Blue Grotto was a bit dissappointing to me, but Paradise is absolutely gorgeous. I'd pay my ~$30 again to do that dive. Meanwhile, BG will likely not see my money again.

I'm all about cheap/free springs(see sig), but for the comradery, I'll gladly pay my money and warm up in a hot shower after a couple spring dives. I'd be there this year except for the poor scheduling that has led this event to take place at the same time as another big FL get-together event(Vortoberfest - which ironically gets the same $$ fusses every year as the Megadive).

 

[JahJahwarrior]

I'm happy to pay for the comaraderie, as I've already said. I'd be glad to use the hot showers, but I end up spending too much time in the water. If I'm paying $10 to dive at a state park, and do two dives, then that's $5/diver. If I pay $30 to dive at Ginnie, I have to do 6 dives to get my money's worth. That means I'm there when they open and I'm out of the water at 11:59, then I rush to Shands to decompress. Gotta love it


Really my biggest gripe is that all of us would love to do something to help clean up the place or whatever, and It hink we are a pretty good group to have there, we don't leave the place a wreck, that I'm aware of, unlike some other college students who tube down the river dropping beer cans everywhere. Ginnie doesn't seem to care that we are a good group of people that want to help, we get no discount of any sort. Many companies give SBers a 10% discount, why can't Ginnie?

As for getting there by boat, I asked about that a while back and the general concenses was that it might be legal, might be illegal, might be smart, might be stupid, and that no matter what it is, Ginnie might refuse to let me dive there in the future and/or call the police to arrest me.