Fanning/Manatee Springs Dive Report

[DEEPSEAWOLF]

We got to Fanning around 1-1:30 pm on Saturday. It was too crowded for any diving. We instead heded down the road to Manatee. There were only two divers in the main spring at 2pm, and since my back was still sore, we didn't bring full gear. We freedove for a bit. Me the insinkable, Gibbon the Submarine. He was making people jealous, (including me) by hitting 31 ffw and staying on the bottom for about 10-15 seconds at a time. Everyone else was struggling to hold long enough to even TOUCH the bottom at twenty feet. He looked so natural just cruising around down there. Great job dude!
We got two sets of freedives in, then walked over to the sink to take a look. There was a set of OW coming out and the water clotted VERY fast. The duckweed was very thick and all the bright sunlight lately hasn't helped situations. Aside from the fact that had we taken gear, we would have been the only divers in the hole when we got there, and we were there for quite some time. As we were driving off it started raining. PERFECT TIMING!
Even though I wasn't sucking compressed air, it was great to be in the water again, even if I was underweighted! (overbuoyant, same difference)

 

[Wendy]

We got to Fanning around 1-1:30 pm on Saturday. It was too crowded for any diving. We instead heded down the road to Manatee. There were only two divers in the main spring at 2pm, and since my back was still sore, we didn't bring full gear. We freedove for a bit. Me the insinkable, Gibbon the Submarine. He was making people jealous, (including me) by hitting 31 ffw and staying on the bottom for about 10-15 seconds at a time. Everyone else was struggling to hold long enough to even TOUCH the bottom at twenty feet. He looked so natural just cruising around down there. Great job dude!
We got two sets of freedives in, then walked over to the sink to take a look. There was a set of OW coming out and the water clotted VERY fast. The duckweed was very thick and all the bright sunlight lately hasn't helped situations. Aside from the fact that had we taken gear, we would have been the only divers in the hole when we got there, and we were there for quite some time. As we were driving off it started raining. PERFECT TIMING!
Even though I wasn't sucking compressed air, it was great to be in the water again, even if I was underweighted! (overbuoyant, same difference)

Ya free divers look cool. I was at 60' in blue springs when a free diver came zooming by me with a light in hand (guess the rule doesn't apply ot them) and off to the bottom he went and he was gone awhile, which worried me, but soon he was zooming by me again. I don't see how he went that fast down in there with that high flow. When he first went by i was like, gee who brought a scooter here, and then i was like, hey where are his tanks. This guy was amazing!

All I did this weekend was spend the evening in a cave, a dry cave. It was cool. Took a dry cave survey class and got to go to a cave I hadn't been to before which was nice.

 

[CBulla]

Mmmmmmmm... free diving. The 2 saltwater fed lakes around here that I used to do that (located in a salt marsh next to the estuary, have been corded off limits and condo's built around.. go figure! Thanks to that "stuff" being built, its been some time since I've done any free diving other than the pool since there arent any other 40' deep places to go in Ft Myers that aren't offshore.