SeaYoda
Contributor
Manatee springs is located in Chiefland Florida. There are two springs on the property. There is the Main Spring and Catfish Hole (a sink hole). After looking at the two springs, we decided to dive Catfish Hole first. It was covered with Duckweed, it sure was an eery feeling getting in that much green soup. There is a dramatic drop-off just after entry. At the bottom the water does not seem to come out of the fissure, it may actually be flowing in. There is a spring at the other end of the hole that has a pretty good flow. It clears a hole in the Duckweed on the surface. The water was a little brown and full of particles from decaying plant material. We saw only small catfish and none of the large ones the hole is named after. We rinsed off the Duckweed, changed tanks, and headed to the Main Spring. The run from the Main Spring is full of green filamentous algae. The spring has a pretty good push coming out of the bottom of the basin - I swam against the flow with a moderate kick and it kept me stationary. I dropped down below the flow and behind a log to take some pictures of the local panfish. It was like a duck blind, my strobe above the log and me peeking out below. The fish there are pretty much the same as the Northwest Florida springs. At the end of the dive I had filled my memory cards with three days of pictures so I turned the camera off and headed up to explore the spring run. To my surprise a nice sized Bowfin swam by. I scrambled to get the camera and strobe turned back on and delete some blurry pictures to make room for a Bowfin shot. I had to keep one eye on the fish and one on the camera. I finally got prepared and the Bowfin lead me on a ten minute hide and seek chase through the algae. At one point he disappeared and I thought I'd lost him. I looked down at the camera and guess who was in the algae just below me? He was off again in a flash. I did manage two far away shots before I surrendered to his superior swimming skills.
