Trip Report - Crystal River King Spring - Jan 05

[jviehe]

Myself and a few members of the Tallahassee Scuba Club headed down to Crystal River on Sunday to do a few dives with the manatees. Along with an OW class from the LDS, we chartered 2 boats from the Port Hotel and Marina for the 1000ft trip to the Spring. Apparently, you arnt allowed to swim to it. Before we could get on board, we had to watch the ritual video about protecting the manatees. Dont chase, corner, ride, or in any way harrass them. Dont even look them in the eye.

Once we had that through, we headed over to the spring to dive with the 50 or so divers and snorkels that were already there cheerfully dropping vis to 5ft or so. After getting into the 68f water, we swam another 500ft or so to the Spring head, which is a basin about 100ft wide or so, and 30ft deep. Along the way a few manatees came swimming by, and we did our best to not alarm them in any way. Someone mentioned that earlier they had counted 500 manatees or so at the spring. Once we got to the spring head, viz improved to 10ft, so we headed down to the cavern, where the uncertified cavern divers were doing their best to kill themselves, diving without lights, digging for treasure in the silt with their fins. etc.

The cavern was amazingly clear, but kind of small, and due to the OWs around, we didnt run a line. After checking the cavern out a bit, we headed out to play ( i mean avoid), the manatees some more. We also saw some Tarpon that were bigger than us, swimming around the spring in the gloom. Plenty of other small fish hung out at the spring which was a slighty warmer. Sometimes you had to swim through schools of a few hundred fish.

After an hour or two of that, we jumped back on the boat, and went to deco at the Port Marina Ale House, a fine eating establishment. All in all, it was a fun day.

 

[AevnsGrandpa]

Thanks for the quick report. I was just down in Jacksonville at the begining of the year and was going to drive over to Crystal, but ended up not wanting to drive so much. Makes me that much more set on going over there soon.

Question, you rented the boat yourself, how did you know where to go? Or is the area that small that there really isn't anyway of getting lost.

Also, so when you were diving in the spring the manatees were with you? What about what is said about them not liking bubbles from divers?

Thanks and have a great day!

Jeff

 

[jviehe]

The spring is literally a swim away from the boat rental place. You can also pay someone to take you there, or get a boat yourself. They give you a map if anything, but its nearly impossible to get lost. Its basically a small lake with a island in the middle.

The manatees are swimming around the spring usually, around the whole lake really. The have proteced zone which no one is allowed to go in, but the spring is public. and the manatees swim in and out of their zones. They probably dont like bubbles, but I could tell a difference. They would just come up and look at you, but since you cant feed them, they really just do their own thing. They are no doubt bored with humans.