Trip Report

[kylepreid]

Just got back from tampa tonight, and wanted to fill you in on some sites Heather and I hit this weekend. On saturday we drove from Tampa up to Ocala, about an hour and a half north, and we dove Paradise Springs. First I must say that the owners, Curt and Jennifer, are very nice and very accomidating. We got a late start and arrived there around 12:30 pm, I was expecting the place to be packed with the type of weather we were having, but to my suprise there were only 4 divers there. We chatted for a few and they told us about the site and what to expect. As heather and I suited up the other 4 divers left, which allowed Heather and I to enjoy the entire spring to ourselves for the entire day.

The spring entrance is rather small, I could really see it getting cramped if there were more than 10 divers in the water at the same time, but once you decend and go under the stairs it opens upto an awsome cavern. It was huge, and beautiful, 100'+ viz. Lots of cool fossils to see in the cavern walls. Even though its a cavern dive, you only have to be open water certified to dive there, but there is a cave at the bottom which your not allowed to go in unless your certified. We did 2 dives there, first dive we went to 93 feet and we saw the reaper sign, second dive we stayed around 30-40' and took lots of pics of the fossils. All in all it was a wonderfull place to dive, I would go back in a heartbeat, oh and as I said before the owners were great.

On sunday we were going to go on a charter with Tanks A Lot, but the captain canceled on us due to 4 divers canceling on him, he told me he needed a minimum of 6 divers on his boat to do the charter. Well if you ask me thats a bunch of bull. Why should we have to suffer. Well I tell you this, I wont try and book with them again. So we decided to head up to Hudson Grotto since it was the closest spring to tampa. I was not real impressed with this dive site, It was like a big black hole. The shore ledge went out about 15 ' at a depth of 10' and then it just dropped off to the abyss of 110'. Viz was about 30' so once you got down to around 50 ' it was rather creepy. The rock wall you had to dive had no life on it at all, it just seemed rather wierd. I kept waiting for the loch ness monster to arrise and bite my legs off, Heather felt the same way, she was rather wiereded out by the site. On the second dive we stayed shallow, All the marine life was at 10'. They had some big soft shell turtles there that would come right up to you and let you pet them. They also had some real big catfish and bass. The deepest we went on the second dive was 14', thats where all the life was. All and all, it was cool, but I wont go back ther again.

Well anyway, Im glad you guys had some good dives this weekend, Oh and TK to let you know I took my DYI can light down to 93' and it did great.

Kyle

 

[kylepreid]

Here are some pics of paradise springs.

Kyle

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Paradise Springs is definately awesome I hit it up in February and did like a 90 min dive with a max depth of 90+', obviously, spent most of that time above 30 observing the fossils.

Your boat captain should have a set amount of downtime that customers can cancel without being billed for the trip. That way, he can give you advanced notice if something goes wrong and he can't go out, and you can find someone else. I can understand not going out with only two people, he'd lose money. The problem I see is cancelling on you with such short notice...

 

[kylepreid]

Paradise Springs is definately awesome I hit it up in February and did like a 90 min dive with a max depth of 90+', obviously, spent most of that time above 30 observing the fossils.

Your boat captain should have a set amount of downtime that customers can cancel without being billed for the trip. That way, he can give you advanced notice if something goes wrong and he can't go out, and you can find someone else. I can understand not going out with only two people, he'd lose money. The problem I see is cancelling on you with such short notice...

I thought that if you arrange a trip with a charter service and you cancel at the last minute you forfit your money. You usually have to give a 48 hour notice. Well he called me the day before the trip at 4:00 pm and left a message on my voicemail, so that was not even 24 hours before the trip. He should have had the money covered by the last minute dropouts, also there was a third party that got screwed out of the trip because of the poor planing. He did try and recomend me another charter service, but they were full, and also I didn't get the message untill after 6:00pm so it was kinda hard to call shops and see what was available when they are closed. I'll just try and do some better planning next time. Heather and I are going to try and go back down that way for the 4th of july, so we'll see what happens then.

I do want to try and hit paradise springs again, so if your interested in diving there again, I'll let you know when we are going back so we can try and hook up.
Kyle

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

I thought that if you arrange a trip with a charter service and you cancel at the last minute you forfit your money. You usually have to give a 48 hour notice. Well he called me the day before the trip at 4:00 pm and left a message on my voicemail, so that was not even 24 hours before the trip. He should have had the money covered by the last minute dropouts, also there was a third party that got screwed out of the trip because of the poor planing. He did try and recomend me another charter service, but they were full, and also I didn't get the message untill after 6:00pm so it was kinda hard to call shops and see what was available when they are closed. I'll just try and do some better planning next time. Heather and I are going to try and go back down that way for the 4th of july, so we'll see what happens then.

I do want to try and hit paradise springs again, so if your interested in diving there again, I'll let you know when we are going back so we can try and hook up.
Kyle

Yeah, thats what I'm saying, last minute cancellations should have lost there money and the trip should have gone had he not been able to give you atleast 2 days notice.

Let me know next time you head to Central FL, I like going, and strive to hit new spots each time I go as well as my favored spots over and over again. Probably won't be able to make it until 3rd quarter of '06 though. Lots of stuff already in the works!

 

[kylepreid]

Yeah, thats what I'm saying, last minute cancellations should have lost there money and the trip should have gone had he not been able to give you atleast 2 days notice.

Let me know next time you head to Central FL, I like going, and strive to hit new spots each time I go as well as my favored spots over and over again. Probably won't be able to make it until 3rd quarter of '06 though. Lots of stuff already in the works!

I'll keep in touch and let you know what is ahead in it diving future

 

[meekal]

thanks for the info on Paradise.... hoping to drop in soon!