JesperS
Contributor
Saturday morning myself and my 13 year old son met Dawn and Mike from Beach City Scuba at the entrance to Weeki Wachee Springs State Park for a fun guided dive.
This trip served many purposes for us. We're newly certified, so a calm place to practice some skills, continue familiarizing ourselves with our gear, and work on our buoyancy was welcome. Especially important as we're off to Key Largo in a few weeks.
It gave me a reason to test my wetsuit
It also served as our introduction to diving in Florida's springs, which I had a feeling we would fall in love with. I believe it is also our closest divable spring at about 2:15 from our house.
I was also testing out my newly acquired GoPro Dive Housing (verdict, totally worth it).
And finally, it was an excuse to go diving
----
Weeki Wachee is the world-famous home of the Mermaid Show, performed in the spring in front of safety windows in a sunken ampitheatre. At some point in the past, open diving was allowed, but has since been converted to a State Park, and currently only allows divers who come with an approved dive shop.
That's how we came across the lovely folks at Beach City Scuba. Our schedules worked out, the date was set, and we were on our way.
Mike wouldn't be diving with us, as he was battling some sinus issues and was trying to recuperate in time for their Bonaire trip (have fun guys!)
Dawn was our guide for the day, and she was great!
The spring itself was beautiful, and the water even clearer than my imagination had let me believe. Unfortunately, it's not quite a natural environment as there are plenty of hoses and junk for the mermaid show in there.
With that said, we got a close look at the first magnitude spring, saw lots of turtles (though Dawn claims there wasn't many...to us it was!) and fishies, schools of mullet, sheepshead, bass, and who knows what else.
Since it's shallow (we maxed out at 38 feet) we were able to stay down as long as my son could take it in the wetsuit which didn't fit quite right, which was about an hour. It's fairly small, so I think an hour was enough time anyways.
After the dive, Dawn watched us perform a poor facsimile of an S-Drill, then they helped us get all of our gear back to our car. To a fault they were super nice, helpful, friendly and likeable folks. I anticipate that we'll dive with them again soon!
After the dive, we enjoyed some of what the rest of the state park has to offer, including the short river cruise and the mermaid show. We were lucky enough to catch the monthly "Mermaids of Yesteryear", the youngest performer clocked in at 57! And one just had a hip replacement! They were a hoot, and you could tell they loved being back in the water.
Plenty of pictures are up at www.facebook.com/beachcityscuba and I'm gonna see if I can get the video embedded below. If it doesn't work, here is the link to YouTube: http://youtu.be/EAW_JfYMDCQ
Thanks for reading!
And if you are curious, 95% of the time the camera was on my headband, I only took it of and went handheld for a little while.
This trip served many purposes for us. We're newly certified, so a calm place to practice some skills, continue familiarizing ourselves with our gear, and work on our buoyancy was welcome. Especially important as we're off to Key Largo in a few weeks.
It gave me a reason to test my wetsuit
It also served as our introduction to diving in Florida's springs, which I had a feeling we would fall in love with. I believe it is also our closest divable spring at about 2:15 from our house.
I was also testing out my newly acquired GoPro Dive Housing (verdict, totally worth it).
And finally, it was an excuse to go diving
----
Weeki Wachee is the world-famous home of the Mermaid Show, performed in the spring in front of safety windows in a sunken ampitheatre. At some point in the past, open diving was allowed, but has since been converted to a State Park, and currently only allows divers who come with an approved dive shop.
That's how we came across the lovely folks at Beach City Scuba. Our schedules worked out, the date was set, and we were on our way.
Mike wouldn't be diving with us, as he was battling some sinus issues and was trying to recuperate in time for their Bonaire trip (have fun guys!)
Dawn was our guide for the day, and she was great!
The spring itself was beautiful, and the water even clearer than my imagination had let me believe. Unfortunately, it's not quite a natural environment as there are plenty of hoses and junk for the mermaid show in there.
With that said, we got a close look at the first magnitude spring, saw lots of turtles (though Dawn claims there wasn't many...to us it was!) and fishies, schools of mullet, sheepshead, bass, and who knows what else.
Since it's shallow (we maxed out at 38 feet) we were able to stay down as long as my son could take it in the wetsuit which didn't fit quite right, which was about an hour. It's fairly small, so I think an hour was enough time anyways.
After the dive, Dawn watched us perform a poor facsimile of an S-Drill, then they helped us get all of our gear back to our car. To a fault they were super nice, helpful, friendly and likeable folks. I anticipate that we'll dive with them again soon!
After the dive, we enjoyed some of what the rest of the state park has to offer, including the short river cruise and the mermaid show. We were lucky enough to catch the monthly "Mermaids of Yesteryear", the youngest performer clocked in at 57! And one just had a hip replacement! They were a hoot, and you could tell they loved being back in the water.
Plenty of pictures are up at www.facebook.com/beachcityscuba and I'm gonna see if I can get the video embedded below. If it doesn't work, here is the link to YouTube: http://youtu.be/EAW_JfYMDCQ
Thanks for reading!
And if you are curious, 95% of the time the camera was on my headband, I only took it of and went handheld for a little while.
