Steve,
Don't worry about getting the book unless you plan on diving a lot of shore dives around the state. For visiting, keep an eye on our posts in this forum. Once you get a time line worked out I'm sure you could get dive buddies in almost every area you plan to dive as well so your not hitting a dive site blind. For instance, around Pensacola or Destin area SuperBugman may be able to hook up with ya.. Venice it could be me, ReefGuy, Walter, or 2thDiver... Ft Lauderdale it could be Jenny, Marvel, or any of the dozen others who hit the water there... Jupiter you have BaitedStorm and murphdivers286... dunno what to say about the keys, I've used one boat down there but there are so many and they almost all seem to have a bit of passion about what they do sooooo... it seems to work out that a good experience occurs on a regular basis.
The best thing about diving around FL is that you can have great dives on both boats and the beach, though its dependent upon the weather. May is an excellent month for diving both the Gulf and Atlantic as the waters are starting to warm up and we've not started our summer storm patterns.
Hey.. even if you want to do some river fossiling... I can help direct you to that.. I know how you are about this paleontology stuff!