dalenoel wrote:
Devils Den near Ocala but don't know on the dog
Very pricey.
Manatee Springs SP has extensive cave diving opportunities if you are a qualified cave diver. There are open water opportunities there too, Catfish Hotel is about 100 feet deep and you can view the catfish. The main springs is 31 ft or so if you put your belly on the sand. The cg has FHU. Peacock Springs SP is a hotbed of cave diving but they do not have a cg in the park so far as I know. Ginnie Springs has both open water and cave diving. It's commercial with a cg. Many of the springs Alexander, Rainbow, Troy, Peacock, Manatee, Ginnie, Devils Den and others offer you drive to the springs and dive on your own trips. You need to check in with the gate rangers and turn your dive cert card over to them so they can keep track of people in the water. High Springs is the center of a lot of springs dives. There are a number of commercial cg in the area and some state park cg.
People do die on these cave dives. Some are exceptionally hazardous, none of the ones I listed tho. But going with a dive shop group the first time or two is a good idea. There are many dive shops in the area. If you see a large sign saying XXX DIVERS HAVE DIED HERE at the springs then think hard before getting in.
The keys are excellent for open water diving. These require you to take a dive boat out to the diving location. There are a lot of these boats and the prices are not that expensive, $30/head is what I recall for a full diving day on the reefs. Some dives can be deep, especially the wreck dives. We usually camp at Pirates Cove on Marathon Key. Prices are reasonable in the off season. That starts around April.
West Palm Beach has a lot of dive boats that specialize in ledge drift diving on the edge of the Gulf Stream. Lots of sharks. Dropping off the ledge can drop you down to over a hundred feet. The boats drop the group off with one of their divers who has a marker buoy. The group then get pulled along with the current until someone signals the boat diver they need to surface. Then the boat picks up the group. Nitrox is recommended.
I understand there are dive boats along the panhandle that go out to wrecks. Those are quite a way offshore so these tend to be long day trips. Never been on one of those.
You can float dive on the crystal river, you float along with the current in crystal clear shallow river, 20 feet deep maybe. Boats drop the group off upstream then head downstream a couple of miles to wait for them. A fun trip.
I think there are dive trips off Sarasota/Venice Beach looking for big sharks teeth.
Unhappily my diving career ended with a totally blown eardrum. The docs have forbidden anymore diving.
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