Come Dive Florida’s… Fresh Water?

 

I moved to Florida from Minnesota a little over a year ago. As a dive junky, I was drawn by the easy saltwater access, and warm climate. I didn’t really expect to be doing much fresh water diving in Florida, especially being I live less than a mile from the coast.

Florida does have some unique fresh water diving opportunities though! They have a large concentration of fresh water springs, and accompanying underwater cave systems! The spring water is usually really fresh, clear, and relatively warm (at least compared to Minnesota’s fresh water). Most of them stay in the mid to low seventies year round.

I have heard about similar dives when I was Mexico, but they called them “cenote” dives. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to partake in any of those cenote diving adventures when I was there.

Some of the cave systems will require you to have a cavern diver certification even to get in the water. A cave diver certification would be a requirement to past the light zone though. Cave diving can become a very expensive endeavor. Many of the cave divers I know use rebreathers, and/or do multi-tank, multi-gas decompression dives.

There are many springs where you can dive with just an open water diver certification too though, if you'd like to just get your feet wet a little. I, personally, do not have a cave or cavern diving certification. I was, however, able to dive several underwater crevices, caverns, and sink holes in Florida, and so can you!

If you want to dive some of Florida’s fresh water springs, a good site dedicated to them is FloridaSprings.org. It doesn’t have all of the springs on there, but it’s a great place to start. Not all of the springs listed allow scuba diving either. But, most of them say whether they do or not right on the site.

If you'd like to get some cave diving or cave diving training, I would recommend you visit my friends at Florida Underwater Sports.

Below is some video footage from my last dive at Paradise Springs.

Top 10 Dream Dive Destination

I love scuba diving and I love traveling the world. The world is an awesome place and I want to see it all, both above and beneath the water. I have dove lots different places from wrecks in Lake Superior to the warm waters of Aruba, and all kinds of places in between. To some people this is an expansive area, and to others… it’s just scratching the surface. I tend to lean towards the latter. I feel fortunate that I have been able to visit and dive the areas that I have, but I am eager to explore new areas.

Below is my top 10 dream dives! It’s basically a “bucket list” dive travel destinations that I personally want to visit.

1. Sipadan Island, Malaysia – Sipadan in consistently ranked among the top dive destinations in the world. I want to see why for myself!

2. Fiji – Ever since I’ve started diving I’ve thought that Fiji would be a great destination to do a live-aboard. There’s tons of great dive sites spread out among the thousands of islands which make up Fiji. What better way to see them then a live-aboard!

3. Great Barrier Reef, Australia – It’s the largest reef in the world! It has to be on my list for that fact alone.

4. Galapagos Islands, Ecuador – Did you know that the iguana’s in the Galapagos dive underwater to feed on the reef? How about that there’s a species of penguin that’s endemic to the islands? There are two major ocean currents that meet in the Galapagos creating this magical place that’s teaming with marine life. The Galapagos are truly unique!

5. Maldives – Drift diving at it’s best on the Indian Monsoon Current. There’s tons of colorful reefs surrounding the thousands of islands, which are teaming with marine life from ranging from eagle rays to whale sharks.

6. Antarctica – Yeah, it’s REALLY dang cold! And honestly… I’m REALLY not a fan of cold! However, after seeing some absolutely amazing images and video from under the ice… it’s on my list. There is no other place like this in anywhere! And, you get to witness the underwater side of “Happy Feet” first hand!

7. Truk Lagoon – This is another scuba diving destination that’s know for it’s wreck diving, and is home to the “Ghost Fleet of Truk Lagoon”.  There are over sixty WWII wrecks here, plenty to keep a person entertained for a long, long time!

8. Bikini Atoll – Wrecks! Once a nuclear bomb testing ground for the US, now the grave yard for all of the wrecks they blew up. There are wrecks ranging from aircraft carriers to submarines. I haven’t found a better place in the world for wreck diving.

9. The Red Sea, Egypt – Visibility of to 230 feet, tons of fish, wrecks, beautiful coral, sheltered reefs, towers, pinnacles, walls, and coral gardens make the Red Sea a the fabulous dive destination that it’s made out to be!

10. Gansbaai, South Africa – Sharks! South Africa is a shark diving Mecca! The whales, sea lions, and penguins are just a bonus!

How to Get Started Scuba Diving

So you want to go scuba diving, but don’t know where to start? It’s your luck day, I’m here to help. There a few options for prospective scuba divers.

The first option is a “try dive”. A lot of dive shops offer this option. They brief you on the equipment, show you some basic techniques, and then bring you in a pool and let you spend some time underwater. This is a good option to see how comfortable you are underwater. Breathing underwater takes a little getting use to, but some people tend to freak out in this position. This is a great option to see how you will handle it. “Try dives” are usually pretty cheap. I’ve seen them for $10 – $25.

The second option is a “discovery dive” or a “resort dive”. The two names are synonymous. With this option, a dive instructor will show you a short video that teaches you some basic scuba diving skills. Then they will take you in a pool or shallow water for some hands on practice and then test you on those skills. After that, the dive instructor will take you on an open water dive in a lake or ocean. They usually keep you in shallow water. This is a great option if you want to get into the water, you aren’t certified yet, and don’t have time to get certified. I did a discovery dive in Belize before I was certified, and after that I was hooked. A couple months later I got certified and I have been diving ever since. From what I’ve seen, discovery dives run between $100 and $200.

Finally, you can get certified. The basic certification is an “open water certification”. There are a few agencies that dominate the dive certification market including PADI, SSI, and NAUI. They are recognize universally for the most part. I did my open water certification with PADI, then did some specialty certifications, and finally my Advanced Open Water certification with SSI. Depending on where you do your training, it can cost anywhere from $300 to $750 for the classroom, pool, and open water portions of the certification. You can be open water certified in as little as 2 or 3 days, but I did mine over 2 weekends.

Lazy Man’s Scuba Diving in Cozumel, Mexico

 Cozumel is a little island that lays just east of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico in the Caribbean Sea. The reef that surrounds the island is part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System (MBRS), which is the largest barrier reef in the western hemisphere. The Cozumel Reefs National Marine Park surrounds almost the entire southern half of the island and helps sustain the reefs and marine life. Because of this, the reefs and marine life around Cozumel are flourishing, which makes for some excellent scuba diving.

There’s another thing that Cozumel offers scuba divers that you don’t find just anywhere though. There’s a gentle current running from from one end of the island to the other. If scuba diver’s plan their dives to take advantage of this current, their dives can be near effortless. The dive boat can drop you off at one part of the reef, and pick you up a mile or so down the way. You just drift along with the current. Being you aren’t swimming away from the boat and then working your way back halfway through the dive, you don’t have to double back over the same area that you just dived. And because you aren’t exerting yourself as much when you dive, you aren’t using as much air and your dives last longer. I’ve been to Cozumel a couple times now, and would welcome the opportunity to go back again for the excellent drift diving, and the reasonable accommodations.

Below is a quick slide show that features some of the underwater pictures that I took during my time in Cozumel.