Florida Springs/Manatee Trip

February 6-9, 2009

 

North-central Florida is renowned for its crystal clear, fresh water springs, its year-round 72-degree water and its population of cute and cuddly man- atees. This is your opportunity to experi- ence the best north Florida has to offer on a trip that is both con- venient and affordable.

Our primary goal in setting up this trip was to provide our November, December and January beginning students with a low-cost way to complete their open-water training dives which did not involve waiting until May and going to the rock quarry. It is the kind of trip, however, that divers of any experience level can enjoy.

Veteran dive travelers may find this trip unusual in a couple respects:

• Because this is a domestic USA trip, we did not include air fare in the price. Many participants will want to save money by using frequent flyer miles to get to and from Orlando; others may even want to drive.

• If you are not planning to drive down in your own vehicle, you are going to need to rent one. The Orlando airport area offers some of the best car rental deals, and you can save even more money by carpooling with other trip participants.

• It is possible to do this trip by flying down late Friday and returning late Monday. However, experience shows that many participants may want to extend their trip by one or more days so that they can visit Orlando-area attractions such as Walt Disney World or Universal Studios, or even travel south to the Keys or Gold Coast.

• Participants also have the opportunity to stay through Tuesday and complete their PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course.

In any event, we’ve set this trip up for maximum flexibility. Whether you want to fly or drive, arrive early or stay late, it’s entirely up to you.

Itinerary

Friday, February 6: If you are not planning to arrive early, you can catch a late-afternoon flight from Cleveland to Orlando, pick up a rental car, drive to Gainesville and check into the hotel.

Saturday Morning, February 7: We begin by diving to Devils Den, a unique and breathtaking site where you enter the water by first going underground. (Don’t worry, though, plenty of daylight reaches down below.)

Saturday Afternoon, February 7: We next go to world-famous Ginnie Springs. It’s when you pass the bottled-water plant on the way to the site that you realize just how pure and clear this water is. Ginnie also provides certified divers the opportunity to make a safe (and exciting) cavern dive.

Sunday Morning, February 8: Another breathtakingly clear site is Blue Grotto. Here we dive in a cavern entrance that’s big enough to fly a 737 into.

Sunday Afternoon, February 8: Our next stop is Rainbow River, where we will drift up to a mile through clear, warm water, while encountering fish, turtles, birds and maybe even an alligator…garfish. It is also at this point that we transfer our base of operations from Gainesville to the Best Western Resort in Crystal River.

Monday Morning, February 9: This is the high point of the trip. We get up very, very early, to be out on the water at the very first minute we can legally get in with the manatees. Because these big guys don’t like the sound of bubbles (and because the water is very shallow), we do this as a snorkel dive. The good news here is that, if you need to fly home the same day, you will be completely off-gassed.

At this point, those who are not taking part in the Advanced course can drive to Orlando to fly home, or go on to whatever other activities they have planned. For those who are doing the Advanced course:

Monday Afternoon, February 9: We drive to Chiefland and Manatee Springs State Park. Here we will make the first two dives of the Advanced course in aptly named Catfish Hotel.

Tuesday, February 10: Depending on conditions, we may use Orange Grove Sink, Troy Spring or 40 Fathom Grotto for the last day of Advanced training — including a dive that may take us as deep as 100 feet.

The dives we will be doing during the Advanced course include the required Navigation and Deep dives, as well as Peak Performance Buoyancy, Search and Recovery and Digital Underwater Photography.

You can see more photos of the places we will visit here. You can also read more about the individual dive sites we will explore here.

Trip Leader

Our trip leader, PADI Master Instructor Harry Averill, is a long-time resident of north-central Florida and has written numerous articles about the region’s best dive sites. Harry is a past PADI Headquarters staff member; his photos, illustrations and text appear in several of PADI texts. (He even coined the term, The Way the World Learns to Dive.) Over the years, Harry has captained dive boats and operated resort dive operations at destinations ranging from Hawaii to the eastern Caribbean. Nevertheless, he says he prefers Florida’s springs, caverns and caves over any of these places.

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Use this form to begin the sign-up process. As soon as we receive this information, we will contact you to see whether you have any questions and to obtain payment information over the phone. (Please note that we cannot consider your reservation confirmed until we receive at least the minimum deposit for the trip.)

Trip	(Select Trip) Florida Springs: Feb 6-9, 2009 (Diver, Double, $599) Florida Springs: Feb 6-9, 2009 (Snorkeler, Double, $349) Florida Springs: Feb 6-9, 2009 (Diver, Single, $799)
Add-Ons	(Select Add-Ons) Open Water Training Dives ($95) Advanced Open Water Course (Feb 9-10, $399)
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