Manatee Springs State Park is a Florida State Park located six miles west of Chiefland on SR 320, off US 19. Manatee Spring is a first magnitude spring that flows directly into the Suwannee River by way of a short run (though it is the longest spring run feeding the Suwannee River). Present also are swamps and hardwoodwetlands along the Suwannee, along with many sinkholeponds, including one with a cave 90 feet below the ground that connects to a popular divers' destination known as the catfish hotel.
During the Seminole Wars (1835- 1842), a significant attack near Manatee Spring, led by Major General Andrew Jackson, killed many of the Seminole Indians and forced the rest out of Florida. This left the area to settlers and farmers who moved into the springs to harvest timber, grow cotton and corn, and raise livestock.[3] On January 23, 1968 Manatee Springs was the first spring to become a Florida State Park after it was sold to the state. Excavations at Manatee Spring Park have revealed that the Indian village was heavily populated throughout history. Fragments of pottery, bone awls, and arrowheads, mostly including materials from the Weeden Island period. Sea turtle and saltwater shells were also found at the village site, speculating the natives of Manatee Spring park used their access to the Suwannee River to travel to the Gulf of Mexico.[4]
The West Indian Manatees, for which the spring is named, travel to the site often, as there are around 100 manatee sightings a year at the park. The springs are an ideal place for the manatees as the tannic acid, which darkens the Suwannee River, stunts the growth of aquatic plant life. The clear spring provides a place for the manatees to feed and rest from their 23-mile travel from the gulf.[5] Manatees are more commonly seen in fall and winter, as the constant 72 °F (23 °C) temperature acts as a warm haven for them. Manatees cannot survive long in cold water, so the spring provides a good place to calve and shelter if winter is particularly harsh. In recent years, boat traffic threatened the life of manatees in the area and in order to prevent harming the manatees, the state park closes the spring run to boat traffic. This allows the manatee population to remain safe, increase in populations, and for more visitors to see these animals.[6]
The spring also attracts large numbers of American black vultures, who winter here. The surprising number of birds makes for a somewhat Gothic spectacle, with moss-draped cypress trees surrounding the spring run filled with large, black birds. The vultures aren't particularly afraid of humans, but are not aggressive either.
Once thought of as the longest cave in the world, Manatee Springs cave system includes over 20,000 explored and mapped caves. There are four main cavern openings located within Manatee Springs Park: Headspring, Catfish Hotel, Sue Sink, and Friedman's Sink.[7] Swimming in the head spring and run is forbidden in winter, when manatees are more likely to be sheltering there. The so-called "catfish hotel" sinkhole and karst window near the main spring remains open year-round with access to these caverns. Swimming and snorkeling is not allowed in the catfish hotel, and is generally unpleasant due to the layer of duck weed covering the water. Sue sink is listed as an emergency exit only for cave divers in the system as ingress and egress is hazardous to the diver and causes soil erosion. Friedman sink is available as an entrance to certified cave divers, and is the furthest upstream entrance to the system.
Certified Open Water divers can dive the head spring with lights, as well as the catfish hotel cavern without lights. Certified Cavern divers can dive the catfish hotel cavern with lights, but are not to explore beyond the daylight zone. Cavern divers should also exhibit caution when nearing the siphon side of the catfish hotel cavern, as the flow is immense. Certified and qualified cave divers are able to explore several miles of caverns which feed into the spring.
Hours
The park is open from 8:00 am till sundown year round.
Chiefland is a city in Levy County, Florida, United States. The population was 2,316 at the 2020 census. Chiefland calls itself the "Gem of the Suwannee Valley" and was incorporated in 1929.
Cave-diving is underwater diving in water-filled caves. It may be done as an extreme sport, a way of exploring flooded caves for scientific investigation, or for the search for and recovery of divers or, as in the 2018 Thai cave rescue, other cave users. The equipment used varies depending on the circumstances, and ranges from breath hold to surface supplied, but almost all cave-diving is done using scuba equipment, often in specialised configurations with redundancies such as sidemount or backmounted twinset. Recreational cave-diving is generally considered to be a type of technical diving due to the lack of a free surface during large parts of the dive, and often involves planned decompression stops. A distinction is made by recreational diver training agencies between cave-diving and cavern-diving, where cavern diving is deemed to be diving in those parts of a cave where the exit to open water can be seen by natural light. An arbitrary distance limit to the open water surface may also be specified.
Sheck Exley was an American cave diver. He is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of cave diving, and he wrote two major books on the subject: Basic Cave Diving: A Blueprint for Survival and Caverns Measureless to Man. On February 6, 1974, Exley became the first chairman of the Cave Diving Section of the American National Speleological Society. During his career, he established many of the basic safety procedures used in cave and overhead diving today. Exley was also a pioneer of extreme deep scuba diving.
De Leon Springs State Park is a Florida State Park in Volusia County, Florida. It is located in DeLeon Springs, off CR 3.
Blue Spring State Park is a state park located west of Orange City, Florida, in the United States. The park is a popular tourist destination; available activities include canoeing, SCUBA diving, kayaking, fishing, camping, hiking, wildlife watching, and swimming. The spring in the park is the largest on the St. Johns River. Due to its relatively warm temperature of 73 °F (23 °C), the spring attracts many Florida manatees during the winter. About 102 million US gallons (390,000 m3) of water flow out of Blue Spring into the St. Johns River every day.
North Central Florida is a region of the U.S. state of Florida which comprises the north-central part of the state and encompasses the North Florida counties of Alachua, Marion, Putnam, Bradford, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Lafayette, Levy, Madison, Suwannee, Taylor, and Union. The region's largest city is Gainesville, home of the University of Florida and center of the Gainesville metropolitan area, which is the largest metro area in North Central Florida. As of 2020, the region had a population of 575,622 people.
The Woodville Karst Plain Project or WKPP, is a project and organization that maps the underwater cave systems underlying the Woodville Karst Plain. This plain is a 450-square-mile (1,200 km2) area that runs from Tallahassee, Florida, U.S. to the Gulf of Mexico and includes numerous first magnitude springs, including Wakulla Springs, and the Leon Sinks Cave System, the longest underwater cave in the United States. The project grew out of a cave diving research and exploration group established in 1985 and incorporated in 1990.
Suwannee River State Park is a Florida State Park located near Live Oak. It offers some of the best backcountry canoeing opportunities in the state. Visitors can see cypress trees, southern magnolia, herons, American coots, turtles and hawks. The park is open year-round.
Ichetucknee Springs State Park is a 2,241-acre (9.07 km2) Florida State Park and National Natural Landmark located 4 miles (6 km) northwest of Fort White off State Road 47 and State Road 238. It centers around the 6-mile-long (10 km) Ichetucknee River, which flows through shaded hammocks and wetlands into the Santa Fe River. The park contains hardwood hammock and limestone outcrops. Like many rivers in this part of North Florida, the Ichetucknee is fed by natural springs which boil up from the aquifer. The state of Florida purchased the property in 1970 from the Loncala Phosphate Corporation for $1,850,000.
Wes Skiles Peacock Springs State Park is a 733-acre (297 ha) Florida State Park located on Peacock Springs Road, two miles (3 km) east of Luraville and on State Road 51, 16 miles (26 km) southwest of Live Oak, Florida. Activities include picnicking, swimming and diving, and wildlife viewing. Among the wildlife of the park are deer, bobcats, raccoon, squirrels, beaver and otters, as well as turkey, blue heron and barred owls. The park name commemorates the work of diver and explorer Wes Skiles. Prior to 2010 the park was known as Peacock Springs State Park. Amenities include a nature trail, six sinkholes, and Peacock and Bonnet Springs, with miles of underwater caves popular with cave divers. The two springs are tributaries of the Suwannee River. The park is open from 8:00 am till sundown year round.
Wakulla Springs is located 14 miles (23 km) south of Tallahassee, Florida and 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Crawfordville in Wakulla County, Florida at the crossroads of State Road 61 and State Road 267. It is protected in the Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park.
Madison Blue Spring State Park is a Florida State Park, located approximately ten miles east of Madison on the west bank of the Withlacoochee River. It contains one of the state's 33 first magnitude springs.This title entails that the spring is discharging at least 2,800 liters of water per second.
The Big Bend of Florida, United States, is an informally-named geographic region of North Florida where the Florida Panhandle transitions to the Florida Peninsula south and east of Tallahassee. The region is known for its vast woodlands and marshlands and its low population density relative to much of the state. The area is home to the largest single spring in the United States, the Alapaha Rise, and the longest surveyed underwater cave in the United States, the 32-mile (51 km) Wakulla-Leon Sinks cave system.
Karst Underwater Research (KUR) is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that specializes in the research and documentation of karst aquifers and their corresponding surface features. KUR members perform a variety of scientific processes, including mapping and cartography, radio location, photography, videography, YSI water analysis and sampling.
The Blue Hole of Santa Rosa, or simply the Blue Hole, is a circular, bell-shaped pool or small lake located along Route 66 east of Santa Rosa, New Mexico that is a tourist attraction and swimming venue, and one of the most popular dive destinations in the US for scuba diving and training. The Blue Hole is an artesian well and cenote that was once used as a fish hatchery.
Jarrod Michael Jablonski is a pioneering technical diver and record setting cave diver as well as an accomplished business owner and operator. These business operations include Halcyon Manufacturing, Extreme Exposure Adventure Center and Global Underwater Explorers. In July 2021 Jablonski launched and now operates the world's deepest pool at Deep Dive Dubai. Jablonski is one of the main architects behind the 'Doing It Right' system of diving.
Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park is a Florida State Park in Wakulla County, Florida, United States. This 6,000 acre (24 km2) wildlife sanctuary, located south of Tallahassee, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and designated a National Natural Landmark.
The Nature Coast State Trail (NCST) is a 31.7-mile long segment of Florida's Statewide System of Greenways and Trails System built along abandoned railroad tracks, and designated by the U.S. Department of the Interior as a National Recreation Trail. It has two primary sections following unused rail lines that were originally built by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. It includes historic sites such as an old train trestle bridge over the Suwannee River near Old Town and train stations in Trenton, Cross City, and Chiefland. At Wilcox Junction abandoned rail tracks cross and connect with several communities. The trail is available to hikers, cyclists, and horse riders.
Ginnie Springs is a privately owned park in Gilchrist County about 6.5 miles (10.5 km) northwest of High Springs, Florida, USA. It is located on the south side of the Santa Fe River, to which it is connected. The water is clear and cold and there are accessible caverns with a sand and limestone bottom.
Cave diving is underwater diving in water-filled caves. The equipment used varies depending on the circumstances, and ranges from breath hold to surface supplied, but almost all cave diving is done using scuba equipment, often in specialised configurations with redundancies such as sidemount or backmounted twinset. Recreational cave diving is generally considered to be a type of technical diving due to the lack of a free surface during large parts of the dive, and often involves planned decompression stops. A distinction is made by recreational diver training agencies between cave diving and cavern diving, where cavern diving is deemed to be diving in those parts of a cave where the exit to open water can be seen by natural light. An arbitrary distance limit to the open water surface may also be specified. Despite the risks, water-filled caves attract scuba divers, cavers, and speleologists due to their often unexplored nature, and present divers with a technical diving challenge.
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