Cave Diving in Florida....

[marlas]

Am looking for some advice really... hope somebody can help!! Will be heading to Florida at the end of this year and am hoping to do some cavern/cave diving during my stay. This will be a first so I am wondering where exactly I should be heading and ven better, if anyone can recommend a dive school in that part of the world?? Thanks in advance....!!!

[And]

Hi

High Springs is where I would recommend you stay. There are quite a few motels around and it is close to the motorway (highway, whatever they call it). 30 minutes drive from gainsville, and there are plenty of eateries around.

Extreme Exposure is in High Springs and they have nitrox, trimix etc and loads of gear, spares etc.

Ginnie Springs is literally 10 minutes drive away and many of the other caves, such as Peacock, Manatee, are around 1 hour away.

The other place to consider would be lauraville, which is close to Peacock, but is a bit further away from civilisation, and closer to the mosquitos

As far as schools then I would say GUE, but you would need to get a DIRF out of the way before doing Cave 1, but at least with cave 1 you are in caves on your second day of diving with twinsets etc. Of course its DIR so that might not be your thing.

There are also NACD, NSSCDS instructors around and you would plan a mix of cavern, apprentice cave etc. Ginni Springs has instructors galore. I am not sure about lauraville, but Zak and Frank are the men who know that neck of the woods.

Hope that helps

Andy

[NotDeadYet]

I did my full cave about ten years ago with John & Shelley Orlowski at Aquaspeleo in Live Oak. Incredibly good and incredibly experienced divers, very helpful, very good instructors. They are very, very thorough and at the end you'll feel totally exhausted.

I thought they were great, I had a complete blast with them but I'd reckon you need a certain type of personality to get the best from them. If you've ever seen Otis Lee Crenshaw then John is his lost twin.

[Rod]

I use Bill 'Bird' from Birds Underwater. He is a very experienced caver and an excellent cave Instructor. He is based in Crystal River and will normally start you off in Kings Spring then go on to Ginnie Springs for the rest of the course. He can teach PADI, NSS-CDS as well as NACD.

While you are there you can do some snorkling with Manatees in Crystal River.
A really good package.

[marlas]

Great, thanks guys... found some sites to have a look at!

[peterdevlin]

Originally Posted by marlas

Am looking for some advice really... hope somebody can help!! Will be heading to Florida at the end of this year and am hoping to do some cavern/cave diving during my stay. This will be a first so I am wondering where exactly I should be heading and ven better, if anyone can recommend a dive school in that part of the world?? Thanks in advance....!!!

High Springs is definitely the place to go.

I highly recommend Johnny Richards http://www.cavediving.com/, email Johnny@CaveDiving.com

I did a course with Johnny and had a great time and learnt alot.

Ciao,
Peter