Manatee Viewing Center

Awesome Sal....

I used to take UWF students diving with the Manatees at Crystal River....turn the sound off it's just me going Aussie. I videoed all the trips..it was fun and the animals would come right up to you.

I used to fish sebastian inlet alot... they were all over the place... sometimes even a bit of a pain. One used to love on my boat.

TEOTWAWKI wrote:

I used to take UWF students diving with the Manatees at Crystal River....turn the sound off it's just me going Aussie. I videoed all the trips..it was fun and the animals would come right up to you.

I have never dove Crystal River but I have dove some very majestic places. The place with Manatee's was Tarpon Springs and Manatee Springs. I have also dove other places such as Vortex Springs, Suwanee River State Park and Suwanee Springs, Wakulla Springs State Park and Mineral Springs. This coming summer I intend to dive the Oriskany.

Ghost Rider wrote:

TEOTWAWKI wrote:

I used to take UWF students diving with the Manatees at Crystal River....turn the sound off it's just me going Aussie. I videoed all the trips..it was fun and the animals would come right up to you.

I have never dove Crystal River but I have dove some very majestic places. The place with Manatee's was Tarpon Springs and Manatee Springs. I have also dove other places such as Vortex Springs, Suwanee River State Park and Suwanee Springs, Wakulla Springs State Park and Mineral Springs. This coming summer I intend to dive the Oriskany.

Awesome....I like to dive. I only dive off my diving board.....of course with the new insurance my board must be removed.

I have not been diving in 4 years. I got certified in Nitrox the last year and was pleasantly surprised how much better you felt after a dive of course it reduced my depth considerably. Still got my gear but it all needs serviced. Way back when I first started diving I wore a French navy horse collar bc. Still got it some where. I quit the Gulf after the spill. I miss the3 barges half barge casino bridge rubble , liberty ships, Russian freighter and others. One of my favorites was a lumber ship in appilacicola pass was a shallow dive but lots of wildlife All my dive buddies got old and quit and after diving a lot with the UWF Scuba club. I started solo cave diving and found out I liked diving solo Much better when you are only looking out for yourself. Crystal river is a great place with lots of sea life and gators for a bonus. I got a gator I chased along the bottom on video somewhere. Cayman Islands were another favorite of mine. Good luck.

I don't think I would dive deep solo... but that sure sounds cool. I scuba dived and spear fished alot tho.

Pretty dangerous in the passes... but I didn't consider it much at the time.

TEOTWAWKI wrote:I have not been diving in 4 years.  I got certified in Nitrox the last year and was pleasantly surprised how much better you felt after a dive of course it reduced my depth considerably. Still got my gear but it all needs serviced. Way back when I first started diving I wore a French navy horse collar bc. Still got it some where. I quit the Gulf after the spill. I miss the3 barges half barge casino bridge rubble , liberty ships, Russian freighter and others. One of my favorites was a lumber ship in appilacicola pass was a shallow dive but lots of wildlife   All my dive buddies got old and quit and after diving a lot with the UWF Scuba club. I started solo cave diving and found out I liked diving solo   Much better when you are only looking out for yourself. Crystal river is a great place with lots of sea life and gators for a bonus. I got a gator I chased along the bottom on video somewhere.   Cayman Islands were another favorite of mine.   Good luck.

I am cave certified, but I do not have gonads big enough for a solo cave dive. Even when I buddy dive, since tou as the diver almost always makes the visibility 0, I still trail a rope behind me. You did hear about the kid and his stepfather that died in Vortex Springs on Christman. From what I read, the kid got all this dive equipment for his birthday and he was not even certified yet. His step-father was certiried but not certified to cave dive. I symapthize with that family, but they brought this upon themselves.

If I continue diving I too am going to get my Nitrox certification.

If God wanted me below water he would have given me gills so yall take pictures as that will the ONLY way I'll ever see the deep sea. It's absolutely terrifying to even think about it . . Jacques Cousteau I am not but I'm envious of the courage.

TEOTWAWKI wrote:I have not been diving in 4 years.  I got certified in Nitrox the last year and was pleasantly surprised how much better you felt after a dive of course it reduced my depth considerably. Still got my gear but it all needs serviced. Way back when I first started diving I wore a French navy horse collar bc. Still got it some where. I quit the Gulf after the spill. I miss the3 barges half barge casino bridge rubble , liberty ships, Russian freighter and others. One of my favorites was a lumber ship in appilacicola pass was a shallow dive but lots of wildlife   All my dive buddies got old and quit and after diving a lot with the UWF Scuba club. I started solo cave diving and found out I liked diving solo Much better when you are only looking out for yourself. Crystal river is a great place with lots of sea life and gators for a bonus. I got a gator I chased along the bottom on video somewhere.   Cayman Islands were another favorite of mine.   Good luck.

One of the dumbest statements I've ever seen.

I have not done any diving in years but in my younger years I worked as a diver for the Miami Seaquarium, as a salvage diver on the "Aqua Fun", we, independent salvage divers also sometimes served the Miami police before they had their own divers, as a fill in dive master on a couple of boats when I worked in Key West. None of the glory salvage diving, only pulling cars out of canals, motors dropped overboard and anything else.

Good you quit diving regardless of your excuse.  Without doubt you were going to be a black eye for cave diving.

Markle wrote:

TEOTWAWKI wrote:I have not been diving in 4 years.  I got certified in Nitrox the last year and was pleasantly surprised how much better you felt after a dive of course it reduced my depth considerably. Still got my gear but it all needs serviced. Way back when I first started diving I wore a French navy horse collar bc. Still got it some where. I quit the Gulf after the spill. I miss the3 barges half barge casino bridge rubble , liberty ships, Russian freighter and others. One of my favorites was a lumber ship in appilacicola pass was a shallow dive but lots of wildlife   All my dive buddies got old and quit and after diving a lot with the UWF Scuba club. I started solo cave diving and found out I liked diving solo Much better when you are only looking out for yourself. Crystal river is a great place with lots of sea life and gators for a bonus. I got a gator I chased along the bottom on video somewhere.   Cayman Islands were another favorite of mine.   Good luck.

One of the dumbest statements I've ever seen.

I have not done any diving in years but in my younger years I worked as a diver for the Miami Seaquarium, as a salvage diver on the "Aqua Fun", we, independent salvage divers also sometimes served the Miami police before they had their own divers, as a fill in dive master on a couple of boats when I worked in Key West.  None of the glory salvage diving, only pulling cars out of canals, motors dropped overboard and anything else.
Good you quit diving regardless of your excuse.  Without doubt you were going to be a black eye for cave diving.

Well you can have your dumbass opinion. The closet I ever came to dying was cave diving with two other men. I don't think it's worth giving you the details but I was far safer by myself. Two guys died in the Vortex pipe when one had a blow out in his regulator and they tried to buddy breath out. They both ran out of air and died. Anyway I got hundreds and hundreds of dives and have done just fine. Your opinion is just that, yours. Morrison Springs had taken close to 70 lives last time I was there and I dove it all the time. One of my favorite dives. Anybody can be a statistic with a buddy or not. I just don't need that false sense of security a buddy gives. I wouldn't dive with you anyway or anyone else for that matter. You are a judgemental jerk in everything you post...you must talk directly to god huh ?

Is this a place set-up or set aside for the manatees, or just a place where they all happen to go? Either way, how very cool!

Loved diving, but have not dived since they took the left lobe. I used to love the Bahamas, Key Largo, and lake superior on the old ore boat wrecks. One of our group got a two foot wooden pulley in pristine shape off door county ore wreck, and he kept it......a real no no even back then.

I have dove strip mines with zero visibility, and devil's lake is a fun dive because folks would drive their model T's out onto the lake ice, and they would fall through.......they stayed in remarkable shape at about 35 feet. I tried Navarre Beach, and did not enjoy the gulf side dive because of the wave action, and I was older. Diving was fun until I had to recover a body of a 7 year old in a town square in Saltillo Mexico.....a very bad day for all involved.

QueenOfHearts wrote:Is this a place set-up or set aside for the manatees, or just a place where they all happen to go?  Either way, how very cool!

It's a water outfall canal from a coal-fired power plant.

The water stays at a balmy 80-85 degrees, and the manatees flock to it when the weather turns cold.

http://www.tampaelectric.com/company/mvc/

knothead wrote:If God wanted me below water he would have given me gills so yall take pictures as that will the ONLY way I'll ever see the deep sea.  It's absolutely terrifying to even think about it . . Jacques Cousteau I am not but I'm envious of the courage.

God may not have given you gills, but He provided man with the ability to invent SCUBA. Without this knowledge, man would lay at the bottom of the ocean and the families would not have a corpse to bury. Or even pull a survivor from a sunken ship after he had survived in an air pocket for 5 days. So if God had not wanted man to SCUBA, he woud not have provided the knowledge to invent it.

Not being dispespectful KH, just stating the good that can be accomplished using SCUBA.