Two for One!

Two First Magnitude springs, one weekend of camping! 

1. Florida Caverns State Park (#13 Bozell Springs) 

2. Ecofina Creek (#14 Gainer Springs Group)

Camping at Florida Caverns State Park – #13 Bozell Springs

A little over a year ago, Kate, Angela, and I went on a little tour of the Panhandle led by Harry – we went diving in beautiful caverns at dive sites that were otherwise inaccessible and unknown to us. We got a great first taste of springs diving up in northwest Florida as we explored Vortex Spring, Morrison Spring, and Jackson Blue Spring. And this past Martin Luther King Day weekend, I found myself back in the quaint town of Marianna, FL near Jackson Blue Spring – but this time for a 3-day camping trip to Florida Caverns State Park.

On Friday, Greg, Adrienne, Ben, and I loaded up the Prius and Adrienne’s big truck for the 3.5-hour drive out to the park. After about an hour of driving north on I-75, we turned west onto I-10 and not much changed for about 150 miles. Forests, grasslands, and pastures of cows or horses here and there flew by at 80 miles an hour as the miles went by. The whole drive reminded me what natural Florida really looks like – a big theme for the weekend spent entirely outdoors. It was a very contrary view of Florida as compared to how many sunshine state vacationers may envision their typical Disney or Miami Beach excursions.

We gained an hour as we crossed the Apalachicola River and passed into the Central time zone, arriving in time to have enough light to set up our little campsite and build a fire to prepare for the 30-something degree temperatures that night. 

John Moran had been nice enough to give me some detailed insider tips about the park and I couldn’t be more happy and thankful that he did -  we ended up seeing things that we would have otherwise totally missed  - all within steps of our campsite. After a chilly night, we started our first morning by exploring the karst window and little cave behind our campsite as well as the Blue Hole...

Blue Hole, a swimming hole by our campsite at Florida Caverns State Park. We didn't actually swim in this one because it was murky/cloudy turquoise colored.

Above (left): Exploring a dry cave near our campsite during the day (top photo) then at night, playing with long exposures and lights (second 2 photos). Above (right): tree roots growing down into a limestone chimney. This area behind our campsite was full of chimneys and karst windows (one pictured below).

We first came across this karst window during the daytime (first photo) then went back at night to paint it with lights and take more photos (second 2 photos).

After trekking around behind our campsite, we took a cave tour – the park’s main attraction. Walking down into the cave was pretty bizarre, as most caves I’ve been exposed to so far are underwater. I kept feeling naked without my tank, BC, regulator, and dive light/backup light. It was tempting to bring, but walking in flippers may have proved fatal in this situation. Although there were puddles of water throughout the cave and apparently it has completely flooded in the past. I asked our nice guide if people were allowed to dive in it when it flooded, but she said that all of the lights/electricity in the cave don’t mix well with divers aka it’s not a good idea. I’m thinking if they turned off all of the electricity it would be fine… But anyway, for the time being, an air-filled underground cave tour was perfect and absolutely breathtaking – the cave formations were amazing and the colorful lights they added in some of the rooms created a brilliant effect.

Stalagtites and stalagmites under natural lighting, versus...

...with colorful lighting in another part of the cave.

Two more colored parts of the cave... almost looks like fire & ice.

Greg in the big colorful room of the cave. He's excited we're not in an underwater cave :)

After about a 45 minute cave tour, we rented a canoe from the state park and launched it into the Chipola River - I had been looking forward to this for weeks. In my continued quest to swim in every first magnitude spring in Florida, I searched out those in the area and found that the Bozel Spring group (also called Baltzell or Bosel) is just 1.5 miles up the Chipola River from the state park canoe launch – aka way too close to pass up while staying at the park! Some sources say Bozel is not a first magnitude spring because they look at only Bozel #2, but many regard the whole Bozel Springs Group (4 springs together) as a magnitude 1 group... so I’m going with that explanation. #2 is the largest and is probably a second magnitude spring. We launched 2 canoes for the 4 of us (plus Tigger!) and paddled upstream for about 30 minutes. The flow wasn’t bad because the water level was so low – no rain for a while left the river banks exposed and the spring runs shallow. 

This is the main spring pool of Bozel #2. This spring was featured in a March 1999 issue of National Geographic on p. 47... I still need to look it up to compare the photos. The pool here is about 35 feet in diameter and 12 feet underwater, there is a limestone fissure about 18 feet long that leads to a cave system.

I anxiously anticipated the sight of the spring run the whole way there – I didn’t know exactly what to look for except that the run was on the right bank of the river a few minutes after the sign for the boundary of the state park and that there were some “no trespassing” signs at the end of one of the spring runs. Of the 4 different springs that make up the Bozel Spring group, #2 is the easiest to find, and it ends up that’s the one we came across first. And to my surprise, another motor boat was going up the run at the same time as us, at first making me mad that their engine was messing up the beautiful vegetation when I thought they were fishermen. This agitation later gave way to excitement when they started chatting with us and pulling cave diving gear out of their boat. Apparently this little-known spring has a beautiful cave system attached to it (http://www.technicaldiver.com/rbearbozell.html)! Some day I hope to come back and explore that too J

The first thing that struck me about Bozel was the different vegetation. There were a couple types that I  had never seen before - some that was red and pink-ish and others that looked like big lettuce leaves. There were also a surprising number of snails all over the fallen trees and on the leaves of submerged vegetation throughout the spring. They were doing a pretty good job of keeping the algae grazed as compared to many of the springs around Gainesville. The water was fairly clear when we got in but we quickly stirred up the bottom with the four of us plus Tigger swimming around.

We spent a long time free-diving and taking pictures in the spring. Tigger took it upon himself to remove sticks/trees from the spring and was quite successful – after of course being almost successful at eating my fins. Apparently he was attracted to my fast-moving tennis-ball colored fins…

We spent a long time free-diving and taking pictures in the main basin. Tigger took it upon himself to remove sticks/trees from the spring and was quite successful - after of course being almost successful at eating my flippers. Apparently he was attracted to my fast-moving tennis-ball colored fins...

The spring run is clear and shallow (1-3 feet deep)
and about 800 feet long. Colorful vegetation is
plentiful around the edge of the spring pool.

An isolated spring pool was visible nearby, but we were told to stay off the land (by the state park rangers in addition to a million signs), so we figured out in the back woods it wasn’t worth the risk of touching the private land around the open spring. It probably would have been fine but we didn’t want to push our luck and were frozen anyway, so we headed out the long spring run back to the river. We were unsuccessful at making it up any of the other runs as they were all dried up, too shallow, or blocked by trees, but we were happy to that we found Bozel #2 and I was more than excited to swim in another magnitude 1! 

Ecofina Creek - #14 Gainer Springs Group

We launched near Strickland Springs on this map... we'll
have to go back and explore the springs just north. This map
represents about 2 miles of river... our takeout point was
about 6.5 miles downstream of Gainer Springs.

The next morning after the excitement of my 13^th magnitude 1 swim, we had plans to rent canoes from the nearby Bear Paw shop. But unfortunately they were not answering the phone and seemed to be closed during the off-season. Determined to spend another day on the water, we called the Ecofina Creek Canoe Livery, located about an hour southwest of the park near Panama City. They weren’t exactly open either, but the owner said they would open by reservation, so by 11am, Greg and I were at Ecofina Creek with 2 kayaks, wetsuits, masks, fins, and 8 miles of river and about a half dozen springs ahead of us.

There are 11 springs or spring groups with 36 separate vents in the Ecofina Creek Basin. We were in the middle section of Ecofina Creek near the 20 bridge. In the grand scheme of Ecofina Creek (encompassing almost 200,000 acres), all of the springs are within a .75 mile section, which corresponds to the intersection of Ecofina Creek and the Floridan Aquifer.

Other than the first magnitude Gainer Springs group, 4 springs in the Ecofina Creek basin are classified as second magnitude, 6 are third magnitude, and 2 are fourth magnitude. The magnitude denotes how much flow comes out of the spring vent... the largest (>100cfs) are first magnitude springs. Ecofina Creek flows into Deerpoint Lake, which is the public water supply for Panama City.

Since I didn’t realize we were going to end up at Ecofina Creek, I hadn’t really done my research and didn’t know what was in store for us except that John said it is absolutely amazing. Thankfully there was a little map at the canoe livery place, but I forgot to take a picture of it, so since returning to Gainesville, I have been reading everything I can find about Ecofina Creek - I discovered that we actually swam in another magnitude 1 spring group called the Gainer Springs Group!! The Gainer Spring complex is made up of 5 springs, creatively named Gainer #1-5. Gainer #1 has 9 different vents, so it is actually Gainer #1a-i. So confusing. A few of the larger springs actually have other names too. The spring in this complex that was the most brilliant was the privately-owned Emerald Spring – also known as Gainer #2. It is the most noticeable and the largest because the owners actually dug it out so that there is a big artificial island in the middle. Since water is public property, we could explore the spring but not the surrounding land.

This is a collage of some pictures I took throughout the day. The full album of photos is on Facebook in my Panhandle Exploring album. The middle picture of this collage is Greg kayaking next to Gainer #3 and the others are a compilation from Strickland, Williford, Bluff, Sylvan, Pitt, Fenceline, Gainer #1, and Gainer #2 springs. So many springs, so little time!! Think that's a new record for the number of springs I've ever explored in one day. Best day ever!

We found a little spring up a tiny spring run that was
hidden under a fence and through the woods.
I think it was Gainer #1(aka McCormick Springs).
At first the natural pool surrounded by cyprus
and mixed hardwoods didn't look too impressive
until we saw what looked like black bubbles
at the surface in the corner. They turned out to
be bull frog tadpoles!! This is a closeup of the bullfrog
tadpoles... apparently they are bigger as tadpoles
than they are when they first turn into frogs!

All of the springs were basically in the first 1.5 miles of our trip and we spent so long exploring each one that this took us until 3pm… leaving us with an hour to get the kayaks another 6.5 miles downstream. Oops. We covered this last 6.5 miles in a little over an hour and by the end I could barely hold the paddle up. Ouch! Thankfully the guy from the canoe livery wasn't mad that we were 30 minutes late - we must have looked sore, tired, and happy to see him! He cheerily drove us home and told us stories as we recounted our adventures from the day and picked his brain about local knowledge and some crazy things we came across (like the tadpoles in the picture to the left!).

Here is a Google Earth screenshot of the 8 mile section of Ecofina Creek that we kayaked.  I rotated it sideways on Google Earth so that I could zoom in farther to get a more closeup view of how winding the river is... sometimes you actually go north to get south because it's so curly! Basically all of the springs are upstream or somewhere near the 20 bridge (wayy at the top of the map... the rest was the 1.5 hours of hard core fast paddling to make it to the take-out point semi-on time).

Overall, it was an exciting weekend of springs exploring, but I have since realized that this area of the Panhandle is as spring-rich as the areas around Gainesville (if not more so), so I have become obsessed with returning and exploring some of the others. The Chipola Diver's website is a great resource for getting more information on diveable springs in the area. Between this trip and the last, I have been to many of them but could certainly use a few more weekends to check out the rest... hopefully in the near future. I think Wakulla (near Tallahassee) is the next first magnitude to be checked off my list... and then some other smaller springs in Mill Pond, Holmes Creek, Leon Sinks State Park. So many springs to see, so little time.

#12 Weeki Wachee Spring: Where the mermaids swim!

On my birthday eve (10/10/12), for the first time since our May 19 snorkel at Madison Blue Spring, I dove into a NEW first magnitude spring! The summer brought many ocean adventures in the Gulf of Mexico, Bahamas, and back home in Massachusetts, and since August I have been either diving in new non-first magnitude springs or continuing to explore and photograph repeat springs. There's always something new to see, so this could keep me busy for years, but swimming in a new spring is always exciting. Of the fifteen or so first magnitude springs  remaining on my short list, Weeki Wachee was on the "this will be hard to dive" list along with several other springs on private property / accesible only by boat. Anyway, Weeki Wachee Spring, recently designated as a state park, is about 2 hours southwest of Gainesville and while you can swim in a tiny, shallow section of the spring basin off to the side, diving in the main mermaid basin is restricted to dive shops and organizations with special permission. Thankfully, Wednesday was my lucky day as NASE had a permit to dive in the main basin to shoot more footage for their training videos. We previously shot at a pool in Ocala, but for the open water portion of the shooting, why not swim where the mermaids swim? I certainly wasn't going to question that decision :) 

1/2 and 1/2 shot of the main basin. The mermaid shows take place just below the big building visible in the back right with the sloping brown roofs and blue sides. There is an underwater stage in front of a whole line of picture windows for people sitting inside the comfort of the building's indoor auditorium to look underwater out into the spring basin and watch the mermaids swim. It was a truly magical place. And the flow coming out of the main spring vent was very strong. There is a whole cave system if you enter where the water is so swiftly bursting from the ground, but it is off limits and known to be one of the most dangerous caves.

Another view of the main basin looking in the opposite direction of the 1/2 and 1/2 picture above. The blue floats in the back right are the floats at the water line in the middle of the first picture. The water slides in the background are part of the park but were not open when we were there - during the off-season, the water park is only open on weekends.

We were greeted not only by Allen, the mermaid trainer and world-record holder for the longest continuous ocean dive, but also by a whole slew of wild peacocks! There were several roaming around the park and hanging out where you least expected. Even after a whole day of seeing them everywhere, I was still surprised every time one wandered by and checked out our dive gear...

We completed 3 dives in the brilliant crystal clear water throughout the day to get footage for the NASE training video. Every hour or two, we took a break so that the mermaids could perform their shows for park visitors. And during our last break we took a stroll over to the underwater auditorium and watched a bit of the show!

Demonstrating sharing air.

Scott and I swimming through the main basin.

Floating in the sun over the underwater stage during the last dive of the day... getting ready to do one of the last skills. These underwater shots are all frame grabs from Jim's video footage taken with his amazing Red Epic camera - all 3 of these underwater diving photos are (c) Valeo Films Inc. 2012.

According to Allen, the mermaid shows take place all year long. He requires that all mermaids are SCUBA certified and trains those that are not certified before they start doing shows at Weeki Wachee - this is important for buoyancy control and learning to breathe off of the hoses scattered throughout the basin, which he likens to breathing off a free-flowing second stage. This is not an easy feat, especially at high pressure. There are about 15 mermaids and there are usually 3 shows per day, sometimes more. Lightning is the only thing that will cancel a show, and Halloween is one of their biggest days... they even have an 11pm show! Below are views of their stage from the underwater auditorium. When we first arrived, there were sunfish and mullet swimming throughout the basin, reminding us that despite the windows and mystical mermaids, it is still a natural spring:

A beautiful show of air bubbles during the mermaid show :) 

On our way over to check out the show, we found the entrance to the main basin that the mermaids use. It is a 60 foot swim from here to the main basin and most do it without a mask - thankfully for the mermaids there are air hoses in the underwater tube just in case they don't take a big enough breath at the ladder.

Tails and sequins?! Not your typical diving locker room. 

This is the sign above the hallway going down into the underwater auditorium. Love it!! 

Slack-ing

We drove south (then east) until the Gators game was fuzzy on every station. Then we drove for a bit longer. While it's sometimes fun to take part in the crazy Gator game day festivities, there is definitely something to be said for an escape to the more remote springs on a beautiful Saturday. The trip to Alexander took about two hours - basically the first hour is south on 441 then the second hour is east on 40 through the National Forest until you reach its farthest southeast corner. This was my third or fourth trip to Alexander, but I will never get sick of it, and this time was exciting for many reasons, namely that it was Stephanie's first spring dive :)

As we pulled up for an afternoon dive/snorkel, we were welcomed by a crowded parking lot. After checking out the spring, we suited up at the car and walked down in all of our gear, which meant that we certainly did not have any trouble diving into the refreshing 72 degree water to escape the September heat. It's hard to imagine that everyone is turning on the heat and breaking out the sweaters back home in New England!

Stephanie in the main basin. Unfortunately, there were about a dozen other divers in the basin... the rest being open water students doing a great job of stirring up the bottom. The basin has always been crystal clear in the past, but the suspended algae and sand didn't seem to bother somebody used to diving in low vis lakes and salt water :)

As we dove below (in an absolute maximum of a whole 24 feet of water), Greg snorkeled above... probably a smart move to avoid all of the divers at the bottom -and it made for some cool swimming-in-the-sky pictures! 

After checking out the basin, we ended up spending over half of the dive in the shallows... definitely snorkeling territory, but still a blast. There were many friendly bluegill like this one as well as 2 turtles, bass, and quite a few little minnows.

Tight squeeze! This is Stephanie swimming for the stairs after a great dive... sunny blue skies above :) This is also just about the time when a few little kids got really excited (as we casually dove in 3 feet of water) and started marveling and exclaiming "Cool!! Divers!".

Up until this point, I guess we hadn't been slacking, as the title of this post implies. But there's still more to come. Greg just happened to have his slackline in his backpack, so we found two trees next to our picnic table and tried (quite unsuccessfully) this awesome new tightrope-like walking/balancing/falling act... needless to say, it's 100% addicting!

Greg tried it out first - and gave us some pointers on how to stand on a stretchy 3" moving line between two trees... not as easy as he makes it look...

Hands UP!

This is how all of my attempts inevitably ended... although I suppose it could have ended worse... And maybe next time, I'll consider bringing better slacklining attire.

 After becoming thoroughly addicted to slack-ing and getting many funny looks from other spring-goers, some afternoon clouds and the threat of rain scared everybody out of the park. We decided to hang around for a cool-down snorkel, which ended up being a great decision! With the whole spring to ourselves, we spent about a half hour freediving in the now clear and undisturbed water. It seemed like a new place and I was excited that Stephanie got to see it like this instead of just hear about "how beautiful and clear it usually is" secondhand from me. Near the end, the sun even peeked out from behind the clouds... perfect end to a great day :)

Floating into Fall

Up North, as summer faded to fall, chilly nights, fresh-picked apples, and changing leaves used to remind me that September was beginning. One by one, sailboats in the harbor would begin to disappear to their winter boatyard hideouts and flip-flops were suddenly out of season. But in the South, I continue to lose track of time as the endless summer carries on. Temperatures are definitely noticeably cooler than the mid July-to-August heat wave that leaves the caves and springs the only places to take refuge from the unrelenting heat. But now it feels like a comfortably hot New England summer day, weather lending itself perfectly to paddling, swimming, and snorkeling.
Work has kept me busy out of the water - we have been pitching a few new and exciting ideas over the past couple of weeks and I recently finished the online training portion of my introductory cave diver course. Now it's a week or more of in-water training and hours and hours of bottom time... I am counting down the minutes until it starts!! So after what I now realize has been over a month without a post, there are a few weekend adventures to catch up on...

Santa Fe Kayaking

The weekend before Labor Day craziness struck the springs, Kate and I headed up to Adventure Outpost in High Springs to rent kayaks for a paddle down the Santa Fe River. Plentiful rain over the preceding weeks left the once dry and low river flowing swiftly. High water levels also meant that the crystal clear springs that dot the Santa Fe and allow for swimming breaks along the way were totally covered with the tannic coffee-colored water. We spent much of our journey down-river attempting to find these invisible springs, looking for the slightest hint of a boil and paddling up little tributaries resembling spring runs along the banks of the river.

We started up at the green pin on the top right of the map and went all the way to the red pin on the bottom left. The river was flowing so quickly that we did a 4-hour paddle in 3 hours, even though we were taking our time to explore. We passed many springs along the way - Poe Spring, Allen Spring, Lily Spring, and ended our trip at Rum Island, which was also extremely high and flooded.

Other adventures included helping a tandem kayak rescue their other capsized tandem kayak... which ended in 2 capsized tandem kayaks and 4 people up the creek without a paddle. But when all was said and done, the 2 parents, grandmother, and grandson were all drenched but back in one piece. Certainly a river adventure... can't wait to do it again when the springs are clear :)

The Great Suwannee River Cleanup

After a break for Labor Day weekend to avoid the inevitable zoo of spring-goers and river rafters, a day on the river was definitely in order. So, Greg and I loaded up the canoe and headed out to where the 47 bridge intersects the Santa Fe River to join the "Current Problems" Great Suwannee River Cleanup kickoff. At the little park/boat ramp, we were greeted by a whole bunch of enthusiastic volunteers, all prepared with almost a dozen canoes, kayaks, and motorboats, not to mention endless supplies for picking up trash. So after loading up with trash bags, buckets, and poles, and grabbing our hats and paddles, we were ready for a morning of river cleaning.

A few sprinkles while launching gave way to a beautiful sunny day. We were surprised when everyone else besides a single kayak launched and was towed upriver by the motorboats. Instead, we opted to paddle upstream along the shore - a feat much more easily accomplished this weekend in a canoe with two people than the weekend before in a single kayak after a big rain storm. We spent almost two hours paddling and scouring the banks and fallen trees for trash. There wasn't nearly as much trash as I expected. The majority of our findings included empty and full beer cans (no surprises there), fishing lines wrapped in trees, and some random pieces of metal and bottles. Other boats we passed didn't have too much trash either, but we did find one super dedicated volunteer in the tannic river in a wetsuit grabbing trash and saw one kayaker pull a massive wooden block out of the river, almost to her own demise... But over the course of two hours with many volunteers, it definitely made a difference. All together, we removed 251 pounds of trash from the river!!

Back at the boat ramp after a nice float downstream, we were happy to be greeted by the Santa Fe River Park Task Force that was hosting a big cookout. About 75 people gathered under the newly-constructed pavilion and picnic tables to eat and listen to some speeches about the recently completed park renovations and further river cleanups. There was also a scary taxidermy truck full of stuffed local animals that immediately gave me the creeps... so we wandered over to the cave diving table instead. The NACD had a table set up with two nice cave divers who I ended up chatting with for a while, adding to my already growing excitement for getting in the caves. Perfect ending to a great morning!

Silver Glen Springs

The next day's adventures took me a bit further south to the Ocala National Forest - and also a few years back in time. Ignoring the threat of storms and torrential buckets of rain pouring down for the hour and a half drive, I headed to my favorite spring to meet Stephanie for a first-time-since-high-school reunion. And the timing couldn't have been more perfect - the rain let up and a bit of sun tried to peek from behind the clouds as we suited up and headed for a chilly snorkel, camera in hand.

A 1/2 and 1/2 view of the main basin. Cloudy skies above, crystal clear water below. 

I was so excited to share Stephanie's first swim in a spring! Here, she is "free-falling" at the top of the basin. We were lucky to be the only people in the water for a while, and we spent a long time taking pictures and diving down into the basin to check out the cave entrance and be pushed to the surface by the strong flow. There was quite an impressive boil at the surface! 

Mullet that are common to most of the springs these days seemed even more abundant than usual. They are found swimming around using a flapping/flying motion and voraciously foraging on the plentiful algae. 

The whole spring around the basin is completely overgrown with algae. While overwhelming and not welcome, it does create beautiful twirls as it flows in the current coming out of the natural well. The pole here has a sign on it telling you to  keep out of the natural well... which was very difficult as you could see dozens of striped bass circling a beautiful sunlit column that heads straight to the bottom. To dive in with the Silver Glen Cave Diving Team and check it out, click here.

The rest of the basin is very shallow but teeming with life. Stephanie and I spent over an hour swimming around and checking out the sunfish, sucker fish, and striped bass and playing in the crystal clear pool until the spring water got the best of us (and I filled up the memory card in my camera...). It felt nice to actually be cold after months of sweltering summer heat, and it was a perfect excuse to catch up and take a walk through the woods down the Spring Boils trail.

Can't wait for a diving adventure in Alexander Spring with Stephanie this coming weekend... and more pictures are in my "Floating" album on Facebook :)