It has been several months since Sara was able to dive; her busy season at work, combined with my full weekend agenda, left her desiring a weekend outdoors. So on Sunday, May 22, we decide to run over to Blue Springs in Orange City, FL.
It has been nearly 10 years since I last dove Blue Springs so I was anxious to go back. My Dad and Carol joined us on the trip.
Blue Springs is one of Florida's 33 first magnitude springs, meaning it has greater than 100 cubic feet of water discharge per second. All of the water at Blue Springs discharges from a small chimney at 120'. The current here is disorienting, it will rip a mask off of your face, and pull gas out of your regulator. The flow on your chest makes it hard to inhale and it will throw you against the wall. The high flow combined with darkness and depth makes for a fatal combination to those without proper training and experience.
Blue springs is a beautiful state park, located along the banks of the St. Johns River in Volusia County. Since it is a state park, admission is only $6 for a car load of divers. Open water divers are prohibited from carrying lights (for your own good). The park opens at 8am, so arrive early, it fills quickly on a nice summer weekend.
Check out their website for more info: http://www.floridastateparks.org/bluespring/
We arrived at the park a few minutes before 9am, and checked in. My dad and I buddy up as cave divers so we could carry lights, and Sara and Carol buddied up as an open water team.
At the parking lot there was already one group of open water divers gearing up and all of the picnic tables were taken by families cooking out.
We geared up in the parking lot, one of the advantages to driving a pickup truck. Then we began the long trek to the spring head. Half of the walk is along a raised boardwalk through a hardwood hammock, the second half of the walk is up the spring run through knee to chest deep water. The total walk is about 1/4 mile.
The head spring is a large fissure crack that drops straight down to sixty feet. Here is the sign warning divers to go no further unless properly trained. The passage angles and you are now in an overhead environment. The tunnel continues to a depth of 110' where it opens to a large room with a crack in the floor.
My dad and I fooled around at the bottom for a while attempting to take pictures and playing in the current. Cork Rock has mostly eroded so the passage is large enough to enter, if you could just get through the insane current.
Looking down the chimney
After ~25 minutes at the bottom and a small deco obligation we worked our way up and met the ladies. The remainder of the dive was spent playing in the flow, taking pictures, and admiring the beauty of the crack.
The cave is reminiscent of a desert cave with smooth sand blasted walls. Here the walls are worn smooth and form perfect symmetrical shelfs the whole way down. The light rays are tinted green from the water and dance along the white limestone. It really is a beautiful place.
All too soon the dive was over, the total dive was just over an hour. I could have spend hours just laying on the bottom looking up.
Upon surfacing we were greeted by a huge crowd of swimmers and tubers. We sat at the head spring smiling and talking about the dive for a few minutes. Then we inflated our BCs and enjoyed a lazy float back down to he tuber exit. The walk back to the truck was shorter this way.
It was a great day. Blue Springs is only 1:30 away and only $6 to dive.
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