Florida Springs - Part 1 (Manatee, Otter, Little River, and Ichetucknee Springs)

Two weekends ago, I met up with Cade (one of my friends and classmates from Southern Miss) in Florida with the intention of checking out some of the springs in the area. We had originally planned on taking a four-day weekend to go camping at Tallulah Gorge in Georgia, but it had been raining in the Carolinas and north Georgia for nearly two weeks with no signs of stopping (and there was also the threat of Hurricane Joaquin), so we decided at the last minute to go to Florida instead. I had been to a couple of Florida springs (Silver Glen and Salt Springs) when I was there for Thanksgiving in 2013, but most of the good springs had been closed to swimming due to it being manatee season. For those of you unfamiliar with Florida springs, water from the Floridan Aquifer flows to the surface through caves and rock tunnels in the northern part of the state, creating clear blue springs that maintain a constant 71-74° F year-round. A typical spring usually consists of a deep pool with a cave at the bottom where the water emerges, and a ‘run’, which is a (usually) short and clear creek that flows from the spring into a larger river. There are hundreds of these springs in northern Florida, so we did some fast research and made a list of the ones we thought looked most appealing. We decided to stay in the town of High Springs, near Gainesville, since the majority of the springs we had picked were in that general area.

On Saturday, October 3, we had planned to fly in early and spend the day checking out springs. However, Cade got delayed, so we didn’t check into our motel in Chiefland (High Springs was booked on that night) until close to 5 PM. We opted to go to Manatee Springs State Park, since it was only ten minutes from where we were staying. That particular spring didn’t look terribly exceptional when I was looking up places to visit, but there had been a Rescue 911 segment about an underwater cave rescue at a Florida spring, and someone had left a Youtube comment saying that it had been filmed at Manatee Springs, which was reason enough for me to check it out. I forgot to take pictures here, so these are borrowed from Cade:

( Click here for the full Day 1-2 trip report with pictures and videos )

I will cover the rest of the trip in my next entry.