A quick explanation of the trip. I live and drove from Atlanta, GA to Crystal River Florida (north of Tampa) to dive in the Crystal river springs with manatees. It was the beginning of March, and though the river is springfed, I felt quite cold at times, even through two wetsuits. I did the diving with an Atlanta-based dive operation (Aquatic Adventure, Clairemont Rd.+Briarcliff) In both of the first two photographs, the fish are sheepshead. Both of the first two photographs were taken at Kings Spring. The visibility in the Kings Bay/Spring region was/is quite poor at the surface, and increasingly better the closer you get to the spring itself. The cave is by far the most interesting part of the dive at Kings Spring, for divers, unless the manatees are present. The water temperature hovers at around 72-78 year round, the best times to visit being fall and early spring when the manatees come in from the ocean to sleep and eat in the warm spring fed river over the winter. I also did two more dives at another dive site called Three Sisters. The water here was generally clearer (though people kicking up the bottom could change this in a split second) and there was less plant growth. Thi is also the site where we encountered most of our manatees: 14 on the first day, and 17 on the second, mostly in the manatee sanctuaries close to the actual three sisters site. The three sisters site is also better suited for snorkellers, and generally warmer.

   See the above map for the layout of the three sisters site.