Morrison Springs is OPEN!
Gidds - 2/26/2009 1:00 PM
I was there at the ribbon cutting ceremony this morning. The park looks nice. It was breezy and warm. I don’t think there is enough parking. It is now a LONG walk between parking and water. The visibility was AWFUL. The water temp. was nice. The ladders onto the dock are too narrow. If you are big-boned or diving doubles do a shore exit even if it does muck up the vis. I didn’t stay long enough to investigate the bathrooms. Look at the pictures HERE because I was too lazy to take any and I am a ...
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NYD Follow-up Artificial Reef in Bay County
Gidds - 1/08/2009 12:38 PM
Here is a link to the article I mentioned, about a new large artificial reef in Bay county, to the divers I was talking with on New Years Eve and New Years Day at Vortex Springs. http://www.newsherald.com/news/plan_67890___article.html/bay_county.html...
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NYD Dive
Gidds - 1/02/2009 3:16 PM
We (oceabound, flaski, divegirlFWB & buddy, lars & buddy, me&buddy +2 non-divers) met at Vortex Spring. It was COLD. We went diving. We got cold. Flaski cooked food: sausages, burgers, we also had chips, dip, veggies, other munchies, and cake! My buddy stood on his head and drank a cup of coffee through a straw (see oceanbound’s pics). A cat crashed our party. We had fun, you should have been there....
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FL Panhandle NYD Dive
Gidds - 12/18/2008 7:42 PM
I think we have nine divers, from this site and elsewhere, so far. http://www.divebuddy.com/divetrip.aspx?TripID=1343 Sober-Up Dive at Vortex Springs! What better way to start the New Year than with a dive in a clear, 68 degree Florida spring? Come join diving friends new and old starting at 8am Thursday January 1, 2009 for an informal gathering! According to the Vortex Springs webpage (http://www.vortexspring.com/) : "We will also be closed New Years Day. For those of you that would like to div...
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Morrison Spring This Weekend
Gidds - 12/10/2008 1:09 PM
If all this stupid rain doesn’t flood the river I am going to go to the boat ramp downstream from the spring this weekend and swim up into the spring with snorkel and fins. The Parks&Rec. guys said that I wouldn’t get in trouble for entering the park this way, although it is technically closed. For those not familiar with riparian rights, we are basically no breaking any laws if we are suspended in the water column because navigable water belongs to everybody in the state of FL. I’ll let you kno...
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Freediving Vortex Yesterday
Gidds - 10/12/2008 8:30 PM
Video courtesy of my new buddy Nik. Ok so it was less freediving and more bobbing around being cold but it was still fun....
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Morrison Spring Update
Gidds - 9/29/2008 5:59 PM
BAD NEWS! I caught one of the Parks & Rec. guys today (I don’t work for the county, our offices just happen to be in the same building) and got the scoop: THREE MORE WEEKS! Apparently they are still working on landscaping and irrigation. In my opinion, if it needs to be irrigated you shouldn’t have planted it there in the first place, especially considoring the draughts we’ve been having in the Deep South! The boat launch down-river is operational but you are not supposed to bring a boat into th...
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Vortoberfest 2006 Installment 3
Gidds - 9/28/2008 2:54 PM
So my fortieth dive was pretty uneventful. After a long surface interval the Monkey and the gang who was at Morrison returned. I had 1300 psi left in my steel 72 and I wanted to use it up on a second shallow dive. I made sure to adjust my drysuit boots and tank position for this dive and was much more comfortable. Uncle Ricky and Bill were taking Moonie on an expedition to the grate that is locked across the cave entrance to keep open water divers out. MB and Monkey also wanted to blow down thie...
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Vortoberfest 2006 Installment II
Gidds - 9/28/2008 2:51 PM
Well Florida is fabled to be the land of never-ending summer but autumn weather finally caught up with us for this weekend. The forecast was for highs of low 80’s F Friday through Sunday but we awoke to an overcast Friday with highs about ten degrees cooler. I finished prepping the camper and dive gear while Monkey replaced the rotted brake lines on his truck. After all the futzing around we got on the road and arrived at Vortex during midafternoon. It appeared that none of our comrades had arri...
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Vortoberfest 2006 I
Gidds - 9/28/2008 2:38 PM
Vortoberfest is an unofficial Scubaboard event dreamed up by the Deep Dixie Divers. Since the Panhandle is generally considored to be the southern portion of Alabama and Georgia by the stuck-up pretentious inhabitants of the southern portion of Florida (who probably migarated from such dubious climes as the Midwest ) the Deep Dixie Divers are fully sanctioned to hold gatherings here. I never thought I’d find myself at a Deep Dixie Diver event. I am a Yankee shore diver through and through and dr...
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10/2/06 Another PCB Chick Dive and Octo Hunt
Gidds - 9/28/2008 2:32 PM
We (vbdiver, K, Knight, Monkey, and myself) dove the St. Andrews State Park jetty yesterday, ostensibly in search of the several known cephlapod inhabitants and/or the sea hare and of course to see fish. Our 3 other companions bailed on us so it did end up being a "chick dive" after all. Unfortunately I forgot to bring a sarong so Monkey did not have to wear one. The tide was going out so we ladies (we left poor Knight to deal with Monkey and his camera) dropped through the break in the rocks an...
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7/3/06 Back Rolls and Freshwater Bugs
Gidds - 9/28/2008 2:15 PM
July 2, 2006 we took a trip to Marriana, FL (a little Northeast of our current position). Initially we had wanted to meet up with friends for some ocean dives over the holiday weekend but that just didn’t pan out. We decided we’d shoot up to Marrianna to a state park to check out some caves (the dry kind, you won’t catch me dead in the submerged variety) but we got a late start and that didn’t pan out. While researching the caves earlier online we’d spotted something about a spring called Jackso...
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7/11/06 Dive&Snorkel at Morrison
Gidds - 9/28/2008 1:55 PM
I didn’t have much to do yesterday and I thought an after dinner snorkel at Morrison would be nice. I brought the Monkey his lunch at work and he didn’t need much prodding to agree so I went home and packed our gear into the truck. I later got a call that went something like this: Him: Is dinner ready yet? Me: No. Him: Have you packed my gear yet? Me: Yes. Him: Will you put my scuba gear in the truck? I wanna dive! Me: Grrrr. Him: What’s for dinner? Me: Stir fry. Him: Is it ready yet? Me: No! Hi...
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Freedive Training Fall 2008
Gidds - 9/28/2008 1:34 PM
I can easily freedive to about 25’ for between 1 and 2 minutes. I’d like to improve. Here’s me in Morrison Spring in 2006 just above the log across the mouth of the basin, which is usually around 20’ depending on the water levels. Freediver Objective 1: Lose the Pooh Belly Pooh bellies have been scientifically proven to add unwanted buoyancy to a diver. The amount of weight a freediver must wear has been scientifically proven to be inversely proportional to their mood. A diver wearing 20 pounds ...
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To freedive suit or not to freedive suit...
Gidds - 9/24/2008 9:10 PM
I’m in the market for a new coldwater suit. My SeaQuest 7mm jump suit is 11 years old and needs to be retired. I may just get another Aqualung (Sea Quest parent company) 7mm jumpsuit but I am also considoring a couple of companies that make custom suits. I usually dive dry and use my 3/2mm for summer ocean dives and the only thing the 7mm gets used for in FL is July/August 68F spring dives. What I hate about my current 7mm is that it is hard to get into and it has never fit well because I have a...
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7/24/06 Morrison Chick Dive
Gidds - 9/20/2008 3:46 PM
Long long ago and far far away....ok in Ponce DeLeon, FL last night at about 5pm....two vivacious and intrepid young ladies undertook a diving adventure. Despite the scorching heat and smothering humidity they suited up in multiple layers of protective neoprene. While they were assembling their gear they looked on in satisfaction as the milling hordes of tired divers and swimmers departed (before the legions of blood-sucking insects descended on the swamp in the waning light). Our adventuresses ...
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7/23/06 Cypress Springs
Gidds - 9/20/2008 3:39 PM
Yesterday we did Cypress Springs. I say did because Monkey dove and I snorkelled. I was going to dive but we lost a diver in transit who was going to be my buddy and since everybody else was gung ho to go in the cavern I figured I’d better stick to snorkelling. Additionally we have never actually run the boat with our gear fully loaded and I figured if there was a problem we’d have only the Monkey’s gear to contend with. We met up with MB, pilot of the Miss Jellyfish, Bill with a borrowed canoe,...
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9/25/06 PCB Chick Dive
Gidds - 9/20/2008 3:25 PM
Saturday the Monkey was going on a spearfishing charter with Stu, Jim and company. The charter was leaving from St. Andrew’s State Park so I met up with V and her buddy T for a couple of shore dives on the jetty. Up North it is highly unusual to have three women at the same dive site on the same day and unheard of that they’d be diving together so this was a big treat for me since I am very tired of hearing people (of the male persuasion) waxing poetic about brand new balanced Halcyon p-valves a...
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8/19/06 New Dive Buddy
Gidds - 9/20/2008 3:21 PM
Friday morning I had to get up at an obscenely early hour to catch The Gang (B and M) at Morrison Springs for a dive, along with a new addition to the local colour: G. I hadn’t dove Morrison since August 19 so I was looking foward to the dive. I decided to wear my drysuit since it is now September. It was a good idea since the humid FL weather had finally retreated to pleasantly cool nights and mornings and pleasantly warm days. I was the last to arrive (big suprise, even though I live the close...
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8/19/06 Morrison with vbdiver
Gidds - 9/20/2008 3:18 PM
We did an afternoon dive with V, an online friend from PCB, at Morrison on Saturday. Fortunately the bovidesque crowds thin out significantly at that time of day. I clocked 50 minutes of bottom time with a max. depth of 15’. I got cold after 15 minutes but not dangerously so. Lessons learned: 1. Cheese is negatively buoyant, at least Monterey jack is 2. Redbreast sunfish prefer cheese to bread 3. "Shellcrackers" don’t like either 4. Loggerhead musk turtles are afraid of people 5. Everybody think...
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