Recreational Activities
Activities include hiking, biking, kayaking, canoeing, as well as scuba diving, swimming, snorkeling and wildlife viewing. Some of the amenities are a floating dock, boardwalk, eight miles of wooded off-road trails, picnic Pavilions and full camping facilities.
Swimming in the head spring and run is forbidden in winter, when manatees are more likely to be sheltering there. The so-called "catfish hotel" sinkhole and karst window near the main spring remains open year-round with access to these caverns. Swimming and snorkeling is not allowed in the catfish hotel, and is generally unpleasant due to the layer of duck weed covering the water. Sue sink is listed as an emergency exit only for cave divers in the system as ingress and egress is hazardous to the diver and causes soil erosion. Friedman sink is available as an entrance to certified cave divers, and is the furthest upstream entrance to the system.
Certified Open Water divers can dive the head spring with lights, as well as the catfish hotel cavern without lights. Certified Cavern divers can dive the catfish hotel cavern with lights, but are not to explore beyond the daylight zone. Cavern divers should also exhibit caution when nearing the siphon side of the catfish hotel cavern, as the flow is immense. Certified and qualified cave divers are able to explore several miles of underground caverns which feed into the spring.
Read more about this topic: Manatee Springs State Park
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