Yep, that's what us local folks do. We head out to the nearest freshwater spring and jump right in. How lucky are we Floridians that we have this awesome natural resource at our disposal. Even nicer is the fact that we can make a short trip to most of the springs and pay only $5 per carload to enter. The springs maintain a temperature of 68 to 72 degrees year round. So, when the dog days of summer are upon us, there's no better place to cool off. Now, even with that knowledge, the spring water always catches me off-guard. When my feet and legs entered the water, it felt refreshingly cool. Not too cold. I thought, "Oh, the weather must have heated up the water a little." NO! As I fell back into the water from the steps leading into the spring hole, the water hit my neck and trickled down into my 3 mil wetsuit and I squealed and panted as I tried to catch my breath. I'm such a cold water wimp. LOL! My mask immediately fogged up since the water was much colder than the surface air. A couple of dunks in the water and I was ready to go.

  My buddy and I made our way down the 70 ft rock lined hole to the bottom. I recognized as I was decending that I was a little more anxious than usual. I knew my anxiety stemmed from having learned of an exceedingly rare earthquake that had occurred only the night before off the coast of Florida due east of the spring. I was not certain what I would find. Would there be loose rocks that may have shifted and become dislodged? I had noticed as we were descending that the water had an unusual amount of silt in it and was being kicked up pretty badly. The rock walls all appeared to be as sturdy as usual. The only noticable difference was the spring vent located to the left of the main vent had become more open and clear and was pulling in a steady stream of sand and silt on one side of the vent and kicking it back out in a plumb of swirling sand and silt on the opposite side. Fortunately, the substrate here is fairly heavy and falls back down before it reaches the top of the hole. We made a few circles across the bottom looking for trash or items dropped or thrown in from other divers, snorkelers and swimmers. None to be found. Yay!

  As we were making our way back to the exit stairs, I found a couple pieces of printed paper. Possibly a label or two from a water noodle or other water toy? I grabbed these and made my way out of the water. Up top, we were greeted by the next group of divers getting ready to begin their adventure. We exchanged the usual dive banter. What did we see while down and was the water clear? Back up in the parking lot, several new groups of divers were arriving and suiting up. As I was watching them, I thought proudly of the fact that we had just completed a dive where many, many groups of divers had entered and exited the water over the weekend and left only some tiny shreds of paper behind. I am so proud of the dive community and their awareness of the importance to keeping our water sources clean and free of debris.