Photo: Paul Clark / CC BY 2.0 · source

💧 Springs

Vortex Spring

Ponce de Leon, FL · Panhandle

About

Florida's largest dive park pushes out 28 million gallons a day at a steady 68 degrees, and you can see the limestone basin floor from the entry stairs before you ever put your face in. Spend the morning floating the lazy spring run, riding the rope swing, or just drifting over the submerged forest where divers descend toward the cavern mouth at 58 feet. Open-water snorkelers get the bright green water and the sloping shallows; certified cave divers head past the locked gate into a system that runs more than 1,600 feet back into the aquifer.

Highlights

Florida's largest diving facilitySteady 68F, 28 million gallons a dayOpen swim, snorkel, and lazy spring runRope swing and platform into the basinGated cavern dive for certified cave divers

Getting there

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Florida Springs

Florida sits on top of one of the largest gatherings of freshwater springs on Earth, and they run a constant 68 to 74 degrees no matter the season. Some are first-magnitude giants pushing hundreds of millions of gallons a day, others are quiet blue sinkholes you can have to yourself at dawn. These are the ones worth the drive: the glass-bottom boat tours, the lazy-river tube runs, the cavern dives, and the winter springs where the manatees come in from the cold.