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United States » Salt Spring

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Rated 2.8/5 stars (365 ratings) Thanks for rating this cave system!

Portions of the following information were taken from Florida Geological Survey Bulletin 31.

Salt Springs is about 1.6 mi N. of Port Richey. Drive north on U.S. Hwy 19 to Salt Springs Road, turn west and go 0.4 mi; and walk about 500 ft S. to the spring.

Description - Salt Springs is in the area of tidal marsh along the gulf coast. The spring vent forms an irregular opening in the side of a vertical rock wall below water surface. Discharge is west about 100 ft to where the water passes under a 3-ft natural limestone bridge. The water surfaces and flows 75 ft to a second bridge that is about 10 ft long, under which the water flows and discharges in vigorous boils through three holes into Salt Springs Run. The water is clear. The run is in limestone.

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Date	Submitter	Visbility	Remarks
12/13/2014	AJ Gonzales	10-80ft	Cool, tannic water from the entrance down into the Shag room, ~10ft of vis or less. The other big room (not the emerald room) was a few degrees warmer and still clear, maybe a little green. Huge contrast!
4/4/2013	Christine Dorrier	good	FYI You must get a FLDEP permit before you can dive this cave.
9/10/2011	buhlz	good-- awesome deeper	Jack and I made our way to the first large room (around 120) and i hung around the ceiling while he checked out the bottom.. Many cool fossils in this one! Jack came back and we tied off and circled around the room.. Got really clear the deeper ya went.. I called it around 170 and while headin back up our reel I got interduced to a nice mung sandwich.. Needless to say We definatelty gotta come back and really check salt out.173' 22min 8 deco..Great friggin CAVE
8/6/2006	gotyourreel	100	I didn't have to push by bottles in front Eric and I had three:)
7/2/2006	Walter Pickel	50'	Got permission from the State Park Manager to dive this site. What a great dive! The Big Room is an understatement; The Teeth are incredible; the lines are in GREAT shape (if you like lots of lines and t's), etc. etc. etc. This system definitely lives up to its reputation. And the Mangrove snakes are fun too!! We dove this on a low tide but viz was still a bit hazy from the previous dive. Looks like about 2 weeks are needed for the system to clear from each dive. However, more frequent dives will hasten this time frame.
6/21/2006	Eric Deister	80'	WOW! That’s the best way to describe the Deep Salt dive. I met up with Maestro and headed off to the gate. It’s a private entrance site (gotta know some one to get you in, but that may change soon!). Moved all of his gear into my truck and 4x4'd it to get back to the site. Parking about 30 feet from the water’s edge we unloaded, the entrance is about 5 feet from the shore line so it was a very easy to haul tanks. Being out in the middle of nowhere we left everything out and open (you know it had to rain). Since Maestro put all the line in there it was good briefing of what to expect. I went in first taking back gas, an 80 of travel mix and 2 40s for deco. That was fun! After pushing the tanks in front of me for a few yards it opened up to a nice pit, clipping off the O2, Maestro caught up with me (0 vis for him behind me). He got ahead of me and started to drop down. He was on his RB and I’m on OC so I’m the one making everything come loose with my bubbles vis was kind of bad till we got to the teeth room, dropping of my deco bottle there the vis improved and the cave opened up as we got out of there...boy did it open up. There’s nothing like falling 200 feet down a clear shaft to enter a room that makes Eagles Nest’s breakdown room look tiny! There are several lines running off of the main line, we followed the main circuit in the room, passing over several other lines I wished more line arrows were in there than there were. I was checking out one large crack along the wall that might just be a lead when I put my hand on a large rock to try and squeeze past it, it wasn’t a rock it was clay so vis down that hole was shot. So after a quick lap of the room it was time to head out, finding the crack that lead out of the room was easy, it was the only hole that was raining down crap. Deco was boring, we cleaned off a lot of the “snot” on the walls in the main passage since we had time to kill, that kept the vis to where I like it…less than a foot. Since Maestro was on his RB, I had more deco than him so he was above me, after finishing my 20 foot stop I got to the ledge and started to hit the restriction. This was true zero black, ok the line, can’t see my HID vis. I pushed my bottles and squeezed my way to the entrance. There I hit a wall / dead end at 7 feet, I knew where I was, I knew where the line is and goes, I knew there shouldn’t be anything blocking me, so moving my tanks I reached up to feel what’s there. It was Maestro’s legs blocking me, I let him know I was there but he didn’t move out of the way, I could tell he was ok but he just wouldn’t move, I figured he was working on his RB. So there I sat and did about a 7 min stop at 7 feet (sound’s like PADI think doesn’t it?). Finally he moved and I could get out. Well our nice sunny day turned into a nice lighting storm while we where were in there and Maestro didn’t want to surface with his nice big metal tanks on him. I didn’t argue. Well, all our stuff (cloths and shoes) that we left out were now wet. We packed up and 4x4’d it out of there, talking about when we were coming back to really dive it… Warning / Disclaimer: this is a VERY advanced dive, 300 foot deep cave and 0 vis in some places, I don’t care who you are, you will have zero vis coming out. Sidemount would be best for the front end of the cave. There are a lot of rock out croppings that could break and fall (on someone) in the teeth room as well as corners that could get you lost if you get off the line on the exit. This is a private entrance site (gotta know someone to get you in…sorry…unless you have a boat).
2/22/2006	Anonymous	20'	It was reported to the owner of this site that a dive was done to check the lines as it has been a while since anyone has been in this system. The parachute lines were reported as still in good shape. The reported dive was through the entrance, the Teeth and some of the circuit in the Shag Room.

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Description	Type	Date	Author	Remarks
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