Florida Caverns State Park and BLUE HOLE SPRING

Sunday April 5, 2016
Florida Caverns State Park
Marianna, Florida

 

 

Even with a late start this morning, we arrive early at Florida Caverns State Park.  It’s only 26 miles up I-10 from Falling Waters.  The campground here is also small, 32 sites.  It is in a circle and the sites are all pretty large.  In fact ours is one of the smaller ones.  The site with the 5th wheel is huge.  That’s #30.   The campground is in the woods but there is no foliage between the sites so your neighbor’s business is your business and so is their campfire smoke.   Each site is directly across from another rather than staggered.  So we are looking at our across the street neighbors out our front window.   When I took that shot,  we had moved Ruby off to the right out of the view. .

 

 

 

 

We are here for 6 nights before our dash back to Virginia.  In addition to the cavern tours, there are several trails as well as a 2nd magnitude spring called Blue Hole.

 

Once set up, we take the trail from the campground down to the spring to check it out.   There are actually two trails from the campground that go to the spring.  One goes off just to the left of our site and the other is 7 or 8 sites away.  We take the further trail today.  It’s longer, although that’s not saying much.  Both are short.

 

 

 

The trail runs along the nice and wild spring run. I love that it has been left so natural.   It’s colors reflect the blue waters of the spring.

 

 

 

 

The trail comes out of the woods to front a bridge that is being repaired.  To get over to the other side where the spring entry platform is, we have to go down to the far end where there is a second bridge between the spring waters.

 

 

 

 

We can see and hear a group of kids having fun in the water.  We walk along the run

 

 

We continue on toward the bridge there on the right of the picture.   The water color is a gorgeous aqua marine blue.

 

 

Blue Hole is actually two springs.  The bridge goes between them.  One is set up for swimming and the other is left natural.  Because of the sun, this picture was taken on the way out so the swimming spring is on the right.

 

 

 

The spring has been returned to a  very natural state with one walkway and floating dock for jumping in.  There is no where to stand in the spring and the edges are all protected by natural vegetation to cut down on the erosion.  There is clearly a little circular rock ringed grass amphitheater just beyond the dock where at one time you could probably walk into the spring run but no more.  The parks are taking very good care of their springs these days and I’m happy to see Florida Caverns has done it without cement.

The spring is one of the sources of the beautiful Chipola River which we hope to kayak while we are here.  The water clarity is obscured when the river runs high and the spring is closed then.  That’s true of most springs.  When their rivers back up into them, the water turns brown.

According to local lore, the name for the spring came because the spring is “a hole filled with water so cold it will turn you blue”. 

According the Northwest Florida Water Management District, the water emerges from the spring with a temperature of 67.8 degrees (quite warm in the winter and quite cool in the summer). It comes from a natural vent that is 38.5 feet below the surface.  That’s cooler than other springs I’ve been in.  Maybe I should go into the spring when the over night temperatures are in the 40’s and 50’s.  That’s a thought.  But I don’t think that’s going to happen while we are here this time.

 

We see fish in both springs.  The water is just amazingly clear and blue.   No fishing here of course.  Only in the river.

 

 

While we are enjoying the beauty of the spring all the kids tire out from having to swim constantly, get out, jump back in and repeat.  They leave and we have the place all to ourselves.  The beauty and silence are magnificent.

We walk down to the dock to take a closer look and stick a foot in the water.  No swimming since it is nearly dinner time and we haven’t brought our suits.   We’ve only come to check it out and it gets 10 thumbs up.

 

 

You can bet we’ll be back to cool off here.  The temperatures are predicted to be in the mid to upper 80’s during our stay. What’s up with that?  This is EARLY April and NORTH west Florida.  What happened to spring here at the spring?