Morrison Springs - Ponce de Leon, Florida

Morrison Springs

Ponce de Leon, Florida

County road 181

Morrison Springs was one of our favorite dive spots on many of our Florida trips but it also had the most danger to it.  One of Northwest Florida’s best-kept secrets was known to more Georgia and Alabama folks than Floridians.  And they weren’t talking.  It had to do with the jewel of a Panhandle spring, a turquoise pool surrounded by stately cypress trees whose aerial roots stand taller than a man. Below the surface, clear, 68-degree water wells up from a spring cave source over 90 feet deep.

Morrison Springs is just far enough off the beaten path in this sunny pine and cypress country to be special for any diver lucky enough to find and dive the site. The shallow pool reflects the overhead blue sky and if the water is clear and the bottom clean of silt, it resembles a giant sapphire.  Unlike some springs with a deep, black hole source, this one takes visitors gradually into its shallows from a golden-sand beach. Divers gear up from a step-like bulkhead around the beach area.  Johnny and I often moved a picnic table down close to the water as a place for gear, then waded out into the cool water to put on our masks and fins.

Just over the lip of this drop off, the trunk of a large tree lying horizontally across the spring provides another good place to pause and look down into the blue maw.  They have added an underwater platform just above the tree now to gather divers before heading out to explore.  To its right, and down the right wall, divers see the opening of a small dead-end cavern at a depth of 40 feet.  We would ease in first, as this was a great place for taking photo-silhouettes of each other, entering the hole behind you. It is also home to many of Morrison’s freshwater eels.  Most were gray, about an inch in diameter and maybe a foot or two long.  They hang out beneath the undercut limestone walls. If you approach quietly and shine your light into these areas, they will be lined up, resting.  When we made our night dives, they came out to frolic.  Night divers have fun playing with them. We took hot dogs down to feed them.  We would break off the tip and crumble the top with our thumb and the eels would swarm and swim around eating the particles

Deep caves had rushing spring water flowing out of the three cavities. At the time, it was not known just how deep they went.  Our dive instructor told us about the great diving conditions there but also warned us of the dangers.  Jack Favor was a former Navy Seal and had dived to recover several bodies to the depth of 300 feet.  He was one of the few in the country trained for deep diving and was called anytime someone went missing. 

Upon my first visit to this site, I was struck by its beauty and the feeling of travelling in time when my 65 Mustang’s tires left pavement and we pulled down among the cypress trees to the edge of a glittering, blue pool. 

I think we would both highly recommend this dive experience, if nothing else but for the many, many freshwater eels that hang out in the limestone's holes down in the caverns.  It was like swimming in a huge fresh water aquarium, like flying or floating in air but you were 60 feet below the surface. Visibility was 100+ feet on every trip we made there. We sat on the big log that is above the opening of the cavern and we could feel the force the water coming out of the cavern (not really strong, but definitely noticeable).

Johnny and I were fortunate or stupid enough to have visited the lower cavern in Morrison Springs before it was dynamited in 1968 to keep people from dying in there.  There were probably 20 or so deaths there before the opening was closed off.  I can vividly remember taking my tanks off and pushing them through the crack in the floor and then putting them back on again on the other side. We were young and immortal but we both realized that if anything went wrong we could easily die. Johnny and I were accomplished open water divers, but the first time going into a cave especially taking tanks off to enter was a completely new and unique experience for us.  The first dive there, we were the only ones to enter the cave, except for a blind white catfish and several eels. Upon reaching 140 feet, a quick look around and common sense about safety, good judgement prevailed and we exited without incident.  Having the right safety equipment made later dives there safe and enjoyable.

Morrison Spring discharges an average of 48 million gallons of crystal-clear water each day to create a 250-foot-diameter spring pool and a spring run that flows into the Choctawhatchee River.  There are 3 cavities reported at the bottom of the spring pool, 1 of which is 300+ feet deep.  

It has had its share of tragedy over the years as my next door neighbor and childhood friend Mike Clennan died August 30, 1986 there along with a girl student.  Mike was a diving instructor and both ran out of air in the first chamber at a depth of less than 100 feet.  Four people were in their party and all had been in the lower chamber and were on their way to the surface when the accident happened. Two of them signaled they were low on air and surfaced without incident.  Both divers bodies were recovered but the incident emphasizes the results of making bad choices and not being prepared for the possible dangers. They did not use rope guidelines or have the proper cave diving equipment during their dive.  After Mike’s incident the county added a warning sign or “death sign” to prevent others from entering that part of the cave system.

In 2004 the State of Florida bought the land and leased it to Walton County which built a 161 acre park for divers and made improvements to the area.  Morrison Springs is now one of the most popular diving spots in northwest Florida and is well-known throughout the southeast.  A lot has changed from the large, sandy-bottomed spring in a pasture to the Morrison Springs Park. The spring is popular these days not only for scuba diving but also for swimming and snorkeling.

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