Finished our two dives at Blue Grotto, packed up and headed just up the road to Devil's Den. Had heard of Devils Den but had no idea what it was.
Tige was telling me about his previous visits and I was still not getting what he was saying. Pulled on to the property, looks like it was once a horse farm, in this part of Florida there are lots of them. See signs for tent camping signs for RV camping. Then there is one little sign that says office.
There is a board walk through this wall of bamboo. Pass the bamboo the boardwalk turns left to a building. Through the door to a one room dive shop. Small and efficient operation, the guy behind the counter had said they had not had a diver all day, he was thinking of closing early. After the filling out the usual dive releases, we exit to the right, there is another door that leads outside on to a porch, walk along the porch, down the steps to this wonderful garden area. Picnic tables, pavilions, a fire ring and a cavern entrance. The entire area is dominated by a massive beautiful southern live oak covered in Spanish moss. You could almost forget you where there to go diving.
We kit up head down the cavern entrance steps, then down the stairs to the platform. I will still like to how they installed those stairs. Devils Den is a sink hole that the roof collapsed in on ages ago. The platform rest on the rubble of the roof of the cavern. Sunlight streams in lighting the cavern and stabbing though the water creating amazing colors and patterns on walls below the water line.
The cavern is a bowl with a cone of rubble in the middle so you dive around the cone and check out all the cracks and crevasses along the outer wall. A couple of places are marked to let divers go no further in to the cavern system; other places are barred off so divers won't be tempted, get stuck and create problems for others.
Great dive, had lots of fun exploring this cavern.