Crystal River

Crystal River and Crystal Springs are a vast area incorporating many dive sites, but, all have similar properties. The particular sites in this review are Banana Island (Manatee Preserve) and Twin Sisters. Banan Island is a fantastic site for manatee encounters. There are many manatees present and they are very friendly and accommodating to people. Indeed, many of them are even social, approaching groups of people and tumbling themselves to get their bellies scratched. They are incredibly gentle and very docile. Although strange in appearance, they have an amazing friendly and "so-ugly-it's-cute" quality that is hard to explain. There are also some caverns and swim-throughs and a wide variety of mullets, catfish, tarpon and other wildlife. I entered the site via boat, so I can't evaluate the shore entries, but a number of possible shore entries were visible from the site, including some docks with ladders that appeared to be public access. (Giant stride entry off the dock, ladder for exit)