Florida, recommendations for winter trip: diving/snorkelling?

[sinetwo]

Hey folks,

 

We're looking to go to Florida (Orlando and south of Orlando) for a week in winter (February).

 

On our list we have:

• Snorkeling with manatees
• Snorkeling with turtles/dolphins if possible
• Diving springs (any that look great with natural light)
• Jupiter for sharks and potentially blackwater
• Blue heron bridge (during the weekdays, not up for the weekend crowd!)

 

Our thoughts are...

• Fly in to Orlando
  • Do manatees/springs
• Head down to Jupiter / west palm beach
  • Sharks, general diving
• Maybe go to key west if it's worth it
  • Snorkelling/diving
• Head back to Orlando before flight
  • Maybe squeeze in another manatee snorkel if required 🙂

 

Ideally we'd join the trip up with a cheeky visit to Bimini for dolphins and hammerheads but it'll add on way too much to the budget (at least $1k for a quick trip).

 

I wanted to ask:

1. If people had general recommendations on what to go for for mostly wide angle shooting
2. How to structure the trip
3. Which operators will make our lives easier as uw photogs?
4. Are groupers, or other awesome subjects on the diving menu in February or is that wishful thinking?

Edited 20 hours ago by sinetwo

[fruehaufsteher2]

Manatees could be a nice thing.

We've been with Floridasharkdivers https://floridasharkdiving.com/ (only snorkeling/freediving), was much fun and great pics. (Jupiter)

Further south I am not sure whether diving will be really interesting

 

We headed over from Florida to grand bahama and went with the tigers. Not much of diving (you sit overweighted on the bottom) but beautiful creatures. Epicdiving with Vin and Debrah.

 

Second pic with the lady in the freediving suit is floridasharkdivers