Rainbow River Tour
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🫧🐟🐢🐢 One of the most beautiful dive sites in Florida is a drift dive down Rainbow River. Although shallow, this crystal-clear river is a very enjoyable dive and great for all certification levels.
Rainbow River is known for its wildlife including a wide variety of turtles – softshell turtles, loggerhead musk turtles, red-bellied turtles, Coastal plain cooter turtles – large-mouth bass, sunfish, Large Nose Gar, Atlantic Needlefish, birds – Cormorants, Anhingas, and Barred Owls. In the fall, we often see Bald Eagles and if you go very early, you may even get lucky enough to see River Otters! Rainbow River also supports many types of vegetation including eel grass, strap-leaf Sagittaria, Hydrilla and many other types of algae which helps support water quality and filters debris heading downriver.
As a first-magnitude spring, Rainbow is pumping hundreds of millions of gallons of water per day down the river, which has been calculated to be at least 100 cubic feet of water per second. Because of the magnitude of the water pumped through and the number of vents or “windows into the aquifer”, you can often see water “boiling” or water leaving the aquifer that appears to be “boiling” sand.
This ecosystem supports a variety of life and is a thriving ecosystem created by its karst topography made up of limestone. Some believe that the river was once an underwater cave that collapsed and that’s why the bottom is hard limestone and there is not a lot of mud or clay at the bottom.
Join us for our Rainbow River guided tour, a drift dive down a 6-mile river flowing South from a headspring near Dunnellon. Before merging with the Withlacoochee, the river conjoins with several smaller springs – making this the perfect shallow drift dive of only 20-feet max avg. depth of 10 feet. Cost is $99 and includes a tank, flag float and guided tour.
Rainbow River is known for its wildlife including a wide variety of turtles – softshell turtles, loggerhead musk turtles, red-bellied turtles, Coastal plain cooter turtles – large-mouth bass, sunfish, Large Nose Gar, Atlantic Needlefish, birds – Cormorants, Anhingas, and Barred Owls. In the fall, we often see Bald Eagles and if you go very early, you may even get lucky enough to see River Otters! Rainbow River also supports many types of vegetation including eel grass, strap-leaf Sagittaria, Hydrilla and many other types of algae which helps support water quality and filters debris heading downriver.
As a first-magnitude spring, Rainbow is pumping hundreds of millions of gallons of water per day down the river, which has been calculated to be at least 100 cubic feet of water per second. Because of the magnitude of the water pumped through and the number of vents or “windows into the aquifer”, you can often see water “boiling” or water leaving the aquifer that appears to be “boiling” sand.
This ecosystem supports a variety of life and is a thriving ecosystem created by its karst topography made up of limestone. Some believe that the river was once an underwater cave that collapsed and that’s why the bottom is hard limestone and there is not a lot of mud or clay at the bottom.
Join us for our Rainbow River guided tour, a drift dive down a 6-mile river flowing South from a headspring near Dunnellon. Before merging with the Withlacoochee, the river conjoins with several smaller springs – making this the perfect shallow drift dive of only 20-feet max avg. depth of 10 feet. Cost is $99 and includes a tank, flag float and guided tour.
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4556 S Manhattan Ave Suite E, Tampa, FL, United States, Florida 33611
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