Things to do / Travel Guide
Buy or rent, there are shops for snorkeling just as frequent as for diving in northeast Florida and the Panhandle - which is to say, all over the place. Florida's got excellent snorkeling locations, mostly based around the reefs and the crystal-clear springs and rivers.
Snorkeling in Northeast Florida
Around Daytona Beach you can snorkel in freshwater and saltwater in a number of locations. There are rock-ledged reefs, artificial reefs, and shipwrecks to explore, around Daytona Beach, Port Orange, and Holly Hill. A good place to spend your time snorkeling in the Daytona area is the Halifax River, located between the mainland and the barrier island.
The Jacksonville area provides excellent sites for snorkeling. There are several large artificial reefs, and the fish are so abundant that anglers have called the waters “a sea of fish.” You'll be inundated by jacks, groupers, and snappers, butterflyfish, hogfish, and angelfish swimming by.
A big draw in this region is to swim and snorkel with the manatees, which look like walruses in elephant suits. A great place for this is on the Nature Coast, the big curve connecting Florida's peninsula to the Panhandle. Homosassa River and Crystal River, on the peninsula part of the Nature Coast, are good places to start. Another superb location is Manatee Springs, a bit farther north, near the city of Chiefland.
Snorkeling on the Panhandle
Another excellent snorkeling location is Vortex Springs, located on Route 90, above and in between Panama City and Fort Walton Beach on the Emerald Coast. This spring system produces an unbelievable 28 million gallons of clear water a day.
The possibilities for artificial reef snorkeling are very common for the most part around the Emerald Coast. Every beach in this area offers snorkeling opportunities. Panama City and Destin in particular have good snorkeling sites close to the shore, where you can spy on sunken old ships and planes.
Jacksonville, Destin, Daytona Beach, Pensacola, St. Augustine, Northeast Florida
Snorkeling
St. Andrews SRA Beach - Panama City Beach, Florida
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