Ichetucknee Springs!!

Today was one of my favorite days in Florida. Apparently, Ichetucknee is one of Florida's best kept secrets and I was privileged enough to experience it. It was a really cool operation. They take you by tram up to a drop off point where you have to hike barefoot through the woods to the launching dock. The current is about like a lazy river in a theme park so basically all I had to do was be carried along. However I managed to screw that up I don't know because my tube kept spinning in circles and veering perilously close to the bank and straight into any rock or branch that was in the way. WTF?
Our first trip down we had water cannons so we decided to shoot at turtles. It was so nice that we decided to go down again. It was a bit more crowded the second time. On the way up the tram it started thundering which concerned me but at that point I knew I was surrounded by locals (i.e. no one seemed to think twice about jumping into water during a thunderstorm). Luckily it stayed off in the distance for the duration of our float. This time we ditched the water cannons and Jess brought along her flippers and snorkel. She spent the majority of time underwater. She took a lot of pics and video. The funniest is the one where she is swimming along underwater and sees a big log and then (instead of warning me) she pans around to my legs floating along and captures me slamming right into the log. She then proceeds to laugh so hard that she chokes on her snorkel. Why am I always the one getting into trouble/injured/trespassing/ while she documents from behind the lens? Hmmm.
After that she let me have a go at the snorkel which I apparently messed up royally. I have never snorkeled before so I am still learning and apparently lesson one is to keep the top of the snorkel tube above water. As evidenced by the picture above, my position in the tube made it hard for the tube to stay upright. I couldn't find the pic of me with it underwater but Jess' blog has full documentation (if you ignore her bashing of my MBA level intellect ;).
Here's the link: http://www.adventureswithjessica.blogspot.com/
It probably didn't help that Jess only gave me one flipper so I was basically swimming in circles.
However, despite my mishaps, I had a grand old time looking at all the fish and checking out the river. It was a gorgeous trip and was made even prettier by the morning fog still on the river.We were pretty tired after that second run so we got out and went to grab some lunch. I'm pretty sure I suffered hypothermia at Pizza Hut. I didn't grow up around central air and I hate when it is blazing hot outside and people think it's okay to pump icicle air inside. My fingers literally turned blue. Brr. All in all though, a great day in the water!!