Head down, fins up, we shimmy into a black crack in the planet that doesn’t look quite big enough to admit a fully kitted diver. But it is of course, and once inside the cavern at Crystal River’s legendary King’s Spring, we realize there’s a party goin’ on in here! A celebration …

OK, enough with the Kool & The Gang — except it really was a cool day in every sense, hanging with the gang from SCUBAPRO and Bird’s Underwater Manatee Tours and Scuba Shop at the fifth and final Submerge with SCUBAPRO tour event.

The two-week Florida roadshow brought together SCUBAPRO gear and experts, Scuba Diving’s ScubaLab director John Brumm and other magazine staffers, and dozens of divers, some of whom had traveled from as far away as Jacksonville, Florida, and Mississippi to check out ScubaPro’s Meridian and Galileo Luna dive computers, A700 and C300 regs, GO BCs and Seawing Nova and Gorilla fins. Also on the agenda? Exploring the unique ecosystem of the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, established 30 years ago for the protection of the West Indian manatee, which gathers here — about 10 miles upriver from the Gulf of Mexico — by the hundreds in cooler months.

Those who could tear themselves away from the perfect Florida spring day and the tasty picnic lunch settled into Bird’s comfortable shop — full of fun manatee eye-candy as well as the latest SCUBAPRO gear — and got the scoop about computers and regs straight from SCUBAPRO’s experts as well as a behind-the-scenes look at how ScubaLab runs its respected gear tests.

Before and after the seminars, Bird’s Underwater led multiple pontoon boats loaded with divers through King’s Bay to the dive site, King’s Spring, a rocky bowl with a surprise at the bottom that’s a popular local training spot. No sooner were we peeling off scuba gear on the boats than cries of “Manatee!” had us back in the water with fins and snorkels, eager for a chance to get up close to these friendly creatures that seem to enjoy the contact as much as humans do.

For more info, visit scubapro.com.

CONTACT: Bird’s Underwater, 320 N.W. Hwy. 19, Crystal River, FL 34428 (800-771-2763; birdsunderwater.com).