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Two different answers, and the second one surprises people. On the coast, the clearest water is the Gulf off the Panhandle in calm summer weather, and the Keys - Bahia Honda, John Pennekamp and Dry Tortugas, where the water sits over sand and reef rather than river mud.
Atlantic beaches north of Palm Beach are usually stirred up by surf and darker. But the clearest water in Florida is not the sea at all, it is the springs. They run at seventy-two degrees all year and the water is so clear that divers appear to be floating in air. Devil's Den and Blue Grotto in Levy County, Ginnie Springs in Gilchrist and Wakulla Springs are the ones to see.
Monroe County. At 36850 Overseas Highway on Big Pine Key, open 8 a.m. until sunset, 365 days a year, for $8 a vehicle plus a 50-cent county charge a head. Three beaches, Sandspur, Loggerhead and Calusa, with the old Bahia Honda bridge standing behind them.
Open the guide →Monroe County. About 70 miles west of Key West and reached only by ferry, seaplane or private boat. Entry is $15 a person and covers seven days in a row, and nobody under 16 pays.
Open the guide →Monroe County. It is named for John D. Pennekamp, a Miami newspaper editor who campaigned for the Everglades and then for this reef when it was being stripped for the curio trade.
Open the guide →Levy County. The roof of a limestone cavern fell in long ago and left an opening at the surface with clear water about a hundred and twenty feet across below it. Light comes down through that opening and that is what people photograph.
Open the guide →Levy County. There are three parts to it. The open basin drops to about forty feet and holds training platforms, which is why so many divers get certified here. Below that the upper cavern runs to around fifty feet and contains an air bell with breathable air pumped down from the surface, so a diver can surface inside the rock and take the regulator out, which is an odd and memorable thing to do.
Open the guide →Gilchrist County. Ginnie Springs Outdoors is a privately run property in High Springs with seven springs on it and the Santa Fe River running through. The water holds 72 degrees the year round and is clear enough that swimmers can see the bottom from the surface.
Open the guide →Wakulla County. The spring opening lies 180 feet down, and the average flow is about 400,000 gallons a minute, with peaks measured at 860,000. That is a river coming out of a hole in the ground.
Open the guide →The Gulf side is calmer than the Atlantic side almost every day of the year, and the calmest water of all is behind a barrier island rather than in front of it.
The quiet beaches are the ones you cannot drive to. Cayo Costa and North Captiva in Lee County are reached by boat or ferry and have miles of sand with almost nobody on them.
Three parts of the coast allow it, all on the Atlantic side.
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