Legend has it that around the year 1900 nine year old Billy Bugg, his mule and wagon fell into this spring one morning while he was getting water. Billy drowned but his name lives on.
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| Bugg Spring 1929 - photo: Florida Memory |
Bugg Spring lies between Lake Denham and Hwy 470 about a mile east of Dabney Recreation Center. It's a second category spring producing about 5.5 million gallons of water per day and flows into Lake Denham near Helena Run. It has a large 400 feet wide steep sided pool and is very deep at 175 feet.
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| Bugg Spring |
It would be a wonderful club ride destination if the the Naval Undersea Warfare Center hadn't purchased the property in 2011. The springs huge volume of deep, quiet and still water has an ambient noise level below sea state zero and the navy uses it for the calibration of submarine noise and surface ship tactical towed sonar arrays. Among other things.
Among other things? Well some time ago I was enjoying a coffee and donut at the Brownwood Dunkin while chatting to one of our members who it turned out was a submarine chaser when he was in the Navy. I mentioned Bugg Spring and he seemed to think that in quiet water like that they'd also be locating and listening to ships and submarines in the Atlantic.
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| Bugg Spring Road |
So, believe it or not, you can't just stop by and visit but you can get an authorization to see the facility here. Tell them you'd like to see the manatee and alligators, good luck.
While Bugg Spring is not a top secret naval facility, if you do not see me out on my bike for a while after the publication of this article you probably shouldn't ask too many questions.