Florida (Keys) - really a dive destination?

[Desa]

Rick, I grew up in South Florida and moved to Indiana some years ago. I still love going back to south Florida to salt water dive.

If you are flying into Miami, you have some great choices. Drive down to Key Largo and dive the Spiegle Grove, Duanne, Bibb and some beautiful reefs. As mentioned before, for the most part there in no beach diving in the Keys. You usually have a pretty good haul through the mangroves to get to open/divable water.

Ft Lauderdale area has some great drift diving in the Gulf Stream. If I was going all the way to Key West, that would only be a stopping point to get on a boat and go to the Dry Tortugas area, I was not real impressed with the lower keys, but Tortugas area was worth the trip.

Still another trip, run over to Venice area and do the dive for prehistoric shark teethe on the West coast..

Just my 2psi............

 

[Rick Inman]

These posts are getting me hyped up for the trip! I'll have at least 10 days to dive. We'll fly into Miami and rent a car. For those who know, if this was your trip, how would you make the best of it? Where would you stay? Who would you charter with (NO cattle boats)? My wife & I are non-drinkers/non-party-ers. It's all about diving and relaxing.

 

[Desa]

These posts are getting me hyped up for the trip! I'll have at least 10 days to dive. We'll fly into Miami and rent a car. For those who know, if this was your trip, how would you make the best of it? Where would you stay? Who would you charter with (NO cattle boats)? My wife & I are non-drinkers/non-party-ers. It's all about diving and relaxing.

I can't make a comment on lodging since I take mine with me (camper). But for diving in Key Largo I highly recomend Queiscience ( ww.keylargodiving.com ) They run 6 pack boats, but will take you out if you have at least 4 divers. The last two times I dove with them we onlyhad 4 divers. They run 3 boats and could have put us all on 2 boats, but they didn't. Plus if you want to, you can actually ship your gear ups to them and they will store it till you get there. Same way if you are diving second day, rinse it and leave it with them over night if you want. I didn't do that cause I am a scardy cat that someone would mess with it, but I saw a few divers doing it and no one had any complaints the next day.

Unless you plan on diving from charter boats every dive, you might hook up with some of the SB's from Ft. Lauderdale because there is some great shore diving (which translates to cheap) all up and down the east coast.

 

[Padipro]

Hummm, non-drinkers, non-party-ers. My advice, hit Miami and go north to Ft. Lauderdale. IMO the diving is every bit as good as it is in the Keys, there are just as many dive ops, even if the weather isn't perfect the boats usually still go out, there are nice beachs to relax on and although there is plenty of night life it's not really the party spot it used to be.

Check out this link for a list of some of the great Dive sites we have here. The link is on the right site of the page.

No matter where you end up going you're going to have a great trip.

 

[RonFrank]

I recently was planning a dive trip and it started as a keys trip but when I added up the cost and factored in the real possibility of not diving due to bad weather, we went to Bonaire. Funny thing is, it was only $100 to $200pp more to go to Bonaire and I had FREE air to the Keys.

I just priced flights to Bonaire, and they ran close to $1000 a ticket, and that was NOT non-stop/direct. Granted this was from Denver. FL flights ran $250 for a flight to Ft. Lauderdale.

I'm not sure what factors would make up the cost of close to $750 in the flight cost, but from where I sit, flying into Bonaire makes the trip MUCH more expensive. I recognize that Bonaire has great shore diving, and the Keys do not. But I don't think I'd spend the money to go to Bonaire, and then JUST do shore dives....

Ron

 

[Marvel]

I just priced flights to Bonaire, and they ran close to $1000 a ticket, and that was NOT non-stop/direct. Granted this was from Denver. FL flights ran $250 for a flight to Ft. Lauderdale.

I'm not sure what factors would make up the cost of close to $750 in the flight cost, but from where I sit, flying into Bonaire makes the trip MUCH more expensive. I recognize that Bonaire has great shore diving, and the Keys do not. But I don't think I'd spend the money to go to Bonaire, and then JUST do shore dives....

Ron

Ah, but have you ever walked into the water, kicked out a few yards, dropped to reef, kicked a little more to find yourself on a pristine wall dropping to 130 feet? Heaven-' nuff said.

 

[lowedaph]

What your instructor may have meant is that the Keys are not exotic. With the arguable exception of KW, it looks and feels like any other town in America. While the ocean is the bain of its existence, there are no vast sandy beaches (Bahia Honda comes the closest). Anything you could want is readily available, as you would expect in any fully developed area on a well beaten tourist path.

 

[Charlie99]

Diving in Florida is more that just the Keys. There are some nice beaches and nice diving in the area north of Miami, on up to West Palm Beach and Jupiter.

Probably not too convenient for you, Rick, but you can get cheap flights into Ft Lauderdale and WPB from many east coast cities.

On my last couple of trips to Florida I did more diving in Boynton Beach / Lantana / WPB than down in the Keys. Doing drift dives on a long linear reef is a nice alternative to the Keys sort of diving.

 

[herman]

I just priced flights to Bonaire, and they ran close to $1000 a ticket, and that was NOT non-stop/direct. Granted this was from Denver. FL flights ran $250 for a flight to Ft. Lauderdale.

I'm not sure what factors would make up the cost of close to $750 in the flight cost, but from where I sit, flying into Bonaire makes the trip MUCH more expensive. I recognize that Bonaire has great shore diving, and the Keys do not. But I don't think I'd spend the money to go to Bonaire, and then JUST do shore dives....

Ron

The math is pretty easy, I got air on AJ out of Miami for $450pp and a rental truck, 6 days unlimited air for diving and room for $465pp for 8 days/7 nights and overnight lodging in Miami both ways $100pp or just over $1000 for everything but food which runs about the same either place. Rooms in the Keys are $100/night at least and diving runs around $100 per day for 3 dives a day or $350pp for a room and $500 for 5 days of 3 dives per day. We did 3 to 5 each day in Bonaire including night dives. So the cost for the Keys would have been around $850 with less dives AND the good possibility that we may have to set out 1 or more (all maybe) days due to bad weather. I have not included the cost of gas or a rental car which would add another $200-300 to the cost or the cost of night dives. My dive buddy lives in Fla so we could have used his car, you would have to rent I assume.
I have found travel agents can get a lot better deals on air to Bonaire than the online sites.