Diving near bridges ILLEGAL???

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belairbrian

Contributor
Scuba Instructor
Divemaster
Messages
189
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Location
South East USA
# of dives
200 - 499
I was down to the LDS to pic up my daughters tanks and mentioned we were headed to FL.

Got to talking about dive sites and one of the guys said diving under bridges or around pilings was against Florida law. when I asked where he heard that he said the FL marine police told him Homeland Security had passed the law so we wouldn't drill holes in bridges to blow them up.

First the guy hasn't been diving in about 10 years. second I'm pretty sure DHS can't actually pass laws. Third Why would it only pertain to FL?

Thought about bringing up the Blue Heron Bridge dives but decided to just leave.
 
You don't really think that an LDS employee might have said something that was not correct, do you!!!:(
 
I dive the Blue Heron Bridge almost weekly. During the dive I'm under one or the other bridges. Nobody there seems too worried about it. I call BS on the dive shop guy.
 
I've often dived the bridge at Destin (FL panhandle). There is a sign saying divers must use a flag. I recently dived a bridge in Mississippi and one in Alabama. Never heard of a law specifically naming bridges.
 
There should be a law against dive shops saying dumb things. But then that would eliminate about 90% of them.
 
There should be a law against dive shops saying dumb things. But then that would eliminate about 90% of them.

How do aircraft carriers protect themselves from rebreather divers with explosives. I think I read somewhere that they deploy a protective net around the vessel , not sure tho
 
How do aircraft carriers protect themselves from rebreather divers with explosives. I think I read somewhere that they deploy a protective net around the vessel , not sure tho



If someone wanted to blow something up, a bridge, ship, etc... no "paper law" is going to stop it.


All these "paper laws" do is keep is restrict law abiding citizens.


Yeah rebreather divers could attach explosives to a ship. Even if there were nets, they could cut through them. Our military has cut through nets to get into harbors with divers.


Even if the Coast Guard has a small RIB center console out patroling around a ship, chances are that if some is determined to blow up a ship, they still can. It happened to the USS Cole in Yemen.



Back on discussion of the original poster, I did some searching in Google and couldn't find anything saying you can't dive under bridges. (or at least anything that quoted an actual law. )

I remembered a thread here a couple years ago where a dive shop owner in PCB said you couldn't dive under Hathaway Bridge. Found it and it didn't quote any law either. I do know if you speed over Hathaway bridge you will likely get a ticket though. last time I drove over it, cops sitting running radar at the far ends.
 
considering the popularity of Blue Heron Bridge dives alone, I'm pretty sure that we're safe saying there is no law.
 
If a cop wanted to be an ass (I am talking a really big ass); he will give you a ticket for diving under a bridge.
 
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