Help with Jupiter or Palm Beach Dive Shop

[tt5five]

Will be in the area in July and trying to get a couple of days of diving planned for July 19 and 20. Ended up staying on Singer Island but had planned on diving from Jupiter. Will have a car so I can get to any shop. Looking for a smaller boat. 4 divers and will need to rent tanks, bc and regs. Newer divers and one in the family still needs some help/encouragement getting down a little deeper (wants​ to hang at 60). (Around 15 reef dives mostly 30 to 40 ft.) Goal is to see some sharks and other larger animals. Would prefer to have a guide in the water with us. Looking for dive shop and dive sites. Have never been to this part of Florida before. Any suggestions, recommendations or comments welcome. Thanks in advance. Would love to see a big shark and live to tell about it.

[Chuckitall]

Try Scuba Works and dive on the Blue Tang out of Jupiter. We usually can find a shark or two.

[sportxlh]

First of all, the reefs in Jupiter are going to be in the 80-95 range. There are a few sites where you can stay on top of the reef rather than the vertical ledge (and not see much) and never go below 70 feet, but the dive won't be very fun in my opinion. Make sure you understand this since your friend desires to stay in the 60 foot range. In my opinion, you might be better off in WPB where you'll find some shallower reefs, though some of the WPB sites also go a little deeper. WPB does have some 60-75 reefs, like the Breakers, though.

If you dive during the week, rather the weekend, even the shops that run big boats tend to be very uncrowded. I tend to dive with Jupiter Dive Center most frequently, but the boat is big and can hold 20 divers. On the weekdays, there are seldom more than 10 divers, there is a lot of elbow room and a dive guide/DM is always on the dives. Jim Abernathy Scuba Adventures out of WPB is similiar: uncrowded during the week but can be crowded on weekends.

Given some of your team are not very experienced, the Scuba Club in WPB might not be a bad option since they tend to send at least two dive guides down on each dive and are very safety oriented. I usually only dive with them on the Friday afternoons since they run one of the few regularly scheduled Friday afternoon dives and the last few weekends, their boat has been very uncrowded on those dives. Like Jupiter Dive Center and Jim Abernathy, their boat can fill up on weekends. The only knock on the Scuba Club is that they do run a lot of single tank dives rather than two tank dives (Friday afternoon is a two tanker).

Consider diving Blue Heron Bridge when you are down here: if you like macro life, it's a great site and very shallow. Nearby Force-E or Pura Vida can rent gear to you. Look at the Blue Heron Bridge thread for information.

There are plenty of other good dive shops in the area and I'm sure other SB'ers will weigh in with who they like.

[Herb-alaska]

Will be in the area in July and trying to get a couple of days of diving planned for July 19 and 20. Ended up staying on Singer Island but had planned on diving from Jupiter. Will have a car so I can get to any shop. Looking for a smaller boat. 4 divers and will need to rent tanks, bc and regs. Newer divers and one in the family still needs some help/encouragement getting down a little deeper (wants​ to hang at 60). (Around 15 reef dives mostly 30 to 40 ft.) Goal is to see some sharks and other larger animals. Would prefer to have a guide in the water with us. Looking for dive shop and dive sites. Have never been to this part of Florida before. Any suggestions, recommendations or comments welcome. Thanks in advance. Would love to see a big shark and live to tell about it.

I would + 1 for the WPB area having some great dives. I coming from AK I dove with the Scuba Club in WPB in January and had a great time on Friday 2 tank and Saturday 2 single tank dives. I also would have preferred 2 tank dives for Saturday. It was a great boat set up and we only had about 12 divers on board so there was plenty of room., The only problem is you never know where the boat is going until after they leave the channel and select the dive site per the water condition. You would be hard pressed to stay above 60 but it is all easy drift dive with two 2 dms in the water so your shallow friend would be fine. They also have everything you need for gear right on site however everything is al 80 unless you are diving mixed gas

Now if you go with Florida Scuba Diving, Dive Florida's Best Sites they are a full service shop that will rent you everything you need they are 5 minutes from the boat. They are actually a booking agent for the boats and will match the boats with what the divers need . We dove Capt Todd ( forgot the boat name) with 4 divers the first day and then one diver dropped out taking use to 3 divers which was no problem. Capt Todd had one other paying client mixed into our group for each trip so we had a total of 4 and 5 divers on the trip total with one DM / guide as we had the 90% majority we were the crew to guide the location selection and Todd was great to find us good spots. You again would still be int he 70 - 80 foot reef range. Smaller boat and we felt like it was our boat. We had a great time

WPB has some great diving you would be hard pressed not to have a good time . I would stay away from the larger boats if they are filled because your one friend may be a little intimidated about the group and feeling like they could get lost.

Have a great time

[Amazz]

Chuck and I are the regular Saturday crew on Blue Tang year round and frequently other days during the summer. He's retired and I work for the school system. Summer vacation is here for me!! Yeah baby!! You can dive Jupiter at 70-75 feet and have a great experience. The reefs start at about 70 feet and drop to 90. We have a few sites where you can touch the reef at 60. If anybody in your group is at all apprehensive, I will hold his or her hand. Don't laugh. It happens all the time and the dive experience is a great one. Tomorrow we have several people on the boat who were just certified a week ago. Just communicate with the crew and be honest about your concerns. We generally assume that people are comfortable unless told otherwise. If you want to be like velcro with the dive guide, just say so to the guide and it will happen. Blue Tang holds a max of 12 divers. Generally during the week, it's a very light crowd. Scuba Works has lots of rental gear. I highly recommend Jupiter and prefer it over West Palm Beach, personally. Don't wish to start any dive site wars....just my personal opinion. ;-) When my buddy edits his video from today's dive, I'll post the link. Epic shark footage from Tunnels in Jupiter. A dozen reef sharks up close and VERY personal. I didn't see it, but there was also a great hammerhead on the first dive. He thinks he got great video of that too.

[Scott L]

Per the Op's requirements, diving south of the PB Inlet on Breakers Reef, Horseshoe Reef and Paul's Reef seems the wise choice (55' ave depth). A myriad of other sites are nearby...

[RonFrank]

One thing to consider about deep is you may burn through air. I do the Jupiter profile on Nitrox because if diving air its a short dive. Newer divers may burn through a tank in 20 min or less. I consider Jupiter advanced diving due to depth.

I like Boynton the best but West Palm Beach maybe what you want. Heck BHB maybe what you need! Shallow with no boat fees and you can do two hour dives if you can stretch a tank. There is good diving off the FL mainland just pick a spot that fits your abilities. You can also do a tour and try several spots.

[djtimmy77]

I love Jupiter diving but for your requirements west palm is a much better fit.

[danvolker]

Will be in the area in July and trying to get a couple of days of diving planned for July 19 and 20. Ended up staying on Singer Island but had planned on diving from Jupiter. Will have a car so I can get to any shop. Looking for a smaller boat. 4 divers and will need to rent tanks, bc and regs. Newer divers and one in the family still needs some help/encouragement getting down a little deeper (wants​ to hang at 60). (Around 15 reef dives mostly 30 to 40 ft.) Goal is to see some sharks and other larger animals. Would prefer to have a guide in the water with us. Looking for dive shop and dive sites. Have never been to this part of Florida before. Any suggestions, recommendations or comments welcome. Thanks in advance. Would love to see a big shark and live to tell about it.

Singer Island is an awesome place to stay for a dive vacation--in my mind, the best Dive Resort concept in the hemisphere, is staying at the Hilton on singer Island, and using their free shuttles to get you to the diveboats just 3 minutes away, or the Pura vida dive Shop about 600 yards away, or to visit the BHB Marine Park about 700 yards away.....or any of the cool restaurants in the Singer Island area ( Sailfish/riviera Beach Waterfront Tiki/Jonny Longboats/Seasons 52 and several others). Whether you stay at the Hilton or one of the time shares on the Island, the beauty of singer is that it is so close to the diveboats, and the diveboats have such short runs to the good diving. I can see driving to Jupiter 1 day out of a 3 or 4 day dive trip, and going out with Jupiter Dive Center to do the wrecks of the Zion and Bonaire, but from Singer Island, every thing else you will want to experience is right there near you, no big drives required.
You can have a beautiful coral reef dive in 40 to 60 feet of water with a 20 minute run South of the inlet, or be on Juno Reef for the big animals and deep ledge adventure, with a 20 minute run to the north....You can go out the inlet and be on the awesome wrecks of the Mispah and Amaryllis in literally less than 5 minutes out of the inlet, or on great coral reef dives in 70 to 80 feet in less than 8 minutes.

Jupiter Dive Center IS an awesome operation....great captains and boats, and the shop has some of the best gear of any shop I've been in...And there is spectacular diving from Jupiter inlet....mostly advanced, which for me is a huge plus. If you really want to enjoy Jupiter, and not degrade the experience of what it is like to have a Dive Resort vacation in Jupiter to match any place in the caribean, then you need to be staying in Jupiter, near the boat and near the beach, or on the beach. This is very easy, either with the Jupiter Beach Resort, or the LaQuinta Inn ---LaQuinta for killer rates and in sight of the ocean ( and near the boat), and Jupiter Beach Resort as the ultimate resort on the beach, but priced a bit higher. Still, in summer, even the Jupiter Beach Resort will pull their rates way down for divers, so rooms that sell for $285 in winter can go to divers in July for $140.

To make a Florida Dive Vacation experience all it should be, you should create a plan for yourself that is much more like the way you would experience diving in cozumel, or Bonaire, or Grand Cayman---stay close to the boats and the water, feel like you are at a Dive Resort, have plenty of other divers around you to socialize with and potentially dive with, and enjoy all the perks of a Resort that wants to cater to divers, and "give them" what they know divers need. So a couple of divers can fly into West Palm Beach Intl Airport, take a shuttle 15 minutes to the Hilton on Singer Island, not need a car for anything for the whole dive trip, and enjoy a real Dive resort vacation with many extra perks for when you are not diving, that you wont find in places like the Keys or Cayman or the islands ( world Class restaurant food quality/ shopping or cafes and night clubs in an Entertainment District like Clematis at the Downtown West Palm Waterfront)...

[Force-E Divers]

Consider diving Blue Heron Bridge when you are down here: if you like macro life, it's a great site and very shallow. Nearby Force-E or Pura Vida can rent gear to you. Look at the Blue Heron Bridge thread for information.

Thanks for the shout out sportxlh. The Blue Heron Bridge is a great place to see cool critters and it is very shallow. We run trips there regularly. We also book trips with dive boats all around South Florida. Give us a call, tell us what you are looking for and we can help you find a good match for you and your dive buddies.