DavidPT40
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What dive clubs are there in the Houston area? Relocating to the area, can't wait to get away from these dirty old lakes here in Kentucky. Also, how is the visibility in the Gulf in this region?
Any Houston dive clubs?
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cb5150
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City of Houston Underwater Mariners - The Water's More Exciting with CHUM in it
Dive Around Texas 2010
Your Kentucky lakes are probably clearer than the Texas gulf!
Dive Around Texas 2010
Your Kentucky lakes are probably clearer than the Texas gulf!
Hemlon
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Houston is close to some awesome diving at the Texas Flower Gardens. There is a lot of great info on SB about this location.
CHUM considers themselves a "Drinking club with a diving problem"
Dive Across Texas is more of an event than a club.
You might also look into Bay Area Divers (BAD)
Dive Across Texas is more of an event than a club.
You might also look into Bay Area Divers (BAD)
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Check out Lunarfins Dive Club. They meet in same area as Bay area Divers. They have own equipment room, comprerssor, free fills for members and cheap rental tanks...
Haha, true nuff! And our monthly meetings are at Stags Head Pub, third Thursday of the month. But... don't get the idea we are cowboy divers or strokes. There's a time and a place for everything, and the time for a cold beer is after the diving is done.
Being on the board of directors and President the last two years I am obviously partial but I think we do the best job of getting people out to the local dive holes. This year we have on the calendar monthly dive outings from April to October. We're trying to get a Valhalla trip end of February. A mid-April Comal camping and diving trip will be our 7th annual and always turns out about 40 people. That said, there are lots of fine dive clubs in Houston.
I was born and raised in "Lulvul" but left long before I began diving. We have some dirty old lakes down here as well but at least the muck is warmer.
In the Gulf the good vis generally starts 20 to 30 miles offshore which is close enough for a day trip to the rigs. I've seen "blue water" even closer around Sept/Oct. Further off is Stetson Bank at 60 miles and Flower Gardens at 110 miles where it's pretty much always blue. We weren't as blessed as the Keys or even the Panhandle but at least we're not South Dakota.
chrpai
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I lived in Houston for two years and well, I have good news and bad news.
Bad news is the diving community isn't very active. I had a lot more going on when I was in the MidAtlantic. Down in Houston a lot of people are vacation divers only.
I did a number of trips to the Blue Lagoon and Twin Lakes. There was a nice group of people down at Twin Lakes so that's probably the best place to start your search. I went to a few meetings of the Houston Hammerheads but they were really a travel club like I said above.
I did start to get my grove on by making a friend with a boat and getting out to the oil rigs on a regular basis. But that's a rare find. Thankfully I worked for Continental Airlines at the time so Cozumel was but a (mostly) free flight away.
Hope things have improved.
Bad news is the diving community isn't very active. I had a lot more going on when I was in the MidAtlantic. Down in Houston a lot of people are vacation divers only.
I did a number of trips to the Blue Lagoon and Twin Lakes. There was a nice group of people down at Twin Lakes so that's probably the best place to start your search. I went to a few meetings of the Houston Hammerheads but they were really a travel club like I said above.
I did start to get my grove on by making a friend with a boat and getting out to the oil rigs on a regular basis. But that's a rare find. Thankfully I worked for Continental Airlines at the time so Cozumel was but a (mostly) free flight away.
Hope things have improved.
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Wow. As a dive operator who enjoyed a very long career in Houston, I'm kind of surprised you would say that. Although the economy has had a devastating effect on local diving in Houston, I think Houston has one of the best population of divers I've ever seen. I stood at the toll booth at the beltway and I-10 west for 25 minutes during rush hour one weekday evening. One in 10 cars had some sort of dive sticker on it. That's huge. Houston is home to at least 10 dive clubs which specialize in drinking after diving (which I am proudly a member of) diving photography, diving astronauts, underwater hunters, exotic travel, local travel, and a great flea market, not to mention the stores with dive clubs built in. There are 3 commercial dive schools within 250 miles, there are a plethora of commercial divers, including the NASA Neutral Buoyancy Lab, as well as Oceaneering and a host of smaller companies. Back in the day when there were 3 100 foot liveaboards operating out of Freeport to the Flower Garden Banks, you couldn't get a seat on the weekends, and 2 of those boats ran full (34 passengers) during the week too. Divers were tough. With the "gentrification" (I'd use another word if we were face to face) of divers, we got lots of complaints if it's choppy, but the divers used to laugh at 6 foot seas and come home with the knife in their teeth.
I hope and pray daily that things go back to the way they were.
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