2 days to dive

[MrChen]

Is some of the parking area still blocked off for construction purposes?

No. As Jaan mentioned, they plan to do something with the playground, but the only evidence of this is a sign.

 

[superrjack]

I think we are going to split the 2 days between Key West and north of Miami. If we wanted to do 1 full day and 1 half day would you recommend the full day be in Key West or north of Miami?

 

[tekkydiver]

Reefs from Jupiter to Pompano all pretty much the same. Tho Jupiter tends to be a deeper dive.

 

[PatW]

Jupiter is good for big stuff: turtles, sharks, grouper. But it is deep - I think the ledge is 85’ and has high current. So it might not be good for an open water diver.

The Blue Heron Bridge is a great muck dive. You commonly see things there that you very rarely see elsewhere. But it can only be dived at high tide and the visibility can be really low making it kind of a bust.

West Palm is shallower than Jupiter at about 55. It is still drift diving but more friendly to Open Water divers.

Pompano is good and has a high variety. And you get to see some gorgonians (soft corals) there.

Or you could flip things and go down to Key Largo and dive Pennekamp. You get hard corals there (at least those that have survived the ravages of the hot water last summer), There is a great variety of dive sites there ranging from 30’ to the deep wrecks. And there is a big fish population with a bunch of diversity.

 

[Rob9876]

I think we are going to split the 2 days between Key West and north of Miami. If we wanted to do 1 full day and 1 half day would you recommend the full day be in Key West or north of Miami?

Ouch, you are really stretching the miles for a 2 day trip (I'm assuming you realize that it's 4-5 hours of driving or so between Key West and parts north of Miami) -- but hey, I've been known to stretch myself too.

If Key West is a must-have (I'd probably do Key Largo instead and save about 5 hours of driving, but up to you), then I'd probably try to limit it to the half day and do Palm/Riviera Beach the full day with a 2-tank boat dive and a 1 tank shore dive at the much acclaimed (for good reason) Blue Heron Bridge. I'd consider Blue Heron Bridge a bucket list dive.

As mentioned in my prior post, you'll have to look at the tide tables for your specific dates and see if the tides work with that type of schedule. For example, looking back at my notes from my June trip:
"high tide @ 2:35pm (arrive ~1pm to find parking & gear up), enter water 45 min before high tide"

Our morning boat dive with Ocean Quest returned to Riviera Beach marina around 12 noon or a little later, we quickly got our gear off the boat and took rental AL80 air/21% tanks that we had planned ahead to have Ocean Quest have at the marina (we drove and had our own weights & flag float), quickly drove by a nearby Publix to get sandwiches, then on to BHB parking lot to eat in the car while waiting for an open spot, gear up out of our car trunk, and walk into the water (with required flag float) around 1:50pm.

Pretty hectic but worth it, as BHB really can be a great shallow shore dive with lots to see. If we were doing morning boat dives out of Jupiter, that would have added 30+ minutes of extra driving depending on traffic, which would have been nearly impossible with that time for high tide (gets harder to find a parking space the later you arrive) and added a bit of stress also.