Dennisrl84
Registered
Anyone else dive this area? I live about 3 hours away, have made 2 attempts previously and visibility was garbage. Couldn't even see my hand.
Last Thursday we did a group night dive. It started out great and I learned alot. It was my first night dive so I figured shallow water near a shore was the best bet.
I got my dive bouy tangled up with a fishing line. surfaced and resolved it, no big deal. Then it happened again and when I surfaced they throw the bouy at me. I was avoding fishermen so I was unsure how it happened again. Then I got tangled up with what I thought was another dive flagl line. Me and 2 women surfaced together and realized we were tied up on the same fishing line. A man began shouting and threatening us. He was intentionally hooking and stealing dive flags. I got the girls untangled but mine started being dragged through the water, me in tow. Eventually him and 2 others hooked it together and got it out of the water. They tossed it into the street actually hitting a car with it. I climbed out ot get it and the guy who hooked it wandered off and got real quiet. I am not the biggest or toughest guy nor was I looking for a fight but I'd imagine something about a dude traversing large piles of boulders up a steep embankment carrying all that gear was a "WTF" moment for someone moments ago was tossing hooks at people trying to cause injury.
I got on shore and retrieved my flag and bouy but my line and handle was gone. There were about 20 people in total watching this happen and laughing. They also were apologetic and friendly when I got to them. They even jumped the safety barrier to retrieve my equipment.
I returned to the water and went back to shore and ended my dive. I was told that the people fishing have had the bridge to themselves because of COVID up until recently nad this has caused them to become frustrated. If you google it, this type of event is not uncommon.
What angers me most about it, is that it is a known issue and there is a police substation IN the park. Yet as we got rady we were met with tons of homeless people asking for money, eyeing open cars and unattended equipment (it's also common place to have gear stolen and cars burglarized), people driving through blasting stereo's speeding, spinning out their tires, doing wheelies on dirt bikes, quads and motorcycles and openly doing drugs.
I wrote to the police department, city manager, Mayor and city council. Despite being only a few weeks from an election I got zero response.
Anyone else have experiences like this here? I really want to go back because despite the issue's and me not having the right light it was pretty cool. I saw tons of Barracuda, the largest and thickest starfish I had ever seen, pufferfish, seahorse, etc.
I think soon I am going to try a shore dive at Lauderdale By The Seas that is supposedly close to as good as BHB. It's about 40 minutes south of it.
Last Thursday we did a group night dive. It started out great and I learned alot. It was my first night dive so I figured shallow water near a shore was the best bet.
I got my dive bouy tangled up with a fishing line. surfaced and resolved it, no big deal. Then it happened again and when I surfaced they throw the bouy at me. I was avoding fishermen so I was unsure how it happened again. Then I got tangled up with what I thought was another dive flagl line. Me and 2 women surfaced together and realized we were tied up on the same fishing line. A man began shouting and threatening us. He was intentionally hooking and stealing dive flags. I got the girls untangled but mine started being dragged through the water, me in tow. Eventually him and 2 others hooked it together and got it out of the water. They tossed it into the street actually hitting a car with it. I climbed out ot get it and the guy who hooked it wandered off and got real quiet. I am not the biggest or toughest guy nor was I looking for a fight but I'd imagine something about a dude traversing large piles of boulders up a steep embankment carrying all that gear was a "WTF" moment for someone moments ago was tossing hooks at people trying to cause injury.
I got on shore and retrieved my flag and bouy but my line and handle was gone. There were about 20 people in total watching this happen and laughing. They also were apologetic and friendly when I got to them. They even jumped the safety barrier to retrieve my equipment.
I returned to the water and went back to shore and ended my dive. I was told that the people fishing have had the bridge to themselves because of COVID up until recently nad this has caused them to become frustrated. If you google it, this type of event is not uncommon.
What angers me most about it, is that it is a known issue and there is a police substation IN the park. Yet as we got rady we were met with tons of homeless people asking for money, eyeing open cars and unattended equipment (it's also common place to have gear stolen and cars burglarized), people driving through blasting stereo's speeding, spinning out their tires, doing wheelies on dirt bikes, quads and motorcycles and openly doing drugs.
I wrote to the police department, city manager, Mayor and city council. Despite being only a few weeks from an election I got zero response.
Anyone else have experiences like this here? I really want to go back because despite the issue's and me not having the right light it was pretty cool. I saw tons of Barracuda, the largest and thickest starfish I had ever seen, pufferfish, seahorse, etc.
I think soon I am going to try a shore dive at Lauderdale By The Seas that is supposedly close to as good as BHB. It's about 40 minutes south of it.