Cozumel or West Palm Beach, Florida for drift diving in Janauary/February?

[sportxlh]

Former local diver that dove year round in Jupiter and WPB until I moved away in 2016. Winter marine conditions are impossible to predict in SE Florida and can be pretty ugly at times. When the winds coming out of the north push against the gulf stream coming out of the south, some pretty spectacular wave conditions get set up.

With all that said, you can get lucky too and I've experience epic Feb dives to see Lemon sharks or just easy drift dives for fun when topside conditions were near flat or just with 1-2 ft waves.

Now that I'm no longer local and can no longer just roll out of bed and head to the dock if marine conditions are decent or roll back over and fall asleep if they are not, I plan my dive trips to increase the probability of being able to dive. I've never dove in Mx but understand Coz has nice winter diving. If you have other topside activities you like to do in FL if marine conditions look bad, a trip can work. If you want to increase the odds of diving, think about somewhere else

 

[scubadada]

@scubadada - This is a duplicate post with one in the Cozumel section. Is it possible to merge the two into one post?

See PM

 

[PatW]

Cozumel has nice hard corals on the reefs to the far south. As you go north, the reefs decline rapidly. Cozumel tends to have good fish populations and a bunch of turtles.

West Palm and Jupiter are different. No hard corals, no soft corals and few sponges. You can see Goliath groupers and sharks. It tends to be tougher than Coz and colder. There is the famous Blue Heron Bridge nearby. It depends on what you like.

I prefer Key Largo to both of the above and I prefer Cayman Brac above those.

 

[Capt Davy J]

It's been many years since we have been to Cozumel. However, drifting on the Santa Rosa Wall was spectacular. Drifting along at about 80' deep, corals, fish and other marine life all along the wall. Straight down nothing but the blue abyss below and straight up the blue sky above. Nothing like that in Florida.