LeFlaneur
Contributor
Trip Report: West Palm Beach: July 9-10
My fiance surprised me with a birthday dive weekend in West Palm. She gets major cool points for that.
We went with Pura Vida Divers. We stayed at the Hilton on Singer Island and Pura Vida is 5 min away instead of on the mainland. However, this advantage is nullified by the fact that you still have to drive back to the mainland side of the bridge to get to their boat. Not really a problem, just worth noting.
Pura Vida is a fine operation with a very friendly staff. Good boat with fresh water rinse and shade under the wheel house. Some fumes in aft. We had 12 people on boat but half formed their own independent group. So we only had 6 on the dive.
Boat captains were on the ball picking up divers. The also set us up with float, map and info for a indie dive at Blue Heron Bridge.
July 9
Dive #1 Bath and Tennis - 50 fsw about 50-60 foot viz, 80 degrees , light current for West Palm. Decent dive, with the usual critters, however we heard over the vhf that one of West Palms elusive hammerheads was spotted here after we left.
Dive #2 The Breakers - 55 fsw , about 50-60 foot viz, 80 degrees, average current. Turtles, turtles, turtles. It's what we came for.
July 10
Dive #1 Mitzpah / Amaryllis - 85 fsw, 80 degrees. 40 foot viz. Not a visually spectacular wreck but fun with a little overhead section and many places to poke around and duck out of the current. Many Goliath groupers.
Dive #2 Double Ledge 85 fsw, 70 degrees at bottom of drop site then, warmed as dive progressed, strong current viz of about 30 feet. Disappointing dive -- I think we lost the ledge due to current and spent most of it over an uninteresting slope.
Dive #3 Blue Heron Bridge -- West site
Lots of small critters octopus, filefish, nudibranchs, lobsters and crabs, scorpion fish, skates, juvie porcupine fish, a couple of mating horseshoe crabs, buddy claims she saw a purple headed moray, looked for seahorses but didnt find any. High tide was at 8:10 pm. We entered at about 7:30 and stayed for more than an hour, so we got a partial night dive. Never went below 15 fsw.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised by West Palm. From my limited experience, coral did not match the Keys but marine life often surpassed it. And of course there are great beaches when you're not diving.
Food: Panama Hatties was kind of fun. Food at the Tiki Waterfront sea grill was better than I expected.
Lodging: The Hilton on Singer Island was fine -- better than you need if diving is your only focus. Since we had to check out at 11:00AM but our flight wasn't until 7:00PM we had the hotel hold our bags and spent the final day at the beach. A purchase of 30 min massages at the nice Marriott spa next door gave us a place to clean up and change. I think I'll use this strategy on further trips -- not exactly a money saver, but a nice way to solve a problem.
Well, this got long. Hope it helps somebody somewhere.
My fiance surprised me with a birthday dive weekend in West Palm. She gets major cool points for that.
We went with Pura Vida Divers. We stayed at the Hilton on Singer Island and Pura Vida is 5 min away instead of on the mainland. However, this advantage is nullified by the fact that you still have to drive back to the mainland side of the bridge to get to their boat. Not really a problem, just worth noting.
Pura Vida is a fine operation with a very friendly staff. Good boat with fresh water rinse and shade under the wheel house. Some fumes in aft. We had 12 people on boat but half formed their own independent group. So we only had 6 on the dive.
Boat captains were on the ball picking up divers. The also set us up with float, map and info for a indie dive at Blue Heron Bridge.
July 9
Dive #1 Bath and Tennis - 50 fsw about 50-60 foot viz, 80 degrees , light current for West Palm. Decent dive, with the usual critters, however we heard over the vhf that one of West Palms elusive hammerheads was spotted here after we left.
Dive #2 The Breakers - 55 fsw , about 50-60 foot viz, 80 degrees, average current. Turtles, turtles, turtles. It's what we came for.
July 10
Dive #1 Mitzpah / Amaryllis - 85 fsw, 80 degrees. 40 foot viz. Not a visually spectacular wreck but fun with a little overhead section and many places to poke around and duck out of the current. Many Goliath groupers.
Dive #2 Double Ledge 85 fsw, 70 degrees at bottom of drop site then, warmed as dive progressed, strong current viz of about 30 feet. Disappointing dive -- I think we lost the ledge due to current and spent most of it over an uninteresting slope.
Dive #3 Blue Heron Bridge -- West site
Lots of small critters octopus, filefish, nudibranchs, lobsters and crabs, scorpion fish, skates, juvie porcupine fish, a couple of mating horseshoe crabs, buddy claims she saw a purple headed moray, looked for seahorses but didnt find any. High tide was at 8:10 pm. We entered at about 7:30 and stayed for more than an hour, so we got a partial night dive. Never went below 15 fsw.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised by West Palm. From my limited experience, coral did not match the Keys but marine life often surpassed it. And of course there are great beaches when you're not diving.
Food: Panama Hatties was kind of fun. Food at the Tiki Waterfront sea grill was better than I expected.
Lodging: The Hilton on Singer Island was fine -- better than you need if diving is your only focus. Since we had to check out at 11:00AM but our flight wasn't until 7:00PM we had the hotel hold our bags and spent the final day at the beach. A purchase of 30 min massages at the nice Marriott spa next door gave us a place to clean up and change. I think I'll use this strategy on further trips -- not exactly a money saver, but a nice way to solve a problem.
Well, this got long. Hope it helps somebody somewhere.
