Florida Shore Diving

[KWBuddy]

Florida has the opportunity for extremely diverse and interesting shore diving, so I started looking at shorediving.com for information and found it severely lacking. I have used it for Hawaii, Bonaire and Curacao before and found it to be wonderful.

There doesn't seem to be a good site for shore diving in Florida. I am thinking about trying to do something that is informative and easy to navigate. However, I'm going to need some help getting the information and properly describing the sites, parking, entrance and dive sites.

For instance, Blue Heron Bridge seems to be extremely popular, has free parking and all, but I don't have many details.

So, I guess I'm asking for people to post their favorite shore diving locations with information that will help me locate the site and provide helpful information for potential scuba divers.

--

Bud

 

[DennisS]

It's been done, check under the florida conch section, there is a sticky thread --Local Diving-insider information. There is a lot of good information on shore sites, parking and directions

Cool tech has a web site on diving Blue Heron. There is a link in one of the Blue Heron threads.

http://www.jamminbeach.com/html/blue_heron.html


For the SE Coast Ray McCallister has a book that goes for about 15 dollars-shore dives-most of the local dive shop carry it

 

[floridanewbe]

Check out this blog

 

[dwatson]

It's been a while since I've been on Scubaboard but need help. My family (wife, and two small children) will be heading down to Southeast Florida this Friday, and I will be the only diver. In an effort to be fair to my wife and not leave her dealing with the munchkins by herself too long, and still be able to dive, I was interested in doing a shore dive in the area where we will be staying, Pompano Beach. Over the course of the last two years I've made friends with the guys at Dixie Divers, and was going to speak to them but everyone seems more interested in taking me off shore in lieu of accompanying me on a shore dive. I am tempted to just go solo and put around the shore line area but have been told that's against the rules. If anyone has any ideas for a Texan hoping to become a Floridian soon, please let me know. Thanks guys/ladies for your patience.

 

[DennisS]

What rules are there against solo beach diving, is it some town regulation? Who told this to you?

 

[KWBuddy]

It's been done, check under the florida conch section, there is a sticky thread --Local Diving-insider information. There is a lot of good information on shore sites, parking and directions

Indeed it has been done, but poorly. The sticky has good information, but it is hard to find consistant information on the hundreds of sites available. For instance, what are my choices for spring diving in the Ocala area? The information may be in there, but you have to read the whole thread in order to find it.

Shore Diving dot Com has fair information, but it doesn't do Florida sites well.

Compare Blue Heron Bridge with the Hilma Hooker. Excellent details about the Hilma Hooker with GPS info on the parking lot so that anyone can find it. Not so for BHB.

Another pet peeve is those complete lists of all shore diving sites that include such Keys locations as San Pedro State Park and Indian Key State Park. The parking is atroucious at San Pedro since it is 17 feet underwater. It is an interesting dive, but trust me it is too far to swim from the nearest road.


So, my goal in this project is to have good, consistent information about the shore diving opportunities available in Florida. You should be able to search by map or area. So if you are in the Hollywood area you can find good shore dives nearby.

--

Bud

 

[TheOnlyRae]

Gold Coast Scuba Divers (954) 616-5909 (Fort Lauderdale, FL) - Meetup

These guys always have something going on.

 

[DennisS]

Indeed it has been done, but poorly. The sticky has good information, but it is hard to find consistant information on the hundreds of sites available. .............

So, my goal in this project is to have good, consistent information about the shore diving opportunities available in Florida. You should be able to search by map or area. So if you are in the Hollywood area you can find good shore dives nearby.

--

Bud

Sounds like a good project, organizing all that information in an easy to find format

 

[KWBuddy]

Sounds like a good project, organizing all that information in an easy to find format

Thanks.

By the way, I should have a sample of what I'm trying to create sometime this weekend.

If anyone has any Shore Diving sites they want included in the Demo, either PM me with the information or post it here.

Thanks in advance.

--

Bud

 

[dwatson]

Well guys my family and I made it. We're staying at the Wyndham Sea Gardens on Highway 1 in Pompano Beach. I spoke to a guy today who told me to try out the shore diving about 4 to 5 miles down from where I'm at over near Commercial Blvd. He was saying that the area is marked off for divers and snorklers, and there's an abundance of sea life. I was hoping the conditions will stay the way they were today (nice and smooth), and try and splash Wednesday (05/11/11). Anyone interested in being a dive buddy let me know as I'm not familiar with the area. I will check this posting about twice a day between now and Wednesday. By the way a kid fell into a sink hole on the beach just in front of the condo this evening, and last I checked they were still trying to rescue him.