I liked staying at Sands Resort and Marina, near Ft Lauderdale, in Pompano Beach area. although it is not on the beach. It is on the marina, with a restaurant and has South Florida Dive Shop in the lobby, and Pompano Beach Club a minutes walk along the marina side. We hired a guide to show us how to hunt lion fish with a spear, day and night dives, (Sam Fsetz from Force-E Scuba ) Normally I am the bleeding heart that will rescue an iguana in the middle of traffic, but I had it in for those destructive Lionfish.
The charters cancel boats when they don’t have enough Divers, especially night dives, so I booked four seats, the minimum to guarantee we would not be canceled and crying into our teacups.
Then it is a few minutes walk to beach, restaurants shops and all.
There’s a guy that rents jet skis right outside the hotel door on the marina, KC jet ski +1 (954) 529-9636 and we saw dolphins out there.