North Carolina. NC's drawback is the fairly long boat rides.
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Puget Sound. British Columbia gets a fair amount of magazine attention, but we have most of the things they have, and we can see them all from shore . . . There's a dive site in Seattle that's directly across from the downtown skyline, where I have seen seven Giant Pacific Octopuses on one dive. Get out of the water, clean up a bit, and have dinner in the city -- where else can you do that?
I am always surprised to learn how few divers have dove Hawaii, especially Maui, Kona and Molokai. The Kona manta ray night dive is epic, as is the Molokai hammerhead shark dive, the shore diving in Maui, and of course, the Cathedrals off Lanai. There are even better spots there, but I am keeping those to myself.
DivemasterDennis
Lynne,
What range of bottom temps do you encounter?
Thanks.
Harry
Wow, I didn't realize the sturgeon made it that far upriver. I've seen two at the dive site Lynne was mentioning ... one just a few weeks ago. They were little ones though ... maybe only 5 feet or so.One of the best dives I have ever done, and probably one of the most little known dives out there, is at the Columbia River, outside of Castlegar, British Columbia. I was there in January and did a drift dive through the river looking for white sturgeon, one of the largest freshwater fish in the world. I was very lucky to see several small ones on my second dive, and one sturgeon that was easily 9 feet long, and possibly longer.
Furthermore, Kootenay lake is one place where there is also a lot of good diving that is relatively unheard of, including one of the more elusive deep wrecks, the SS City of Ainsworth, a paddle wheel steamship sitting upright on the bottom in 365 feet of water at ~5000 feet altitude!