Palm Bay Beach or Lauderdale by the Sea?

[FitnessKelly]

Planning to head to Florida soon to visit family on both coasts. Want to take a little time to dive, but we won't have time to go down into the Keys. Looking at the Palm Bay Beach area or Lauderdale by the Sea. Opinions on which location we should choose? I would like to get one wreck dive in, if possible. Husband likes snorkeling as much as diving, so I'm leaning in the direction of LBTS, but I can be swayed

 

[Jon_R]

Palm Bay or Palm Beach? They are pretty different.

I live in Palm Bay and dive in Palm Beach.




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[Scuba_Jenny]

Lauderdale By The Sea (LBTS) is considered a beach dive. Is that what you are looking for? Personally, i am not a fan of LBTS. I dived it earlier this year and was quite depressed at what I saw. Maybe somebody can chime in and tell all how it's improved.
The good news is that there are other beach diving sites not too far away.

 

[sportxlh]

Did you mean Palm Beach or Palm Bay? I'm not sure there is much diving in Palm Bay.... I meet folks from that area on Jupiter and West Palm Beach dive boats frequently. They take the 90 minute drive south to get to decent diving in Palm Beach County. If you want to see big marine life, such as sharks, goliath grouper, turtles, big green morays, and you enjoy drift diving, stick with Jupiter or West Palm Beach area (or Boynton Beach for that matter). If you're coming before October, you're likely to see the goliath grouper aggregation on the local wrecks: its a pretty cool experience. Jupiter, West Palm Beach and Boynton wrecks all seem to have pretty good aggregations this year.

If you like shore diving, then head south to Lauderdale by the Sea. If you get tired of shore diving, you can also grab a charter in Pompano where you'll find some nice shallower reefs and some nice wreck diving too. LBTS also puts you in close proximity to Dania Beach, where you'll also find good shore diving. Snorkeling is better in LBTS, Pompano and Dania, as compared to Palm Beach County

BTW: here's a screen shot of a recent dive I did on the MG 111 wreck in Jupiter: we saw 60 GG's.

 

[FitnessKelly]

Sorry, West Palm Beach...should have had my map open. Also throwing Ft Pierce in the mix.

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

Go south. But I may be biased.
No beach diving north. Well, there is some, but vis is not as good..

 

[sportxlh]

Palm Beach County or Broward County.... you really can't go wrong with either choice. The one really nice beach dive in Palm Beach County is Blue Heron Bridge (snorkel site too): see the Blue Heron Bridge Trolls thread for information. But other than that, Scuba Jenny is pretty much right about the beach diving in this area.

 

[Trigger-F]

Lauderdale By The Sea (LBTS) is considered a beach dive. Is that what you are looking for? Personally, i am not a fan of LBTS. I dived it earlier this year and was quite depressed at what I saw. Maybe somebody can chime in and tell all how it's improved.
The good news is that there are other beach diving sites not too far away.

Hmm.. I don't live in South FL but come down there often to do the beach dives and test my camera(either Pompano Beach or LBTS). INMO, there's a lot of sea-life to see if you're serious about finding it. Also, it depends how far out you go( I almost always go to the Drop off or a bit further out; it's a long swim out but for $5 very rewarding.)

Here's a short video I made from diving past several months..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHTLxgHnuL8

 

[iamrushman]

no matter what you choose the diving is great in all the above suggestions...

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

Trigger, I haven't been to the drop off in a long time at lBTS, so I can't speak for that area. However, the inner reef where most scuba divers and snorkelers go.. I was very disappointed in what I saw, and I've been beach diving for many years. I'm glad to hear you've had a better experience there.