Pompano Dive Video

[Ana]

Just trying to figure out if it's one of those 'undiscovered gems' more people would hit if they heard more buzz about it. Thanks.

Richard.

Nah.... You're better off going to the Key's or farther north to Boynton n Jupiter. Pompano has hardly enough life for the locals.

 

[caruso]

The SS Copenhagen is located .6 miles off of Lauderdale by the Sea. It can be a shore dive but it's a long swim and there may be currents and boat traffic even though boats are supposed to stay outside the buoys that mark the outer reef where the Copenhagen ran around over 100 years ago. The Copenhagen is one of few natural wrecks within recreational limits off South Florida. It's ~300 ft long, mostly broken up in about 25-30'.

Scubatyme owner Enze changed the schedule last minute- he told me at the dock that they were headed to a reef rather than the wreck as scheduled. Luckily for me, SFDHQ in the same marina was doing that dive in the afternoon so I hopped on their boat.

 

[caruso]

This next short video is of the dive that was the subject of this thread: Poor diving techniques I noticed during this week's trip.

At least one member suggested on that now closed thread, that if a diver has good navigational skills (and presumably stays really close to the boat) that surfacing to do a "life threatening, DCS inducing boat check" won't be necessary.

Note the conditions including current- especially at the start of the video, strong surge that was kicking me all around, poor visibility, and the patch reef making navigation using features rather difficult.

 

[Barnaby'sDad]

I'm not local to the area I'm just trying to dive all the wrecks between Key West and Jupiter before I hang up my fins in another 20+ years. I don't find the diving in Pompano to quite compare to the Keys and West Palm but definitely worth doing.

West Palm has the wreck trecks and the big stuff like Goliath Groupers and sharks and rocky reefs loaded with schools of fish.

Boynton has the Castor on which you'll almost always see at least a half dozen Goliath Groupers that don't shy away from you because it's their home.

The Keys have the better reefs and a few large wrecks that usually have lots of fish on them.

Fort Lauderdale and Pompano have lots of wrecks some of which are covered with fish like in these videos and other wrecks such as the popular Lady Luck- when I dived it last month I think I saw about 3 fish the entire dive. The reefs in FLL are pretty dead although I had one fairly decent reef dive during the trip. You just never know what you're going to get.

When I was in town in January, I got to dive the Captain Dan (down to 112’). There was plenty of life on that wreck.

 

[caruso]

Captain Dan is the next dive of my trip, did a double dip on it including a night dive. I'm working on it today for some reason I'm all over the place, looks like it came right out of the Blair Witch project. There's goinna be a lot of chopping on this one.

 

[tekkydiver]

The SS Copenhagen is located .6 miles off of Lauderdale by the Sea. It can be a shore dive but it's a long swim and there may be currents and boat traffic even though boats are supposed to stay outside the buoys that mark the outer reef where the Copenhagen ran around over 100 years ago.

Where are you getting the information that boats are to stay outside (east?) of the buoys? I am not aware of any such boating restriction in that area. In fact there are some excellent spots inside the mooring buoys for snorkeling.

 

[caruso]

Where are you getting the information that boats are to stay outside (east?) of the buoys? I am not aware of any such boating restriction in that area. In fact there are some excellent spots inside the mooring buoys for snorkeling.

Only what the captain told me as we were headed back to the dock after the second dive. Now that you mention it, he might not have said it was mandatory- just that there are often divers within the buoys who swam out from shore, and they don't always carry flags and they can be hard to see when the waves kick up- in fact we saw a group sans flag about a minute or two later.

 

[Barnaby'sDad]

Only what the captain told me as we were headed back to the dock after the second dive. Now that you mention it, he might not have said it was mandatory- just that there are often divers within the buoys who swam out from shore, and they don't always carry flags and they can be hard to see when the waves kick up- in fact we saw a group sans flag about a minute or two later.

Yup. When I dove off LBTS, not every buddy pair had a dive flag. I’m not going to say that it was 50/50, but there were a fair amount of solo divers and buddy pairs that did not have one.

If I were operating a dive boat, I wouldn’t want to go west of the eastern most reef, just to be on the safe side.

 

[Manatee Diver]

When I was in town in January, I got to dive the Captain Dan (down to 112’). There was plenty of life on that wreck.

The Captain Dan was ok, I prefer the RSB-1 for penetration. But the shallow wrecks have much much more life in that area. The Okinawa, Sea Emperor, and others have much more life, and you can easily get an hour if your air consumption doesn't suck but the vis can suck.

 

[tekkydiver]

Yup. When I dove off LBTS, not every buddy pair had a dive flag. I’m not going to say that it was 50/50, but there were a fair amount of solo divers and buddy pairs that did not have one.

If I were operating a dive boat, I wouldn’t want to go west of the eastern most reef, just to be on the safe side.

As a diver that operates my own vessel, I would NEVER dive without a flag, especially off a commercial dive boat that often will spread it's divers out over a mile.