Questions about Venice Beach Diving

[naui 15694]

I dive in SC for Meg teeth quite a bit, so I am familiar with the ins and outs of low vis fossil diving in rivers, but not what the conditions are there. My parents are spending a month in Ft. Myers in March and I thought I would fly down for a week. I really want to dive Venice Beach and have read a lot on this board about the shore diving there. My sister is a fairly newer diver and wants to go, but I am somewhat concerned about taking her into conditions like I see here.

My main question is do I need to be concerned about what the tide is doing when I go from the beach? Is the shore diving relatively safe for newer competent divers? The charters all seem to go out at 8am, so I assume they don't worry much about diving at slack tide, but I wondered about the shore dives. Also, will I need a light? I use a pretty powerful one here, but the vis is always near 0.

 

[Walter]

Tide isn't a factor. If your sister doesn't panic in low viz, she should be safe with you. I'd advise using a buddy line. A light probably won't be helpful.

 

[ReefGuy]

I'll second what Walter said.

There's very little chance of entanglement. Occasionally you have to get around a crab trap rope, but that's about it. The bottom is sand with broken bits of rubble, and some small (< 2') ledges with some rocks.

If there's any vis, this is a great dive for newer divers. If you're fine with low vis (and your sister is too), go for it.

Also, if you want, post when you're going. I've been trying to get up there, but conditions for the last couple of months have been terrible whenever I have gotten the chance to go (winter diving in the gulf is very iffy).

Hopefully, I'm getting up there on Sunday (Interested, Walter??)

 

[Walter]

I'll be on the other coast this weekend.

 

[naui 15694]

Thanks for the responses. I should be there the last week of March. I hope the conditions are better by then.

 

[ReefGuy]

They should be good by then.

 

[Chad Carney]

The cold fronts are often not over by the end of March. It looked like a milk shake near the beach this week, despite easterly winds and flat seas for several days.

Today there was 4' to 5' of vis around the inlets just inside the north side of Tampa Bay, by Tierra Verde, but the water at the beach at Ft DeSoto was not very clear.

As another possibility; the Peace river has fossils too. I did it once, but that was not enough to learn where to go.

Chad

 

[naui 15694]

Thanks Chad,
3' of Vis is better than I usually get. my cousin is in Port Charlotte and owns a house on the Peace River. I was kind of worried of just dropping in the river there since I know there are gators around and I do not know the area. I would love to dive it though.

 

[ReefGuy]

To my knowledge, there's nowhere worth diving in the Peace river, unless you're interested in trying to recover things blown in there by all of the recent hurricanes. The peace river is shallow, flat, sandy and filled with tannic acid (which makes the water very brown). The closest dive (which is very cool) is the phosphate docks and Boca Grande pass (although, there's only one time a year I'd dive the pass - the cleanup).

 

[Walter]

Which is exactly 1 month away.