South Florida Diving - worth it?

[DiveShopBarbie]

Hi all,

I live on the east coast, so naturally, want Florida diving to be wonderful as it is easy and cheap to access (compared to other wonderful tropical dive locations).

Unfortunately, I've never had a good experience in Florida diving and want to know if it is a fluke and I need to keep giving it a chance, or if others have felt it doesn't quite do it for them.

I dove at Riviera Beach and Key Largo (separate trips). At Riviera Beach, the viz was terrible and though a guide came with the boat dive, they dropped down in the viz, lost everyone, so my buddy and I led everyone through the safety stop and back to the boat. So that wasn't fun. There may have been a lot of fun critters, but due to bad viz, I couldn't tell you. My other dives there were okay - lobster season, so it was fun to see a few catching lobsters; however, current was terrible, felt a little like a cattle boat, and I wasn't impressed by the dive op and guides.

My Key Largo dive was the worst I've had ever. We dove with Sailfish Scuba because they told us they only do 6-packs and reviews said they were great for no cattle boating. After we drove down there from Miami, turns out they put us ON a cattle boat with a different company to 'save fuel.' We were put in a group (with a guide) with two brand new divers. Not only that, the captain put us in a 15 ft dive with a terrible current. My buddy and I had to spend our energy staying in one place on the bottom (at the guides request) while he calmed down the new divers at the surface, and consequently, when they were ready to go we were exhausted. I have nothing to say except for how exhausting and dangerous that was, and how the captain never should have dropped us (let alone new divers) into that current. The next dive was slightly better (and the captain apologized for poor site choice, to his credit), but we didn't see anything (one sting ray), only went down to 15 ft, and again, with the huge group of people jumping off the boat, any critters in the area were long gone by the time we dropped down.

Sorry for the rant! My question is this - have those just been fluke experiences and should we give south Florida another try?

If so, where and with which operators? We were thinking giving Key Largo another go this year (or another place on the Keys); not sure about Boynton but have heard some good things. Any opinions on those?

Thanks in advance for weighing in!!

PS - I have searched other Key Largo forums and got some good ideas from those, but wanted to pose the broader question around quality of operators and best area in Florida to stick around.

 

[Wookie]

My opinions as a south Florida dive operator. First, if you want a six pack in Key Largo, Quiescence is the obvious choice. Rob has been doing just that for 25 years, and he has it figured out. Other six-pack charterers come and go, Quiescence just stays. Second, you have to pick your time. Summer usually is the best visibility, but the gulf stream moves in closer to shore. That's why the visibility is best. Looking at friends facebook pages from Key West to West Palm, there is 100 feet of visibility along the entire reef tract today.

The keys and Broward have great diving year round, but not the consistent perfect visibility no current diving like you find in Bonaire or Turks and Caicos. What South Florida has is accommodations to fit any budget, diving to fit any style, and some pretty good healthy reefs. That means communicating with your prospective operator to make sure that what you want is what they offer. It also means being flexible and understanding that every day won't be a 100 foot day and the currents sometimes rage. If you want 80/80/80 diving, it is here, but not every day. If not having it exactly the way you want will ruin your vacation, South Florida may not be for you. It does rain and the wind can blow.

 

[drrich2]

I've not dove withe Quiescence; I've heard it mentioned quite positively in other threads, & imagine a forum Search will turn up some 1st hand accounts. They don't put free guides in the water, but it sounds like you don't need that anyway.

The problems you ran into in Key Largo don't sound like problems with Key Largo for the most part; you were put on a 'cattle boat,' very contrary to your wishes, dropped into a strong current (in 20 dives in Key Largo, one deep wreck dive had substantial current, & a couple of the shallow reef dives were drift dives, roughly if memory serves) which is not the typical experience on the reefs, both of the 2 dives were atypically shallow even for Key Largo reefs (I'd have thought you guys would've gotten a little deeper), and it was just 2 dives.

I think you owe it to yourselves to go do Key Largo 'for real.' 10 - 20 dives, not 2. With a good op. Make it a good time of year.

Richard.

 

[sheeper]

we have great diving here!

I would recommend giving the Jupiter or Palm Beach area a try. Turtles and sharks are typical dive sightings this time of year.
there are three charters there I recommend. These are more service oriented and personal than most of the keys ops.

Jupiter, Fl Capt Sl8r Charters Jupiter, FL Scuba Diving Charter
Stuart, Fl Stuart Scuba Stuart Scuba - Home
Riviera Beach Florida Scuba Charters Scuba diving in south Florida - Florida Scuba Charters Inc.

all are great operations and get to some outstanding dive sites. Also check out the Vero Beach Scuba club on facebook and see where we're diving. visitors are always welcome!

 

[DiveShopBarbie]

Thank you all very much for your input!!

I'm glad to hear that my experiences were a fluke and am re-energized at the prospect of having a relatively cheap and accessible diving destination only a short plane ride away!

Sheeper - we are going to research the charters you mentioned. I've done Riviera but not the others so sounds like great options!

drrich2 - appreciate your input, that makes me feel more confident about booking a longer trip in the Keys. I read your post in another forum about Rainbow Reef and that was helpful, I may check them out!

We are planning to go in late August / early September - hope that the weather is still good for us at that time. (I know it is hurricane season, but we'll keep an eye on any storms!)

We don't need perfect diving conditions, but do want to get our time-off-of-work and money's worth out of our next trip so this is all great to hear.

At the end of the day, I guess a day of the poor diving conditions is better than any without diving at all, right!?

 

[sheeper]

DiveShopBarbie, one other "selling" point on Jupiter diving for late august and September is the Goliath Grouper Aggregation. During the Goliath spawning period dozens (or more) of these 500+ pound giants gather in several locations around Jupiter and the palm Beaches. It is an awesome world-class dive experience.

feel free to PM me with any questions.

 

[DiveShopBarbie]

Ah yes - would love to see the goliath groupers! Great point! Can we see those in the Keys as well or is Jupiter best?

 

[Steve_C]

I have 50+ dives out of Key Largo. Mostly reef dives. 95% were much better than your experience. Cattle boat really only matters with guided dives. 95% of my dives are unguided. You go into the water, go a different direction than the cattle, come back in an hour. I like a bigger boat since more room and shade. Dive a lot with Ocean Divers.

---------- Post added April 14th, 2015 at 11:58 AM ----------

Ah yes - would love to see the goliath groupers! Great point! Can we see those in the Keys as well or is Jupiter best?

I have seen goliaths several times out of Key Largo. Not every dive for sure but several times. There are some sites were they are known to be around. There is a site called Fire Coral Cave (actually a big over hang) where for some time a really big goliath would sometimes be found. We checked it out once and no joy but as we turned we saw it coming up a sand channel escorted by another much smaller (but large) one. Looked like a small submarine coming toward us. One of my favorite dive memories. They are also seen some times on the Spiegel if you like deeper dives. I have also seen a smaller but very nice one at City of Washington which is a shallow wreck.

 

[DavidFL]

I live in central Florida so I have to drive for these same South Florida dives; have 200+ dives in the last several years in Jupiter / West Palm / Fort Lauderdale / Upper Keys / Key West / Dry Tortugas; I can remember less than 5 that resonate with the general bad experiences you have had...so +1 to your conclusion to give it another shot or two.

 

[FiddlerOnTheRoof]

You should come and dive with us up here in New England where 10ft vis is a great dive! Then you will learn to appreciate it more down there... As for me I can't wait to move to Florida in a year or so..

Peter