Tampa area Friday Jan 31 diving

[Darren Dodge]

Hello, my buddy and I will be in the Orlando area on January 31 and are looking to do some diving. Have contacted TanksAlot and unfortunately they are only running weekend trips at this time of year. We are both OWD and looking for just an easy day of diving and had considered the Sheridan and the Blackthorn as interesting. Any suggestions anyone? We are meeting family at the Disney resort on Sat Feb 1, so friday is our only day to plan anything.
thanks in advance.

 

[Instructor_Tom]

First of all for the sheridan and blackthorn I'm surprised Tanks-a-lots didn't tell you you need and AOW and Nitrox cert to get on their boat for that dive.

If you just want to get wet and have some fun there are some cool spring dives that are less expensive thank renting a boat, but do require driving north to Williston FL. Blue Grotto ( max depth 95 in the cavern zone) and devils den ( max depth about 50ft lots of rocks) are some cool spring dives that are open water friendly.

If you like a more challenging dive you could go to hudson grotto but you will need some good light as the tannins in the water block the sunlight at about 20 ft. ( max depth 110 ft).

There are a couple of other places like hospital hole and weechi wachee spring but you would need a guide or go with a shop running a class.

If renting a guide interest you, PM me and i'll sent you info on how to make that happen.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[kelemvor]

Ed Wyatt runs a 6 pack dive charter from Belleair Boat ramp. Give him a call, 727-286-7556.

There's also "dive clearwater" with the plunger. Welcome To Dive Clearwater! (727) 443-6731. Their schedule says 7 days a week on the website.

There's also some dive shops that have "house" boats:
Mac's Sports with the "Mac Daddy" (727) 442 - 9931
Tackle Shack 800-537-6099. They have two or three boats. No idea if it's in service yet, but they recently purchased a fast mover to run 6 diver day trips to the middle grounds.


Honestly, though. Coming from Orlando I would head east to the Atlantic rather than west to the gulf. Far better diving, and cheaper boat rides because boats don't have to go so far to get to a deep site. Look for operators at Palm Beach, Jupiter Beach area. It's only a slightly longer drive, but the diving is far superior in the ocean. I live a few miles from the marina where tanks a lot and the other local ops dock. I still make the drive to the east coast for diving.

If you want a truly great dive, head to Blue Heron Bridge. It's a shore dive so it's FREE! Make sure to call the local shop Force E to find out about tides if you do it. Pretty sure they will tell you tide info for free. It's critical that you dive this site in slack tide. I think there's a lengthy thread about blue heron bridge in the Florida section of the forum. The only thing I didn't like about the site was that when the tide starts changing you're done with it for the day. One tank (or rather part of a tank) only.