robint
Contributor
We were in this situation a few years ago. Living full time in Vermont ~3 hours to the coast in Maine for mediocre (at best) diving and wanting to be someplace we could more fully explore our goals. Luckily my job is such that I can live anywhere in the world so long as there's access to an airport. We picked southern California (which to my mind has some absolutely world class diving) and now split our time about 80/20 in favor of CA.
Life is good.
You may not agree with me about Cozumel (another thread), but we both agree about California diving. Anacapa and San Clemente islands are some of my favorite dive sites EVER.