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A 20 foot night dive on a busy reef is always a beautiful thing!
Your shallowest dives-or-what kind of dives do you like the best?
- Thread starter MikeFerrara
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Mike, you and your wife come out and visit! We'll put you up, show you great dive sites, and I even have some horses you can shoe if you get homesick . . . 
Most of my shallow dives have involved evidence recovery in zero or near zero visibility and my most shallow dive was in a canal of maybe 4 feet looking for some handguns stolen from a home... I did find them as well as a rifle (we weren't looking for that). I guess the dives I enjoy the most though are the ones where I can see because I enjoy every dive (even student-oriented ones in the pool)
JUST GET ME WET... pool repairs are fun... no... really.
JUST GET ME WET... pool repairs are fun... no... really.
subageezer
Registered
Blue Heron Bridge - Phil Foster Park Riviera Beach Florida (North Palm Beach)
20ft max with abundant marine life and good vis (high tide). Considered by many as the best beach dive in Florida.
20ft max with abundant marine life and good vis (high tide). Considered by many as the best beach dive in Florida.
OP
TSandM:Mike, you and your wife come out and visit! We'll put you up, show you great dive sites, and I even have some horses you can shoe if you get homesick . . .
Be careful. That's an area that we have both really wanted to dive for a long time so we might actually take you up on it sometime. I'd be more than happy to do some shoeing while I'm there. It would take some planning to get tools there but it can be done.
Today, we're spending the day at France Park. It's not a spectacular dive, especially this time of year but we'll be cool and underwater. Todays supposed to be another scorcher.
dive_lover88
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i'm sharing that with ocean going ships and shipyards are only a few clicks from where we dive. vist on a gd day is 5m,bad day barely your fingers
My favorite/shallowest dive was in back of Scuba Club, Cozumel in fall 2001. A little while before dusk I went down alone (I know "solo diving bad ugh") in about 12' of water with my lights and found a nice spot to settle in. I sat there for a little over 2 hours just watching. As the sun went down massive clouds of many thousands of little silver bait fish came flowing by. Watching the sunset off the scales was absulutely amazing.
highlandfarmwv
Contributor
Stingray City on Grand Cayman was about 12-15'. I love the 20-30' dives on Molassas Reef in Key Largo. If you lose the boat, come up and take a peek.
My kind of thread!
I adore shallow diving - I can stay forever, the light is better and there are so many hidey holes to check out! On the dives I've done there also seems to be a great variety of creatures from the teeniest to large pelagics coming in for a look!
Most of my favourite local dives are 6-12m.
I adore shallow diving - I can stay forever, the light is better and there are so many hidey holes to check out! On the dives I've done there also seems to be a great variety of creatures from the teeniest to large pelagics coming in for a look!
Most of my favourite local dives are 6-12m.
OP
We headed out to France park yesterday but by the time we got there and spent a bunch of time talking with folks we ended up only doing one dive.
The vis is about what I expect this time of year, maybe a little better. I was thinking that it averaged between 5 and 10 ft and some other divers we know measured it at 8 ft. 5-10 ft off the bottom it clears and there might be 15 ft or better. This time of year there are algea blooms, classes goin on and swimmers on the beach so everything is working against you. Other times of the year though you can get vis in excess of 50 ft and I have some video taken there where it look almost unlimited. I saw several divers who cut their dives short and left because of the vis.
We saw tons of fish but when my wife described the dive, others who claim to know the site well reported not seeing anything. This would be a good subject for the diver attrition thread because like anyplace else, you need to know where to look. The only way to know that is to dive with some one who does or just get in enough dives at a site and learn. If a diver just jumps in here and aimlessly swims around the middle they're going to be disappointed. On the other hand, if you enjoy watching fresh water fish AND you know where to look, there's plenty to see. Most divers go the wrong way. I know because when we go the right way we rarely run into other divers.
For those who have been there or think they might go, I'll give some detail on the dive. We followed the outer edge of the beach over to the east wall. the outer edge of the beach has some weeds and lots of bass with some scattered blugil nests. The weeds aren't what they used to be and I almost think some one put something in to kill them off. I'm told they didn't but I'm not sure that I believe it. Lots of divers blow right on past this area. I suppose, because it's close to the entry and they are in a hurry to get someplace else. When the beach is closed we sometimes do long dives and just stay in this general area.
Along the east wall...Vis usually seems a little better along the walls. I really think it seems that way because we have a tendancy to stay up on the wall a bit at a depth where the vis is a little better. Again, lots of bass and schools of small gills, fry and bait fish. We saw lots of bass in the two and maybe three pound range but it's been a while since we've seen any of the monsters that we used to run into that were twice that size. At the culvert we did some air share drills single file through the culvert. The culvert is just a section of sewer pipe. We followed the wall a little way past the culvert and then headed south to intersect the ridge near Crappy Rock. the trip accross is pretty featureless and there isn't much to see.
It's a rock reef that intersects the ridge and runs out accross what is otherwise a featureless silty bottom. Crappy Rock is so named because of the unusually HUGE crappies that sometimes hang out there. They are shy and if you don't approach carefully they'll leave just about the time you get in sight of them and you may not see them at all. They usually don't leave the area but move around just at the edge of vis range and wait for you to get still or leave. We've gotten some nice pictures of them in the past but I've had a hard time showing them to groups of divers because they usually spook. I didn't see the crappies this trip but there was a huge flathead cat defending his spot on one of the large rock piles.
We followed the ridge back toward the beach and found a few large cats hiding back in holes in the rocks. The truck didn't have as many fish on it as it sometimes does. Here I asked my wife if she wanted to cut over to the road bed where the bus, fish crib and communication booth are. From here a heading of about 60 degrees gets you pretty close. By this time my wife was getting cold and wanted to head back so we skipped that detour. The paddle fish are usually closer to the surface so I spent some time swimming...what's the term? supine? horizontal but face up. I didn't see any but looking made for a nice change of pace. When we got closed to the west end we cut over to the road bed. At between 10 and 15 ft the road bed looked like the surface of the moon with all the craters that are bluegil nests with monster bluegils sitting on them. I call them bluegills but there are several varieties though I don't know all their names.
That brings us to about 80 minutes and we were following the slope of the beach up. At about 6 ft of depth we ascended before we got far enough up the beach to get kicked in the head by a swimmer. I had a max depth of 22 ft and my bottom timmer was reading 81 degrees F on the bottom though I think there were some spots that were a bit cooler.
We took our time packing up and spent some more time chatting with people and then headed home for food, beer and the paper work that I needed to get done before Monday.
ok, it aint the ocean or the caves but it isn't too bad for being 25 minutes from home. It's inexpensive has air fills on site and a consession stand when the beach is open. BTW, when I say air fills...I mean filled.
The vis is about what I expect this time of year, maybe a little better. I was thinking that it averaged between 5 and 10 ft and some other divers we know measured it at 8 ft. 5-10 ft off the bottom it clears and there might be 15 ft or better. This time of year there are algea blooms, classes goin on and swimmers on the beach so everything is working against you. Other times of the year though you can get vis in excess of 50 ft and I have some video taken there where it look almost unlimited. I saw several divers who cut their dives short and left because of the vis.
We saw tons of fish but when my wife described the dive, others who claim to know the site well reported not seeing anything. This would be a good subject for the diver attrition thread because like anyplace else, you need to know where to look. The only way to know that is to dive with some one who does or just get in enough dives at a site and learn. If a diver just jumps in here and aimlessly swims around the middle they're going to be disappointed. On the other hand, if you enjoy watching fresh water fish AND you know where to look, there's plenty to see. Most divers go the wrong way. I know because when we go the right way we rarely run into other divers.
For those who have been there or think they might go, I'll give some detail on the dive. We followed the outer edge of the beach over to the east wall. the outer edge of the beach has some weeds and lots of bass with some scattered blugil nests. The weeds aren't what they used to be and I almost think some one put something in to kill them off. I'm told they didn't but I'm not sure that I believe it. Lots of divers blow right on past this area. I suppose, because it's close to the entry and they are in a hurry to get someplace else. When the beach is closed we sometimes do long dives and just stay in this general area.
Along the east wall...Vis usually seems a little better along the walls. I really think it seems that way because we have a tendancy to stay up on the wall a bit at a depth where the vis is a little better. Again, lots of bass and schools of small gills, fry and bait fish. We saw lots of bass in the two and maybe three pound range but it's been a while since we've seen any of the monsters that we used to run into that were twice that size. At the culvert we did some air share drills single file through the culvert. The culvert is just a section of sewer pipe. We followed the wall a little way past the culvert and then headed south to intersect the ridge near Crappy Rock. the trip accross is pretty featureless and there isn't much to see.
It's a rock reef that intersects the ridge and runs out accross what is otherwise a featureless silty bottom. Crappy Rock is so named because of the unusually HUGE crappies that sometimes hang out there. They are shy and if you don't approach carefully they'll leave just about the time you get in sight of them and you may not see them at all. They usually don't leave the area but move around just at the edge of vis range and wait for you to get still or leave. We've gotten some nice pictures of them in the past but I've had a hard time showing them to groups of divers because they usually spook. I didn't see the crappies this trip but there was a huge flathead cat defending his spot on one of the large rock piles.
We followed the ridge back toward the beach and found a few large cats hiding back in holes in the rocks. The truck didn't have as many fish on it as it sometimes does. Here I asked my wife if she wanted to cut over to the road bed where the bus, fish crib and communication booth are. From here a heading of about 60 degrees gets you pretty close. By this time my wife was getting cold and wanted to head back so we skipped that detour. The paddle fish are usually closer to the surface so I spent some time swimming...what's the term? supine? horizontal but face up. I didn't see any but looking made for a nice change of pace. When we got closed to the west end we cut over to the road bed. At between 10 and 15 ft the road bed looked like the surface of the moon with all the craters that are bluegil nests with monster bluegils sitting on them. I call them bluegills but there are several varieties though I don't know all their names.
That brings us to about 80 minutes and we were following the slope of the beach up. At about 6 ft of depth we ascended before we got far enough up the beach to get kicked in the head by a swimmer. I had a max depth of 22 ft and my bottom timmer was reading 81 degrees F on the bottom though I think there were some spots that were a bit cooler.
We took our time packing up and spent some more time chatting with people and then headed home for food, beer and the paper work that I needed to get done before Monday.
ok, it aint the ocean or the caves but it isn't too bad for being 25 minutes from home. It's inexpensive has air fills on site and a consession stand when the beach is open. BTW, when I say air fills...I mean filled.
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