-
Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:
- Join over 44,280+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
- Participate in and browse from over 516,210+ posts.
- Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
- Post your own photos or view from 7,441+ user submitted images.
- All this and much more...
You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!
Diving in the Caribbean
- Thread startermethebee
- Start date
Just saw your post. Not sure what part of Florida you are in, but you have some very good Caribbean-quality diving in southeast Florida. The famous Blue Heron Bridge dive in Riviera Beach may be the best shallow dive spot in this hemisphere. You can follow Blue Heron Bridge Dive Club on Facebook to get an idea of the wide variety of critters, both big and small, that is at Blue Heron Bridge. Many of the boat dives in that area do tend to be a bit on the deeper side, and Advanced Open Water is required by some dive ops for some of those dives. BHB is tide-dependent and subject to some time restrictions, so it is often only diveable once a day (for about 90 minutes), though a couple of times a month it can be possible to get in 2 dives (early morning and early evening) dives in there.
Cozumel is another favorite location for me. There are both deep and shallow dive spots, but you can have a great experience just on shallow reefs.
The Exumas Cays in the Bahamas have some good shallow diving -- you can go there pretty cheaply on the Blackbeard's liveaboard scuba cruises (which are described as "camping at sea" but good) or if you want more luxury you can go on some of their more expensive sister ships (Aqua Cat and Cat Ppalu).
St. Croix also has some good fairly shallow dives. I could probably spend a whole week staying in the sleepy town of Frederiksted and diving their famous Frederiksted Pier, which has a surprising variety of sea life and is not tide dependent -- so you can dive multiple times a day and/or at night (so long as a cruise ship is not in port). There are also nice shore dives off of the northern shore (Davis Bay, Cane Bay, etc.) and nice boat dives out of Christiansted.
Cozumel is another favorite location for me. There are both deep and shallow dive spots, but you can have a great experience just on shallow reefs.
The Exumas Cays in the Bahamas have some good shallow diving -- you can go there pretty cheaply on the Blackbeard's liveaboard scuba cruises (which are described as "camping at sea" but good) or if you want more luxury you can go on some of their more expensive sister ships (Aqua Cat and Cat Ppalu).
St. Croix also has some good fairly shallow dives. I could probably spend a whole week staying in the sleepy town of Frederiksted and diving their famous Frederiksted Pier, which has a surprising variety of sea life and is not tide dependent -- so you can dive multiple times a day and/or at night (so long as a cruise ship is not in port). There are also nice shore dives off of the northern shore (Davis Bay, Cane Bay, etc.) and nice boat dives out of Christiansted.
I just came across your post. I'm not sure where in Florida you are, but southeastern Florida offers some excellent diving of Caribbean caliber. The greatest place to go shallow diving in this hemisphere would be Riviera Beach's well-known Blue Heron Bridge dive.