Something you should do before closing up your life in Seattle and moving to south Florida is spend at least a few weeks straight there in August and you should probably experience spring break as well so you know how hot Florida really is and I get how you want to move from Seattle I think about eating a bullet every time I end up there during rush hour traffic which is what 24/7 now. Not to mention homeless people taking dumps by your car door nothing excites me as much as a 10 foot bull shark circling around me except a fresh pile of crap left by my drivers door when I only went into a building for 20 minutes. You might miss that if you move to Miami I do not think they tolerate this as much there. Spring break in south Florida is kind of like a free for all of the homeless people of Seattle and Portland only there high school and college kids that get to leave the mess they left.
Blue Heron is probably your only real shore dive and I spend an hour cleaning up the parking lot and beach every time I’m there and I think every diver that goes there should make that a habit. It never changes its like the spring break crowd hangs out there every night and its a nice park beach and swimming area so I understand why buts the trash and plastic goes right into the ocean from there, Its a cool dive youll do it two times and then find people with boats. Or buy your own
You will find no problems getting hooked up in dive clubs theres quite a few. Pull your own weight and they will welcome you.
I’m planning on wintering over in southern Florida as part of my semi retirement I go there as often as I can but I still plan to spend most of the year here in the Northwet.