Pompano Beach / Ft. Lauderdale / Miami diving operators and cheap clean hotel?

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Diving with American Dream II and Parrot Island:

[vimeo]2308241[/vimeo]

Two days of great diving off the Fort Lauderdale, FL coast on wrecks and reefs...

The first day, I went out on the American Dream II out of Ft. Lauderdale (ScubaFortLauderdale.com), and we went to two sites: (1) The Mercy Jésus, a nice wreck at about 70'; and then (2) Oakland Ledges, part of Ft. Lauderdale's three-tiered reef system. Day 2 was a trip with Parrot Island out of Pompano Beach (parrotislandscuba.com). Sites visited were (1) The Sea Emperor, a upturned barge and its load of concrete pipe scattered across the sand at 70'; and then (2) Abby 2, another great drift dive across the local reef system. It was at the Sea Emperor that I encountered well-known local "Baby" the green moray eel, plus a big and equally friendly stingray.
 
Any opinions on
South Florida Diving Headquarters? I have read to stay away on Google reviews. People say they cancel and ignore the divers.

I've been on something like a dozen trips with them over three years of diving (a weekend in January every year), but the last time I did this was 2010: we took a cruise last year instead.

Here's my opinion: like most larger operators, they're a cattle-car type of trip. They have customers, and they have a bottom line. They work to make customers happy, but not at the cost of the bottom line.

So, if there's only a few divers for that day, they won't go out. The minimum number of divers is four, IIRC. If you have a spouse that doesn't dive but wants to go out with you and you were promised the big glass-bottomed catamaran but there's only six or eight divers, then you're going on the small v-hull boat.

If there's anything nearing 2 foot seas, they seem to actively try to talk people from going out. At 3+ foot seas, they're not going out at all. For someone who lives there, that might make perfect sense: dive next week, when it's nice. For someone like me, who has 3 whole days to get in as many dives as possible, it drives me CRAZY... :(

Some of the captains are friendly. Some of the captains are neutral. A couple of the captains are surly. Sometimes the same captain can be more than one of the above! :)

Having said all of that, as cattle-car diving goes, they're better than average. Because they seem to be one of the bigger operators in that area, they tend to have boats going out when other places might not. I've never felt unsafe or anything like that (and I *have* walked off other dive boats because I was worried about my safety or because of extremely rude captains). The big boats are *plenty* roomy, they all have heads on-board, etc. But you cannot escape the fact that it's a cattle-car.

One strong highlight of SFDH: Robert. He's a member of the crew, and he is heads and shoulders above everyone there. He makes the trip much more enjoyable than it would be otherwise. Without him, I'm not sure I'd dive with them. There have been times when he was onboard not as crew (there were not enough divers on-board for him to be considered (paid?) as crew, so he was just going out to do a dive), yet he was still as kind and helpful as if he were on the clock. I still gave him a tip at the end of that trip: he earned it! :)

So, you could do much worse than SFDH. But I have the feeling that there has to be a company that offers a better total experience. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, it it? :)

One thing to note: diving in Ft. Lauderdale is about the cheapest I've seen it anywhere. I'm not surprised that the bottom line sometimes takes precedence ahead of customers: there's a razor-thin margin. So I try to take these things in stride. But from my perspective: I've spent literally thousands of dollars just to spend 3 whole days diving in Ft. Lauderdale. Even if I had to pay twice as much for the diving, but got a more enjoyable diving experience, the few hundred dollars that this would add to the cost would actually bring a tremendous value for the trip as a whole.

I'm tempted to sign up with Force-E this year, instead of directly with SFDH, and see what boats they put me on instead. My guess is that I'll just be going out with SFDH, but giving a cut of the money to Force-E instead (which is why I've avoided that in the past).

I'd *really* love it if a couple of people would tell me about a dive operator in the Pompano area they really loved diving with. While people have mentioned operators in the area, no one put any kind of recommendation behind it. Maybe I'm wrong: I'll re-read the thread. But here's a plea for anyone who has been diving in Pompano Beach or Ft. Lauderdale, FL and loved it to TELL US WHO YOU WENT WITH! :)
 
I've dived with several outfits in Lauderdale, and will dive with all or any of them again, but Sea Experience and Capt. Bill Cole was the most positive. I'd recommend them any time.
 
What type of camera did you use to take the video? Nice shots of the eel. I thought for sure he was gonna take the guys finger.

Diving with American Dream II and Parrot Island:

[vimeo]2308241[/vimeo]

Two days of great diving off the Fort Lauderdale, FL coast on wrecks and reefs...

The first day, I went out on the American Dream II out of Ft. Lauderdale (ScubaFortLauderdale.com), and we went to two sites: (1) The Mercy Jésus, a nice wreck at about 70'; and then (2) Oakland Ledges, part of Ft. Lauderdale's three-tiered reef system. Day 2 was a trip with Parrot Island out of Pompano Beach (parrotislandscuba.com). Sites visited were (1) The Sea Emperor, a upturned barge and its load of concrete pipe scattered across the sand at 70'; and then (2) Abby 2, another great drift dive across the local reef system. It was at the Sea Emperor that I encountered well-known local "Baby" the green moray eel, plus a big and equally friendly stingray.
 
What type of camera did you use to take the video? Nice shots of the eel. I thought for sure he was gonna take the guys finger.

It's a Sony HC-3 (old-school HDV camera) in a SeaTool housing. Yeah, the eel was pretty scary-looking but apparently pretty harmless, very used to being fed by dive operators.
 
Well, I'm leaving two weeks from tomorrow! Getting excited, but still looking for those Ft. Lauderdale/Pompano Beach dive operators that you love!

My 13-year-old daughter and I will be diving Friday through Sunday, trying to get as many dives in as possible. So if you were thinking about diving that weekend and wanted company, let us know! We'll be there! I'm especially trying to drum up support for a night dive on Saturday. It can be hard to get enough people to get the boat to go out... :(

So if you want to go diving, let us know and we'll see what we can work out with you!
 
You will not go wrong diving with Capt. Conrad Nix on his vessel the Miss Conduct.
And I would also say Capt. Jerry Turmaine running Parrot Island Charters runs a great trip as well.
I would also normally vouch for Capt. Oliver Paoli running the Avid Diver but he's currently rebuilding the Caterpillar engine in his boat.
 
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...Sheraton Suites Cypress Creek Ft. ...

The Sheraton is a nice hotel, not fancy, but always has been clean when I've stayed there. Just be sure to ask for a room on the East side of the hotel, there are train tracks on the west side that seems to have regular traffic in the early morning and evening (I think it's a line for the local rail-based rapid tranist system)
 
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I have to be in Pompano for work on the 26th & 27th and my oldest is flying down on Friday so we can dive that weekend. We are staying at the Marriot near Cypress Creek, but that's just because I'm too lazy to change hotels for the weekend... We are diving with the crew from Underwater Explorers out of Boynton Beach. A couple of years ago we did a shore dive with Kevin, but never got out on the Explorer (we got shutout due to high seas every day we tried). Based on feedback from others on SB, as well as our experince with the shore dive, I'd suggest making the short drive north to Boynton Beach (this many people can't be wrong!)

If you want to dive closer to where you are staying, I'd suggest Diversity out of Deerfield; we did a 2 tank trip with them in June and had a good experience. Capt Tony & Kirsten took great care of us and the diving was great! I'd book directly thru them, we booked thru Force-E, which was ok, except we had to shlep our own tanks to & from the shop (+ why not put a few extra $ in the boats pockets)
 
There's beach diving in Boynton?
 
https://xf2.scubaboard.com/community/forums/cave-diving.45/

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