Advice on a trip to Houston

[noobascooba]

Hello,
I'm going to be in Houton for a work trip soon and I'm clueless as to what diving is available. I have a vague memory of reading about somewhere coastal I could get to in a few hours with good diving, does anyone know where I mean?

It'll probably be my husband and I for a weekend or two. We are inexperienced, so looking for somewhere with no strong currents. It'd be nice to try boat diving, we haven't done that yet.

I might also have some friends with me who fancy trying diving, can anyone reccomend good instructors/ dive centers/ shops I could talk to?

Last question.. what level of exposure protection am I likely to need? I have a 3mm (I'm guessing too thin) and a drysuit.

Sorry this is so vague, the trip has crept up on me. Also sorry if this has been asked millions of times... I have very limited access to the internet right now so I haven't been able to search properly.

Any help at all would be appreciated, and maybe I'll meet some of you soon

chris x

 

[RTRski]

Freeport is about an hour or so from Houston, and the home of www.gulf-diving.com, which charters to the Flower Gardens. I'm not sure that I'd recommend them however if you still consider yourselves fairly inexperienced. There can be currents and rough seas, and the dives are fairly deep and tightly grouped, so Nitrox and a dive computer are both indicated to get the most of out of the experience, with some extra safety margin.

There's also some nearer-shore rig diving available from Port Aransas I believe, but I don't have links or further information, and Humberto did just splash them around a little so not sure if that's a good short-term option either. You can also go much further south coastally to dive some of the TX 'reefs' (wrecks) off of South Padre, but that's actually quite a haul from the Houston area.

http://www.dtmag.com/dive-usa/sc.html is Dive Training mag's southwest region part of their map...there are many inland dive sites clustered near Houston. A new one not on the map yet will also be opening sometime later this fall.

For this time of year, 3mm is probably doable, depending on depth and thermoclines inland. I just dove the gulf (Flower Gardens) with a 2/2 shorty about 2 weeks ago and was fine.

There's also a sticky at the top of this forum with dive sites, many of which are in the Houston area or at least not too far away....probably the same sites as in the DTmag link, just a bit more 'personal' info on them.

 

[noobascooba]

This is really helpful, thanks

 

[ftwdiver14]

Also just north of Houston is Blue Lagoon in Huntsville. We went there in July and it is pretty nice. Not very deep, about 25' and there is not a whole lot to look at or search for but it is really clear. We found just 2 sunken boats. They may be more that we haven't heard of or seen. They have two lagoons, we just dove in lagoon 1. It is alittle off the beaten path though but I feel a nice relaxing dive.

The lake that you mentioned opening later this fall is probably Hydrosportscuba at Mammoth Lake, www.hydrosportsscuba.com They have mock up space shuttle, planes, King kong and many other items. I will be going there as soon as I can make it. It should be very nice.