Best place to live in USA if you are a diver

[diversteve]

An acquaintance owns a condo on St. Croix. He has a normal day job so it must be reasonable (for an island...) From upstairs he can see the ocean.

He walks thru his neighbor's yard and swims out to Cane Bay Wall - one of the better dive sites there.

It's a U.S. territory but there's some different tax/ownership rules IIRC.

 

[kelemvor]

Kelp Forests and the only two Recompression Chambers in the US on 24/7 365 Stand-by solely for Diving Accident Casualties are in California:
Pacific Grove (Monterey);
Catalina Island

I thought the kelp forests were all (or mostly) dead. Did I misunderstand the articles by Dr. Bill and others on the subject, or have they made a recovery? California was on my bucket list until the news broke about their demise.

If I remember right, they were blaming it on el nino and sargassum invasion

 

[scubadada]

I thought the kelp forests were all (or mostly) dead. Did I misunderstand the articles by Dr. Bill and others on the subject, or have they made a recovery? California was on my bucket list until the news broke about their demise.

If I remember right, they were blaming it on el nino and sargassum invasion

I think Point Loma is one of the best remaining in California

 

[Kevrumbo]

I thought the kelp forests were all (or mostly) dead. Did I misunderstand the articles by Dr. Bill and others on the subject, or have they made a recovery? California was on my bucket list until the news broke about their demise.

If I remember right, they were blaming it on el nino and sargassum invasion

Kelp Forest not as lush as before El Niño last year, but making a recovery:

Growth. M. pyrifera is one of the fastest-growing organisms on Earth. They can grow at a rate of 60 cm (2 ft) a day to reach over 45 m (150 ft) long in one growing season. . .

 

[drrich2]

Probably Florida for me. I liked ScubaDada's post about Boynton Beach; haven't been there, but the logic sounds compelling. I like a number of places, but a few thoughts following up some issues:

1.) Are we talking best place solely from a diving perspective, or do cost-of-living, topside activities, etc..., factor in? After all, the question was about the best place for a diver to live, not just visit.

2.) Wouldn't be the Great Lakes for me. Yeah, it's got wrecks. So does the ocean. In the ocean, I can enjoy diving around the wreck, and also see varied, interesting life; a Goliath grouper, barracuda, an octopus, sand tiger sharks, etc... In the Great Lakes...well, what life are you going to see? Does it come close to comparing?

3.) Cold water vs. Warm water. I don't know off-hand if anyone prefers cold water so much as dives it because it's local &/or cheaper for them, or has something the regional warm water doesn't (e.g.: kelp, maybe seals & sea lions). I loved my trip to California this summer; highly recommend it. But I didn't go because it was cold; I went despite the cold, and was blessed to experience other things. Cold means more exposure protection means more weights means more hassle factor.

4.) I don't want to live on an island. I'm not a frequently wide-ranging land traveler, but time spent on Bonaire trips convinced me I like a lot more land mass around me than that.

5.) Good shore diving sounds awesome. California might just carry the day for that reason alone, assuming Blue Heron Bridge & Lauderdale-by-the-Sea might get old eventually? What other shore diving action in southeastern Florida?

6.) If the diving's to be by boat, let it be plentiful and cheap. Rainbow Reef Diver Center in Key Largo did well with that (cheap diving, 2 2-tank boat trips/day) for me a few years back. I'd like to be driving distance from Key Largo if possible. Is there any comparable '4 boat dives/day' option from Jupiter down through West Palm Beach & Boynton Beach? (Note: Emerald Dive Center does 3-tank boat trips, but at least some of that's shark feed diving, which not everyone's into).

7.) Florida's caves mean little to me, but lushly vegetated freshwater springs are of interest. I want to see some wildlife, and Florida's got a lot more diversity than I'm used to seeing at the local quarry. Of course, not everybody wants to see an alligator outside the zoo...

Richard.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I'm very fortunate to live in an area with more marine life than Catalina Island and a boat to explore it. I'm also less than a day's drive from Ensenada Mexico to Northern California. If I could live anywhere it would be British Columbia but the Winters would drive me south.

 

[scubadada]

Probably Florida for me. I liked ScubaDada's post about Boynton Beach; haven't been there, but the logic sounds compelling...

...Is there any comparable '4 boat dives/day' option from Jupiter down through West Palm Beach & Boynton Beach?...

I did 36 dives in 12 days in Boynton Beach and Jupiter in Sept, 16 dives in 6 days in Aug, and 31 dives in 12 days in June. Yes, many of the boats do 3 or 4 tanks per day. It's often limited by your energy and motivation. Sea conditions occasionally result in a lost days, more commonly Fall, Winter, Spring, rather than Summer.

 

[drrich2]

When I did 10 dives in 5 days with Jupiter Dive Center, I learned they did 2 boat trips/day, but generally the 1st boat didn't make it back in time to making boarding the 2nd practical, and for strictly recreational 'no-deco.' dives (which is all I'm trained for), for an area where every briefing seems to start with 'it's 90 feet to the sand' and profiles tend to be near-bottom much of the dive, I wasn't sure even EAN 36% would've made 4 45 minute dives/day easily within NDLs (I could drag out my old dive tables & work it out I guess...). They were drift dives with hot drops/pickups, and we stuck with the guide every dive.

I point that out for others; you'd already know it. How deep does the diving out of Boynton Beach tend to run?

Richard.

 

[Trailboss123]

When I did 10 dives in 5 days with Jupiter Dive Center, I learned they did 2 boat trips/day, but generally the 1st boat didn't make it back in time to making boarding the 2nd practical, and for strictly recreational 'no-deco.' dives (which is all I'm trained for), for an area where every briefing seems to start with 'it's 90 feet to the sand' and profiles tend to be near-bottom much of the dive, I wasn't sure even EAN 36% would've made 4 45 minute dives/day easily within NDLs (I could drag out my old dive tables & work it out I guess...). They were drift dives with hot drops/pickups, and we stuck with the guide every dive.

I point that out for others; you'd already know it. How deep does the diving out of Boynton Beach tend to run?

Richard.

Drrich:
Boynton diving is totally awesome. I was there back in February on a business trip and stayed after for 3 days of diving. Shore diving and boat diving are excellent. Great drift dives out on the reefs. Typically 30-60 foot depths. There are deeper dive sites, but all of the drift dives we did were in the 30-60ft range. The quality and quantity of sea life really impressed me and exceeded my expectations. 8 foot green morays out swimming with me, Huge loggerhead turtles, all of the tropical fish you'd see in the Caribbean, lobsters, sharks, goliath groupers. Given the criteria outlined in this original post, I'd probably select Boynton Beach. Great year round weather and water temps, outstanding shore and boat diving and short, inexpensive flights to the Caribbean, Bahamas and Europe. I've lived in the PNW and enjoyed years of great cold water diving, I've done 3 Channel Islands trips with Truth Aquatics and now live in So Cal and am diving channel islands every other weekend out of Ventura Marina to Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands and absolutely love it-- but Lb for Lb. I'd say Boynton rules and is absolutely worth a scuba vacation trip. I found a great an inexpensive Airbnb to stay at while there and there are a number of good dive operators at the marina.

 

[spoolin01]

For budget diving I could spend a year on the Big Island, because I never get tired of the beauty, there are lots and lots of shore dive sites, and regularly diveable days year round. Charter boat diving is almost 2x what it costs in Florida though.

If I had a small boat, Hawaii or the Florida Keys would be my spots. Not the most practical places to live - the Keys especially - but my kind of diving. You don't need much boat.

With a bit bigger boat, I'd probably choose Santa Barbara to Ventura, for access to the northern Channel Islands. Great balance of year round beautiful diving, suitable photo opportunities, and underwater hunting. If you also like offshore fishing, San Diego has that in spades, and for diving probably doesn't give up much to the northern islands.