Best Texas Saltwater diving?

[TheQuintessentialMan]

What parts of the Texas Coast have the best salt water diving with "best" being a relative term. I hit up the local social media group for a south Texas coastal community a while back only to discover that they had no local dive community (that anyone knew of) other than the local dive shop. My gut reaction is if a coastal community doesn't have a group of divers that dive and drink beer together on a regular basis, then the diving there really sucks. We are looking at some places to move to that is out of this city. Florida came up but I don't really want to move out from Texas even though I'll dive Florida every chance I get. Did Florida get all the good Gulf water?

 

[Desertlifter]

Interested in hearing answers on this one. My niece is attending Texas A&M in Galveston majoring in marine biology and has been doing her dive training. All of her dives so far have been pool and lake dives. Seems odd to drive away from ocean to dive, but waddoiknow.

 

[ROUS]

The Flower Garden seems to be the most popular dive, but is a deep, advanced dive.

 

[RyanT]

The Flower Gardens don't have to be deep dives. I recall doing a lot of my dives between 75-90'. It is an amazing place, but the biggest issue is just getting out there. It's 110 miles offshore, so that means doing a live aboard over a weekend at least.

 

[Bladebreaker65]

Unfortunately, Texas is on the muddy side of the Mississippi and 3 other major clay spewing rivers. Thus muck dive. Gulf rig dives can be great but weather windows are slim. So we do what we can, when we can.

 

[Rob9876]

Florida came up but I don't really want to move out from Texas even though I'll dive Florida every chance I get. Did Florida get all the good Gulf water?

The Flower Gardens liveaboard is the only Texas salt diving that I've heard much about. For Gulf diving, I haven't really heard about much west of Gulf Shores, AL. And as far as "good Gulf water" even the Florida panhandle is kind of mediocre viz a lot of the time. If you go out as far as the Oriskanny you can sometimes find good viz and blue water, but most dives closer in are greenish dives with mediocre or worse viz. It can still be fun as there's a decent bit of critters to see, and it's not bad for hunting, but definitely not the Caribbean or SE Florida.

My niece is attending Texas A&M in Galveston majoring in marine biology and has been doing her dive training. All of her dives so far have been pool and lake dives. Seems odd to drive away from ocean to dive, but waddoiknow.

It's been a long time since I've been in the water in Galveston, but as a kid I'd take my mask and snorkel there and it was like swimming in gumbo -- brown and couldn't see my hand in front of me (literally).

 

[js1221]

Used to be good saltwater diving off S. Padre. Diving the Texas Clipper and the remaining oil rigs, you could get visibility upwards for 80 feet and there was plenty to see. I preferred the rigs to the Clipper because there was more macro on the rigs. American Diving was the outfitter that was going out there but wasn't making the trips this year because they couldn't find divemasters to work.

 

[Sushi Boy]

The Flower Gardens is the best, hands down. It can be a challenging dive or it can be a cake walk. No telling until you get to the dive site. Recent pics can be found here.

The Kraken is also good diving but I hear the buoy is currently missing.

Texas Scuba Adventures in Galveston runs rig trips.

The Texas Clipper in S Padre is a great dive but as JS1221 mentioned American Divers isn't running trips due to staffing issues.

And about once a year, Offat's Bayou in Galveston actually gets some visibility so you can enjoy a salt water shore dive in Galveston.

If Houston counts as a coastal community, check out chumclub.org for a group of active divers who drink beer together regularly.

 

[islandboysrule]

What Sushi Boy said....x2

 

[Wookie]

I have a hundred numbers for dive sites, sunken platforms, collapsed drill rigs, civil war blockade runners (paddle-wheelers), shipwrecks, navy wrecks, you name it.

You’ll need a boat.