Cedar Beach, Mount Sinai, Long Island, NY

[TheOtherCraig]

Hi, I was talking to a local diver here today and he recommended Cedar Beach to my buddy and I. We are primarily beach divers and we've heard that was a good site but haven't done it yet. We are particularly interested in diving the area West of the boat channel, by the jetty. I know Dan Berg wrote about it in his LI Shore Diver book but I am hoping to hear from our fellow LI divers who have been to Cedar so we have a broader perspective of the dive. Thanks to all who respond!

 

[ScottyK]

Hey Craig- Welcome to Scubaboard!

Cedar Beach pretty much stinks as a dive site. I did my open water dives, and several of my first dives as a certified diver there about eight years ago.

Straight off of the beach is nothing but mud, with the occasional Whelk or Horseshoe Crab to break up the monotony. The area by the jetty is a little better, but it's still muddier and murkier than a lot of the better north shore sites. You will primarily see lots of mussels and starfish.

If you want to try a nice dive from Dan's book that's not so far out east, do the Shoreham Twin Jetties. Park in the town beach to the west. It's a difficult site to access. Parking for non residents is $15 and you need to slog your gear down a hill and a couple of hundred yards down the beach. Make sure you have a flag on this dive also.

The fact that it's hard to get to is a blessing when you finally get in the water. The jetties are "loaded" with beautiful marine life for you to photograph. You will thoroughly enjoy this dive.

Feel free to go to the Wreck Valley website and look at the where are you diving thread. Jen and I beach dive around here a lot, and would have no problem meeting up for a dive sometime.

Scott

 

[TheOtherCraig]

Hi Scotty! Just got back from a little family trip to Dorney Park, good times, but no diving. Thanks for the advice although I'm sorry to hear you think Cedar is such a bust. The Shoreham Jetties is another site we've been contemplating but for one reason or another we haven't gotten to it yet. Dan Berg's book is like our bible, it goes with us everywhere! My buddy (who is also my SO) and I do alot of diving off the North Shore beaches when time allows. We live in Central Suffolk so the drive out for us is about an hour. We are actually planning to go out there this Friday and Saturday. We definitely want to try to find the 'wrecks' we've heard about that are located off the West side of Southold Town Beach. If no luck with that, we'll at least get some decent photos! I'll PM you when I have a better fix on our plans and maybe you guys can join us if you like. Take care!

 

[ScottyK]

Hey Craig,

PM me about diving anytime! Jen and I would be glad to meet you two for a dive. We are also in central Suffolk (Lake Gove), like U/W photography, and have been shore diving all over LI for years.

If you want to try the Shoreham dive, don't follow the directions in Dan's book. Get in touch with me and I'll give you updated directions. I think he maybe dove there a while ago, but things have changed since. Parking on the east side is a guaranteed ticket. The town police are all over that lot now. Also, the area where you need to cross the river now has a busy boat ramp.

We came from that way once early in the morning and it was relatively quiet. By the time we finished the dive and worked our way the 100 or so yards back to the channel, the ramp had gotten busy. It was a pretty hair raising experience getting back over

 

[ALaskowski]

Old thread, but I thought I'd update just the same. Just did this dive. Yes the directions on that web site led me astray, however my GPS fixed that up no problem. The twon is Wading River.

We were fortunate enough to have a small zodiac with us, so we put that in at the boat ramp and used that to get to the beach at the west jetty. I parked in the closest lot to the boat ramp - be careful if you do this - when we got back, the tide had come in and the lot was largely flooded. I was able to get out, but it was about 6 inches of water I had to drive through.

As I understand it, this is normally supposed to be a calm spot for diving. We must have caught it on an off day. There was a lot of chop going over, but managable. We shored the zodiac and went down the west jetty on the inside where the water was calm. Vis was about 5'. No bugs, but a lot of crabs. Once we got to the end of the jetty, vis suddenly dropped to 1-2' and the surge was very strong. I quickly lost my buddy and we both surfaced some small distance apart to find some good sized swells.

We elected to head back towards the plant more towards the center of the channel and see what was there and again quickly became separated. Once we regrouped, we elected to get back to the jetty and follow it back as visibility was rapidly approaching zero. This went as planned.

When we got back to the zodiac, we found it completely filled with water from the now very rough seas and started bailing it out. Long story short, we got back on some rough seas, but it stared to feel like a bad scene from Navy Seals. Still beats walking and traversing that river though.

Bottom line, I think this could be an amazing dive site and is definately worth checking out, we just caught it on a bad day. If you don't have the luxury of a small boat like we had, prepare for some lugging and beware that parking lot right next to the boat ramp.

 

[ALaskowski]

Oh, I should have mentioned in the first place, we were diving Shoreham Nuclear Plant and not Cedar Beach

 

[Diver Dave 69]

Shoreham is a great dive!

Does anybody know how all the fisherman get to the Shoreham West Jetty?

 

[Rich Keller]

I dove the Shoreham jetties last year and once before about 30 years ago, lots of changes since then. The area has filled in with a lot of sand and is much shallower then the first time. Made the jump close to low tide so I could walk over from the ramp area easier and do the dive with just a 30 cu/ft tank. There is now a small State DEC parking area where you can park without getting a ticket if you are a NYS resident. I dove both jetties inside and outside and I did not see enough there of any interest to make me want to go back anytime soon. If you hit it at low tide it could be a good snorkel location. I would be interested in any information on how to get to the west jetty at Mt Sinai harbor.