Cheap Diving Near Charleston?

[NSDiver]

Here's the story: I'm making the final move down to Charleston next week and am really excited about having some wreck diving and some river diving nearby. I'm sure the diving will be much better than what I've been doing in Maryland and Kansas City over the last year.

That being said, it would be nice to have some confined water nearby where I could do some cheap diving just to practice skills or get a few quick dives in. Is there anything closer than say, Lake Jocassee? It seems like if I'm going to drive almost four hours to Lake Jocassee, I might be better off just driving a little longer down to Florida to play around in the springs.

Any info would be appreciated.

-Nick

Looking forward to being a Deep Dixie Diver...

 

[JAMIE MCG]

Hey and welcome to the South, sorry I dont have any info on Charleston.

 

[diveprof]

About 2 1/2 hours away from Charleston is Augusta, GA. We have two good local dive sites: Lake Thurmond and the Savannah River.

A brief overview of the two most popular dive sites:
which will be followed by today's dive report:
1. Lake Thurmond (Clark Hill Lake to most long time Augustans)
Best sites are both East and West Dam along the rocks. The S.C. side (East Dam) has an airplane at 35' (follow the rock dam out at 20' to find the rope line leading to the plane). A Bouyancy course and ski boat are found off the line leading to the left (if facing towards the front of the plane)off the tail of the plane.The remnants of the old diversion dam used during construction made for an interesting deeper dive (75'- 90'). A rocky ledge is in 35 -40' of water parallel to the parking lot on the SC side of the dam. This host a gnome and angel statue. Depths of up to 125' are a short swim from the plane. Vis varies depending on rain from 6' to 15'+. Water temp this weekend was 83 degrees on top and 64 degrees at 100' with vis about 10 -15'.
2. Savannah River - A nice 1 -1 1/2 hour drift dive from the 5th street marina to the old marina/boathouse downstream. Depths are 21' max. Vis can be great a times 15' -20' during periods of low rain. A lot of history on this dive with a shipwreck (bow, deck planking, boilers and other stuff) just below the first bridge support for the 5th street bridge, the remnants of the old Hamburg docks (cotton docks) that run the length of the dive 1/3 of the way out into the river from the SC side (lots of fish here around the pilings and rocks), and the old Hamburg bridge remains (about 1/2 the way down the GA side). The river is 70 degrees currently. We dive just about every weekend. PM me if you would like to join our group.

 

[marusso]

Check out www.deepsouthdivers.org

 

[Raven C]

Just remember when diving in GA that there are salvage laws and licensing issues if you find anything and bring it up. This includes buttons, cannon balls, pottery, anything. But, in SC you don't have the same laws. If you are going to dive the Savannah River though there are rivers in SC that are closer and very interesting to dive and you are sure to find "treasure" down there. R

 

[WarEagle]

There's not much confined water down here. You can go out to Trophy Lakes on John's Island (about 20 minutes or so from downtown Charleston), which isn't bad. It's only about 15 feet deep (you might hit 20 after a lot of rain and if you have a shovel), but it's easy to get to and not too expensive. We do most of our rescue courses out there.