Closest place to Port St Lucie for OW checkout dives

[jar546]

Other than the BHB which is about 45mins to an hour away, are there any boats that dive locations where they don't drift and they are moored over a sandy area for OW checkout dives? Every dive I have done in the PSL, Stuart, West Palm, Jupiter area has been a drift dive. Again, closest to PSL area please, thank you.

 

[Shcubasteve]

no charters in stuart. Everything is drift diving because of the proximity of the gulf stream- usually there is some current at most dive sites making anchor diving difficult. If you have your own vessel there are plenty of sandy spots just outside of the St. Lucie Inlet.

 

[jar546]

Thanks Shcubasteve. That is what I thought. The BHB is not always a choice based on tide timing. Looks like Key Largo is almost a better bet for OW students.

 

[sportxlh]

In Pompano, the current along the first reef line can be very light at times. The dives boats tie off to the mooring balls and divers return to the boat. The only time I've done it as a drift is when the current is much stronger than normal. I see instructors take students off of the reef to the sand often (for what I presume is check out dives). I know Pompano is a long way from PSL, but its closer than Key Largo.

Also, as part of my Rescue Diver class, we used the freshwater Tiger Lake in Ft Lauderdale for one of the training exercises because we had several days of bad ocean condtitions: I noticed that it has dive platforms for instruction. Vis was actually pretty good unless someone stirred up the muck on the lake bottom.

 

[mselenaous]

Jeff, Deep6 has a contract on a private lake in Vero for their instructors to use where you can do a couple of check out dives (accomplish most of the flexible skills) before jumping into a drift dive. When I was in Stuart, I would do day one (OW 1 & 2) at either that lake or at BHB depending on tides and then drift dives (60ft or so) with one of the WPB charters. I did require my students to purchase a safety sausage and learn to inflate it at the surface (pool practice) in preparation for their drift dives (no sense making them have a piece of gear they don't know how to use in an emergency).

 

[jar546]

More great information. This is one reason I love the Key Largo/Tavernier area. Not a problem there. I will check out the Pompano mooring situation.

 

[Splitlip]

Used to anchor dive at the cable crossing, aka breakers shallow at the time. Current was manageable, but then I was much younger.