Question Dive sites?

[Coldiver1]

Hello, I used to be an active diver (14 dives per month all within 45 min drive from home...Northern NY). Recently I moved to ABQ New Mexico. Besides the Santa Rosa Blue Hole ( a 2 hour drive). Is the anywhere else to dive?
Also an overnight weekend adventure...Southern Colorado, Western Texas, Eastern Arizona?

 

[CycleCat]

Balmorhea State Park in west Texas is bigger, shallower and about ten degrees warmer than Blue Hole.

Puerto Penasco on the Sea of Cortez is a day's drive from ABQ.

 

[Jsteele_pd]

Hello, I used to be an active diver (14 dives per month all within 45 min drive from home...Northern NY). Recently I moved to ABQ New Mexico. Besides the Santa Rosa Blue Hole ( a 2 hour drive). Is the anywhere else to dive?
Also an overnight weekend adventure...Southern Colorado, Western Texas, Eastern Arizona?

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to mention this, but I traveled to Santa Rosa over the weekend on my way back east from California. I have a few insights that might be helpful for others as the information from Santa Rosa's isn't as clear as it could be and information on the site isn't as good as it could be.

After attempting to call numerous times with no calls returned, I decided to just show up and figure out how things work when I arrived. The place where you buy the permits is right next to the Blue Hole and is open during the weekend, so there is no reason to show up early to buy it.

My second bit of information - The dive shop isn't well equipped to rent out gear larger boot sizes are not available and did not have a good assortment of rental equipment outside of tanks. Weights are of particular concern. They only have a few of each size weight and I wouldn't have been able to achieve good trim, needing about 20 lbs to be weighted properly. I wouldn't expect them to have any spare O-rings or small items either.
Overall, the owner didn't strike me as particularly knowledgeable about diving but seemed to have quality tanks and compressor. (Air only)

Ultimately, I decided it wasn't going to be a good experience this time, so I didn't dive, but I go through the town yearly on trips to California. Eventually I plan on doing this dive, but for anyone coming here long distance should be aware that you should either make arrangements with a dive op out of another local dive op or come fully equipped

 

[CycleCat]

Overall, the owner didn't strike me as particularly knowledgeable about diving but seemed to have quality tanks and compressor. (Air only)

That was Stella. She is pretty much just there to fill tanks. She happens to have a few weights and wetsuits but that isn't what her business is about. Just filling tanks.

 

[dead dog]

That was Stella. She is pretty much just there to fill tanks. She happens to have a few weights and wetsuits but that isn't what her business is about. Just filling tanks.

How do you make a living just filling tanks?

 

[CycleCat]

How do you make a living just filling tanks?

I guess in Santa Rosa, NM, it is possible. She's probably not the only income earner in the house. On a normal weekend she probably does 30-40 tanks a day.

 

[Jsteele_pd]

That was Stella. She is pretty much just there to fill tanks. She happens to have a few weights and wetsuits but that isn't what her business is about. Just filling tanks.

Right, I don't think she is doing anything wrong at all, and not trying to disparage her business. It's a small dive site and would be hard to justify the expense of running a fully equipped shop there.
It seem like a nice spot for a dive, so I'd hate for others to run into the same issues by not coming fully equipped.

 

[dead dog]

I guess in Santa Rosa, NM, it is possible. She's probably not the only income earner in the house. On a normal weekend she probably does 30-40 tanks a day.

 

[VikingDives]

Hello, I used to be an active diver (14 dives per month all within 45 min drive from home...Northern NY). Recently I moved to ABQ New Mexico. Besides the Santa Rosa Blue Hole ( a 2 hour drive). Is the anywhere else to dive?
Also an overnight weekend adventure...Southern Colorado, Western Texas, Eastern Arizona?

Welcome to Albuquerque. In Santa Rosa there's also Perch Lake - it has a couple small wrecks to explore, and Rock Lake. Rock Lake is private, you have to go with an instructor and you must be a minimum of AOW.

Roswell has the Bottomless Lakes. I'm not sure if the shop in Roswell survived the Covid lockdowns, make sure to check before you go.

You can dive a number of other lakes in the state, but you probably don't want to. The visibility ranges from pretty poor to 0.

There's Navajo lake in Farmington. I've never been, never read a report of a dive up there, but I know there's a shop from Trinidad that does certification dives there.

In adjacent states, you can find some diving around Phoenix (the name of the lake escapes me) with fair visibility (10-15 ft). Utah has a warm water crater, and some private lakes with salt water.

If you are willing to dive 8 hours to Utah, I'd recommend the 12 hour drive to San Carlos, MX. @CycleCat can tell you more about that, I've only been once.

Locally, all your dives will be altitude dives, so keep that in mind.

If you need someone to dive with, you're welcome to join my shop when we are out at Blue Hole. We almost always have a few folks who are just diving for the weekend, and/or a DM candidate who'd be happy to jump in the water with you.

 

[FF / EMT]

It’s too bad scubaboard doesn’t have some kind of map with dive sites, right @Akimbo….