Various issues related to my job and having no real roots (except born in Pensacola) in Florida preclude a move there; should I be blessed to retire in a few years, it'd mean taking my wife away from her family and our daughter away from them, too. Likely not gonna do that. But Florida is where I'd look to as a 'diving residence.'
For now, there's a dive quarry in town, plus I try to get in about 2 trips per year. Even if I lived near a place with good diving, odds are I'd occasionally want to travel elsewhere for a different type.
What I hope to check into down the road, if retirement is as I hope, is the feasibility for renting a place longer, maybe 2 or 3 weeks, and packing a larger amount of diving into that (average travel costs over more weeks).
Southeastern Florida has a range of underwater topography types; Jupiter, Blue Heron Bridge, West Palm Beach, Boynton Beach, Fort Lauderdale (by the Sea for shore diving), Key Largo & on down the Keys...let's say you move there. A question only you can answer; about how many dives would you look to do at each one, per year, after you'd been there a couple of years & got past the 'honeymoon' phase of living there? Keeping in mind boat diving costs money...
If you took a month each year to rent in Florida for a dedicated dive vacation, how many of those dives could you get done, without moving to Florida?
I focus on Florida because as much as I liked California I'd miss warm water diving, and North Carolina I'd miss shallower reef diving.
I wonder how much 'dive tourism' to distant locales southeastern Florida residents engage in, compared to divers living elsewhere? Does Florida replace other diving, or supplement it?
Richard.
