buff:
I am seeing a friend in early April who lives in Miami. I want to dive around that area...anything of interest? Any ideas? I have heard that Fort Lauderdale is good. Is there someplace even closer? Thanks in advance! Scubaboard you rock! Mike
Mike, I know it's hard to figure timing and distance out so here goes...
You'll be here at the end of "the season" so traffic should be a little better than now. You always have to factor that friction in when you visit!
Depending on where you are in Miami, you'd be hard pressed to find a better dive than Tenneco Towers. Just about anybody from Broward or Miami-Dade counties goes to Tenneco, but for that trip we typically use H2O Scuba in Sunny Isles, which is north Dade (
http://www.h2oscuba.com/main.htm or 888-389-DIVE/305-956-DIVE). Let us know if you're going to be in south Dade and somebody will try to hook you up. You can get a sense of how far you'll drive using mapquest.
Ft. Lauderdale is a lot closer to the better dives (other than Tenneco) north of the Keys. If you are in north Dade County, many here would recommend the trip up to one of the outfits in Pompano Beach. I always recommend Lighthouse Dive becuse they'll place you with one of the locals (no charge):
http://www.lighthousedive.com/ (954) 788-0208.
Then there's shore diving. We have a lot of get-togethers here and often there will be a dive gathering in Lauderdale by the Sea ("LBTS"), Hollywood or Dania. Dania and Hollywood are quite a bit closer to Miami than LBTS, but the diving in LBTS is better. We have the shore-diving thing down to a science so ask questions and somebody will give you the details.
Last option but maybe the BEST... the Keys. Key Largo may be less than an hour's drive from where you are and nothing compares in the US. If you have the time and the wheels, I'd probably head down there for 3/4 day. Many of us use Island Ventures for that trip -
http://www.islandventure.com/ Phone: 305-451-4957 Toll Free: 1-866-293-5006.
