Diving Near Anna Maria Is

[mostlyirish]

Spending a week at Anna Maria Is near Bradenton April 26 -May3. Any recommendations for diving within an hours drive. My brother just certified in February this year so relatively easy dive options are desirable but not a necessity. Spanish Peaks is off Anna Maria.

 

[diversteve]

Florida Underwater Sports has a map of shore dives in the area. All are pretty shallow. Spanish Rocks Reef is off Anna Maria Island.

 

[cocoajoe]

Hour? No. Drive to the east coast

 

[kurttruk]

There are a couple of charters in the area. Lots of stuff close from 3 to 7 miles out that is dive able. If you feel like a bigger trip then there are also wrecks that you can dive on as well(Mexican Pride/ Blackthorne?? and few others). Just search Bradenton, Florida and Scuba and lots of places pop up. I have never chartered in the area but dive the area a lot on private boats. Lots of cool stuff in the area. Water quality/visability can be hit or miss in the area.

 

[jvazquez]

Spending a week at Anna Maria Is near Bradenton April 26 -May3. Any recommendations for diving within an hours drive. My brother just certified in February this year so relatively easy dive options are desirable but not a necessity. Spanish Peaks is off Anna Maria.

Late April/early May is usually a good time to dive in the area. By then the water has usually started warming up and the visibility is usually a little better than later in the summer. There are ledges and artificial reefs off shore from the area. There are also fossil/shark tooth dives if you're into that, but, in my opinion, they're mostly low vis dives and I prefer to go out a little farther for ledges/artificial reefs. I've had everywhere from very low to very good visibility out there that time of year. There is a lot of life in the Gulf off of the Tampa Bay area and when the visibility is good the diving can be great.
I live in Clearwater (about 1 - 1.5 hrs north), so I usually dive with charters out of Pinellas county, but there are also charters in Manatee and Sarasota counties.

 

[Instructor_Tom]

1 mile reef is a real easy dive in about 24ft of water. It is man made reef balls and was my first post certification dive back in 2008.

You could go south to venice and do a beach dive to hunt for sharks teeth. You could also do a charter with Captain Jamie "Aristakat charters" and do either a bone yard dive or dive the Mohawk.

When diving with a newly certified OW diver i would recommend staying within the 60ft depth restriction which these dives provide.

T.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD