Florida Dive Spots

[DiveProKoko]

How long do the nuclear sub guys stay under?

From the US Naval Academy web site:

Because of the nature of the work and the limited space for onboard supplies, submarines typically have shorter deployments than surface ships. A typical submarine deployment is:

• 6 month deployment for a fast-attack or guided missile submarine (SSN/SSGN)
• 3 month patrol for a ballistic missile submarine (SSBN)

 

[The Chairman]

A typical submarine deployment is:

Not at 2 atm...

 

[The Chairman]

My favorite spring...

Troy Springs State Park

674 N.E. Troy Springs Road Branford FL 32008 (almost all of unincorporated Suwannee County has Branford listed as the town)
Home of the CS Madison
Bowl is 80ish feet deep

Super advanced tech wreck cert required
Sits at the mouth of the spring by the river
The depth is a an incredulous 6 phreaking pheet.​

Nice changing rooms and showers
Scuba set up stands
Nice walk to the spring head
Nice platform to get into the spring.
$5/vehicle or state park pass (no extra for diving, but do sign in)
No solo diving​

 

[bassplayer]

i've always heard that diving miami beach isn't worthwhile. maybe that's false? found a few sources of info suggesting otherwise.

On the florida unified reef map, there seem to be some regions labeled "ledge" not too far out from south beach, this is the same terrain type as LDBTS

https://arcg.is/1aG5T9

this recent article suggets there's a nice divable reef zone:

An underwater jewel lies just off South Beach. They’ve got a plan to protect it

A group of environmentalists and divers hope to have the reef line just off Miami Beach eventually declared a marine park where fishing in some areas could be off-limits.

www.wusf.org

and then it also seems there's an artificial reef project that seems to be in progress now. presumably the conditions must be at least ok for people to spend time on this?

Reefline

Reefline

www.thereefline.org

anyone know more about this?

 

[WetLens]

I am working on a project to add photos of marine life I've taken off the south Florida coast to iNaturalist. I've been able to come up with GPS locations for a few sites from various internet sources. Many of the numbers conflict with the very few that a group has loaded on Google Earth. I am not looking to be precise, just looking for general area as most drift dives cover quite a distance UW. Can anyone help with insuring I at least have the sites in order from N to S. If anyone has GPS numbers for any of the sites, I'd really appreciate it as a sanity check for where I put the numbers. PM me if you don't want the numbers posted. (Dive sites with * are ones that I have GPS)

Starting at Jupiter and going North to South:
MG-111 Barge *
Esso Bonaire *
Zion Train
Lemon Drop *
Captain Mike's
Area 51
Spadefish
Scarface
Bluffs (is this directly off Juno Beach Pier?)*
Captain Kirles
Loggerhead *
Julie's
Juno Ledge

Looking for an idea of where Jupiter Ledge, Deep Ledge, Tunnels, Jupiter High Ledge, Tim's Ledge, Lee's Ledge and Bonnie's Ledge fit into the above list.

West Palm Beach area (again, in order N to S):
Ron's Reef
Governors River Walk *
Playpen
South Doubles
Fourth Window
Breakers
The Trench
Breakers South
Flower Gardens
Bath and Tennis
Most of these have points added in Google Earth, but I am not confident in the accuracy - several conflict with other's input.

Also looking for an idea where Teardrop, Shark Alley, Danny (Wreck, but not sure how FWC has it listed), and Middle Reef fit into this mix.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,.

 

[PBcatfish]

I am working on a project to add photos of marine life I've taken off the south Florida coast to iNaturalist. I've been able to come up with GPS locations for a few sites from various internet sources. Many of the numbers conflict with the very few that a group has loaded on Google Earth. I am not looking to be precise, just looking for general area as most drift dives cover quite a distance UW. Can anyone help with insuring I at least have the sites in order from N to S. If anyone has GPS numbers for any of the sites, I'd really appreciate it as a sanity check for where I put the numbers. PM me if you don't want the numbers posted. (Dive sites with * are ones that I have GPS)

Starting at Jupiter and going North to South:
MG-111 Barge *
Esso Bonaire *
Zion Train
Lemon Drop *
Captain Mike's
Area 51
Spadefish
Scarface
Bluffs (is this directly off Juno Beach Pier?)*
Captain Kirles
Loggerhead *
Julie's
Juno Ledge

Looking for an idea of where Jupiter Ledge, Deep Ledge, Tunnels, Jupiter High Ledge, Tim's Ledge, Lee's Ledge and Bonnie's Ledge fit into the above list.

West Palm Beach area (again, in order N to S):
Ron's Reef
Governors River Walk *
Playpen
South Doubles
Fourth Window
Breakers
The Trench
Breakers South
Flower Gardens
Bath and Tennis
Most of these have points added in Google Earth, but I am not confident in the accuracy - several conflict with other's input.

Also looking for an idea where Teardrop, Shark Alley, Danny (Wreck, but not sure how FWC has it listed), and Middle Reef fit into this mix.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,.

Juno ledge is a large area. It's miles long. Governor's river-walk is a string of sunken ships. Each ship has different numbers. Each site is well documented. Those boats were put there by orders of Governor Jeb Bush after they were confiscated from drug runners. I think that the Sasha Boeniker is usually the first one on a drift of the full string, but I know of at least one guy, claiming to be a dive boat captain, that tells me that the riverwalk is on the other side of the inlet from that boat, so there seems to be disagreement about what site should carry what name. Playpen has a few different locations, depending on who you talk to. Fourth window is a place I line up by eye to shore references. I THINK that one and the stink pipe are locations that pretty much everyone agrees on. Mermaids is another spot that is solidly agreed on. Someone put a bunch of mermaid statues there, but with the amount of growth on them the last time I was there, they were getting pretty hard to recognize. Breakers has a few different locations, actually several. Flower gardens has a few different locations in a few different depths. So does B&T. There are reasons why the numbers don't always match. The same names are often used for lots of different places. There are also a lot of other good places that are not listed. You could easily spend about 10 years exploring the area & documenting good dive sites. There are plenty to choose from and many more waiting to be found. My advice is to just drive around in a boat with a bottom finder & jump in on any spot that looks interesting.

 

[Pipehorse]

@WetLens try this link Map of Palm Beach County Dive Sites published by Palm Beach County Environmental Resources Management.

Click the search function in top right hand corner it lists all artificial and natural reefs giving coordinates for every single one.

 

[WetLens]

@WetLens try this link Map of Palm Beach County Dive Sites published by Palm Beach County Environmental Resources Management.

Click the search function in top right hand corner it lists all artificial and natural reefs giving coordinates for every single one.

That helps a lot. Curious that it didn't show up in any of the many searches that I did. Thanks.

 

[PBcatfish]

Yes the Shasha is the first wreck in the lineup, what I find interesting is that dive briefings as well as old diagrams and charts show the Shasha to be head to head relative to the St. Jacques but in reality they are in a "69" orientation, either due to shifting after the sinking or they were always that way but charted incorrectly and the fallacy perpetuates.

Shifting happens, especially during large storms. Sometimes things get covered. Sometimes things get uncovered. Sometimes things just move around. As a general rule, the amount of relief that a wreck presents will usually decrease over time.

 

[Johnoly]

My advice is to just drive around in a boat with a bottom finder

That's the key word "Bottom Finder". Many new divers think they can just use an app on their phone and jump in, but for many reasons (currents, wind, GPS accuracy, slow drops, etc) the divers will miss the site.

It takes not only seeing the structure on your bottom finder, but also knowing what the current is doing and the experience of your divers to give them the perfect 'leadup distance' to drop them. And example is in a 2knot current with new divers and inflated BC's,, all floating on the surface to give their DM a big OK , and waiting for everyone in their group to descend, then dump their BC air >>> I may give them a 700 foot advance leadup distance and hope they get down fast enough to hit the wreck. But if it's negative divers who at 15ft flip around and kick into the current while looking down >>>I'll give them just 200ft leadup distance. All of those distances are based off the bottom finder,, NOT the GPS. And if viz that day is only 50ft, good luck finding the wreck if you don't know the tricks like sand / fish / rock patterns for tell-tale signs you are on the right approach and didn't get blown sideways.

The "published/internet" numbers for 80% of sites are off by 200-500+ feet due to many reasons. Sometimes it is because the spot published is the back or side of the site, or the wreck degraded/broke and it moved(zion bow),,,or the worst is the number was converted from LORAN and it's WAY OFF. I always re-mark a published number with the leading edge shown on the bottom finder. GPS numbers only get you in the general area, bottom finders do ALL the bulls-eye work.