Ft Lauderdale Recommendation?

[Wolfie2012]

Hi there. I typically don't post here and just lurk (as you can tell by this being my first post) but I needed to ask for opinions.

My wife and I will be visiting family in the Hollywood/Ft Lauderdale area at the end of the month and are looking for a newbie-friendly dive op to book a couple half-day trips with. I'm still pretty new with about 20 dives, and my wife is fresh out of her OW checkout dives. Being so new to scuba and living in the middle of the country (how I let my wife drag me to nebraska from florida I'll never know), these would be our first ocean dives.

So, any recommendations on fairly small, newbie-friendly dive ops would be helpful.

thanks in advance!

 

[Sandbar]

Check these guys out
http://www.parrotislandscuba.com/
and
http://www.thediversity.com/

 

[vr24]

can you travel at all? Key Largo is only about a 1 hour drive and it's WORTH it, pennekamp state park has a dive boat that goes out for like $40 for 2 newbie style dives, with amazing coral formations and everything... Loved it... Silent World also does Key Largo.

I live in Hollywood but I don't really go on any boats up here, just beach dives.

 

[Mambo Dave]

Well, ProDive is a big PADI certifying center right in Ft Lauderdale. Their boat will probably have a majority of newbies (that will punch you in the face as they wail about trying to get back to the boat, but I digress), a DI and a DM, all in the water with ya.

But then they rent mostly 72's, so that sucks. Whatever op you go with, make sure they actually rent at least AL80's if you want bottom time.

 

[sergeantnic]

Although I can't recommend a dive op, I can recommend some sites. We just went down this weekend and I took my own boat. I'm a new diver also so we stuck to the site's with mooring balls.

Copenhagen is a decent dive. Not much left of the wreck but we saw alot of lobsters and other fish life.

Hall of Fame isn't much to look at but it's due south of Copenhagen.

If you go south from the balls at LBTS you'll hit another set. I don't know the name of the reef but that place was very nice.

All these spots are no deeper than 40'.

 

[Tom Winters]

Parrot Island and Diversity are both great but a little far from Hollywood. Try Todd on American Dream II at Pier 66 near the Broward Convention Center.
http://scubafortlauderdale.com/

 

[FastAttack]

and of course if you want to add in some beach dives there are plenty of spots in the hollywood/fortlauderdale area you can go to

 

[Mambo Dave]

I was going to suggest beach dives - like just south of Commercial pier, since the summer the ocean is calm in the mornings (well, between hurricanes), but he seemed to stress 'newbies,' so I got to thinking he meant 'out of shape for kicking'... But yeah, beach dives are easy and cheap, quite rewarding for a few of us as of late, and a nice shallow dive.

heck, offer to take someone to lunch here on SB and they'll probably guide ya 'round the local shores.

 

[Wolfie2012]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I've contacted a few of them. Keep em coming if anyone has any more. I'm considering some beach dives as well if I can work them in. I just love being out on the open water in a boat - it just has some kind of incredible effect on me. Hard to explain, but I'm sure some of you know what I mean.

As for newbie meaning 'out of shape for kicking', nah I didn't mean that. Out of shape maybe, but I can kick all day, long as the current isn't like the missouri river . I simply meant newbie as in "newdiver-sucksmoregasthanyou-hasn'tbeenonscubaintheocean-andcanbeamusinglysarcasticattimes". Anyway, I just mean I'm a pretty new diver, my wife is much more so, and I'd prefer dive operators who have a more sympathetic approach rather than a "Oh crap, not another one" attitude.

Of course, I expect I could run up against other divers who have that attitude, but I can hold my own, I deal with ignorant people all the time at work. To me it's the people in charge on the boat that can make or break an enjoyable dive for my wife and I as newer divers.

Thanks again for the replies.

 

[FastAttack]

plenty of us here that do beach diving.
You can see I got a thread going, if you are in town and have a day where you are not boat diving yet you still have the urge to beach dive you can always PM me and I can round up some of the guys/girls I met through scubaboard and enjoy a nice beach dive.

I know the feeling of the boat, but believe me that some of the shore diving can be as entertaining as a boat dive , but with an added bonus, you don't need to be back in the boat after an hour..
beach diving you tell your buddies this amount of air left in your tank and we go back

last dive we did was 1h20mins with 1000+/- still left in both our tanks, we just called as it was getting murky hehe