Get the word out

[Tortuga James]

Last year I did a DAN study at the Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine. I was a human guinea pig in the "flying while diving" study.

One of the other subjects was from Northern Virginia, a fit woman in her early 60's who had over 2000 dives in every exotic destination in the world, EXCEPT North Carolina. She asked me where I did most of my diving, and I proudly answered "right here in NC" only to get a perplexed look. She responded: "Oh, I am not interested in cold, murky green water diving."

How could an experienced worldly diver, who lives less than a six hour drive away, not know that we have some of the most prolific wreck and live bottom diving on the planet?

In the past few years, NC diving has made several "best in" lists in popular scuba publications.

When I am not at the coast, I live in Durham. It is amazing how many divers here never dive NC. They fly off to Mexico or the Carribean to dive, then vacation with the family in Atlantic Beach and never think of getting on a dive boat.

Why is that? Is it the long boat rides? Is it the challenging conditions, like depth and current? Is it the misconceptions about temperature and visibility?

I just can't imagine any diver would overlook the wonderful resource right here.

 

[JDMerk]

I haven't met a diver who doesn't know that the NC OBX is the place to go for wreck diving, and personally I don't think the conditions are all that bad. The temp is a non-issue for me...I don't mind looking like a flag in a hurricane on the anchor line...viz is usually sufficient.
Additionally, if you live here our dive locations are just so convenient, im in Raleigh so a day trip to Wilmington or Morehead City on a whim is certainly doable...

 

[ManBearPig]

What is the Water Temp there? We are in ATL, and my wife is getting certified, so that will open me up to do more trips. How long are the average boat rides out to the sites?

 

[chicken197]

I've been trying to dive NC for three months. My trips keep getting blown out by weather. Hopefully by the summer I will be able to see if your words are true!

I think part of the issue are the "hard core" divers who tell great tales of danger and woe while diving this area. I have been all over the west side of the planet and have limited experience on the east side. I know the current can be difficult and weather unpredictable but the diving is world class by all accounts. Spend a few minutes on NC Divers website and you will see what I mean.

 

[Diveral]

NC diving is fantastic. Particularly in the Cape Lookout and Wilmington areas. There you can get the offshore Gulf Stream waters, warm water with great visibility. NC truly has world class wrecks and fantastic and abundant marine life. It's wonderful diving and everyone who goes acknowledges it's some of the best diving they've ever done.

However its not easy or resort diving. To make the best dives in NC you need to be a real diver. These aren't hand-holding guided dives for someone with the latest fad card. The rides are an issue. Instead of being pampered by Juan on a 15-30 minute boat ride off of Cozumel or Belize, you're fending for yourself in the Atlantic for a couple of hours. When you climb back up the ladder in NC you have to set up your gear for the next dive and grab your lunch and drinks from the cooler. When you climb onto Juan's boat he will set up your gear for the next dive. He will hand you a heated towel and bring you drinks, fresh sliced pineapple, and maybe even cook you lunch while you relax on your surface interval.

When you get finished with your guided dives with Juan he will drop you off around 1:00 on the pier at your resort. He will take your gear with him and rinse it, hang it up to dry, and fill your tanks. Your gear will be assembled on the boat and ready to dive when Juan picks you up at the same pier at 8:30 or 9:00 the next morning. Meanwhile you take a relaxing 2 to 3 hour siesta lying in a hammock on the beach under the palm trees and flag down Juanita or Raphael every half hour for a new margarita or mambo taxi. Then you get up around 5:00 and go up to your spacious tile floored room with the balcony overlooking the ocean, maid service included, that you may or may not share with your dive buddy, shower and head out for a good dinner. After dinner you spend a couple of hours on the terrazzo drinking more margaritas and mambo taxis and trying to learn the mambo and the salsa. Head back to your room, rinse, repeat.

In NC your dive boat arrives back at the Marina sometime between 3:00 and 6:00 depending on where you went and the sea conditions. After an exhausting day of diving you lug your tanks to the shop for their fills and then you lug your gear to the smelly bunkhouse you share with 15 other divers. You rinse your gear off, try to find a place for it to hang and dry, and 15 of you cycle through three bathrooms. Then you head out to the Nethouse for some greasy fried seafood, have a couple of beers, and walk along the Marina before heading back to the bunkhouse slip in your earplugs and go to sleep on the sheets or bedroll you brought from home. At 6:30 you load your gear back on the boat, assemble it, and head out for another day of fabulous wreck diving.

If you schedule 5 days of diving with Juan you are probably going to dive five days. If you schedule 5 days diving in NC how many of them are you going to dive? If you are flying the costs of these two trips are similar.

Now I am not knocking NC, I love diving there. Different worlds different rules. NC is diving for divers, I don't bring the family on these trips. My wife went to the Keys with me and she's going to Cozumel as well. When I get down to Belize the kids are probably going too. When I'm diving NC there just isn't enough time after diving for me to make it a family trip.

AL

 

[fireflock]

I've wondered the same thing (why divers who live in NC don't dive here) and I have to wonder if it comes from going to the beach here as a kid. We all grew up playing at the beach and knowing that you can't see anything in the surf zone. You can't see anything because the surf stirs the water up and you can't see anything because sand is all there is to see.

It's shocking to a lot of people that there is a whole different world a few miles out where most of the diving is.

I like to send people trip reports like this:
A California diver does North Carolina - lions & tigers, oh my!

or videos like this:
YouTube - Aeolus

That's usually enough to change their minds

 

[Diveral]

Just read over my post below and it came across harsher than I intended. So why would someone want to dive NC? It's simple really, it has world class wreck dives. If you go out to the wrecks in the Gulf Stream you are diving world class tropical wrecks. Water temps in the 70's and 80's and visibility up to 100 feet and greater.

We are talking a concentration of multiple wrecks, something like Truk Lagoon or Bimini without the travel. You have the remains of wooden sailing vessels, early steamships, WWI era wrecks like the armored cruiser the Schurz, big passenger freighters like the Proteus, a whole plethora of wrecks dating to WWII including 3 German U-boats, some british anti-submarine corvettes, and an absolute host of tankers and freighters torpedoed off of our coast. NC also has an active reefing program where they've sunk large ships such as the Yancy, Spar, Indra, Aeolus, etc.

There's plenty of life including Sharks!! You see plenty of sharks on the NC wrecks, usually the sand tiger which is very common in many aquariums.

The dive ops treat you like big boys and girls. No guided dives, no coming up when the first diver runs out of air, you see what you want to see and come up when you want to come up. You set your own gear up that way you know where every thing's at. You dive your own profile and pace.

You normally dive with some pretty good divers. This isn't a resort destination and usually the divers that jump into these waters are pretty good. NC weeds out the incompetent hoovers fairly quickly. Also unless you're a local or vacationing at Kitty Hawk, Nags Head, Hatteras, Ocracoke, Atlantic Beach, Topsail, Holden Beach, etc you're probably diving NC with a group of divers you know and are comfortable with. There's nothing like sitting in the dive lodge talking about that U-boat dive you just finished, 2/3rds of the divers never diving a u-boat before. Or the diver who found themselves surrounded by 20 sand tigers off the bow of the Hutton. The divers first real wreck penetration on the Spar, or the mexican standoff your buddy had with the sandtiger inside the Indra. The quiet daunting solitude 120 feet down as you and your buddy explore a 442 ft tanker torpedoed in WWII.

A week's worth of diving in NC will give one an experience, memories, and beer stories for a lifetime.

AL

 

[RAD Diver]

I agree that NC has some of the BEST diving anywhere, I'm not a worldly traveler, but I have been to Utila, the Texas Flower Gargens, Key Largo, Lake Erie & even New Jersey last weekend.
While I had a great time at all these places & would go back to any of them & probably will, none of them makes me as happy as diving off NC.
Now I'm a Virginia boy & don't mind the drive, but I can get up drive to Hatteras dive & be home by 7PM. Morehead City & Wilmington require at least 1 night in a hotel, but a small price to pay for what you get.
Those are 2 great links Rich.

 

[chicken197]

I know the diving is challenging yet exciting. I am looking forward to my Olympus charter and the great service they are known for. I'm not looking for Juan to prepare my dive gear but I am unfamiliar with this area and the hazards. I decided to take a wreck course from Olympus as part of my NC experience hoping to learn some of the in's and out's easier than the trial and error method.

If I wanted care free diving and cold beer then I would be in Mexico. If you are on my trip, I welcome your advice, experience, and knowledge of the area. If it is as good as they say, then I hope to be able to share my experience with other divers new to the NC area in a few years because I intend to make this a regular stop during the year.

 

[Tortuga James]

Olympus is a great outfit and responsible for a lot of what NC Wreck Diving is.....you will not be disappointed.

It is also a good idea to get a little training while you are there. Kudos for doing that. After a couple of dives you will feel right at home. Just never take safety for granted, think about before, during and after every dive and you will have a great experience.

For information on topside enjoyment of the Crystal Coast, go to www.godivenc.com

It is tough for the dive industry to sell NC diving, either you sound like a Tourism director and set people up to dive in conditions over their head (no pun intended) or you sound like Diveral (sorry Al) and scare the average diver away.

Al is correct, NC is for real divers. But if you are up to the task, and willing to make the investment in effort, you will not be disappointed.