Hello from Chicago

[blade_runner]

I'm extremely interested in diving, but I live in Chicago and do not have any opportunity for travel in my near or distant future (young kids, work, etc.)

I'm currently lurking on this board while I am laid up recovering from balloon sinuplasty. I am really hoping the correction of my sinus blockage will allow me to finally be able to enjoy diving. Over the past two days, I've probably watched hundreds of YouTube videos on Scuba, studied the dive tables, and picked out some neat gear to buy.

Planning to check with my doctors in April again to make sure I have the green light to go ahead and dive in.

A big concern I have with diving and living in the Chicagoland area are the limited dive sites. I'm afraid I will only be able to visit dive sites a couple hours away and will find myself at Haigh Quarry and Evanston Beach. I would hate to invest time and money into this and only dive a few sites in my career.

If you know of any dive sites in the Chicagoland area, please advise. Also, I need to find a buddy! Any cool groups that dive in the area together?

 

[RayfromTX]

Dive Right In Scuba is a great shop and resource. There are many divers in your area and lots of them post here. Many divers only dive on vacation. You will be able to dive near home in between travel dives. The great lakes are beautiful.

 

[Marie13]

DRIS is my shop. Excellent folks. Also run several dive boats, the best one for newbies is out of Hammond.

Limited dive sites? You've got to be kidding me. Unless someone is a warm water, unlimited viz only diver, then I can't help them. The Great Lakes are in our back yard, with charter ops out of Hammond, somewhere on the North Shore, plus Milwaukee and Port Washington, WI. Then there's Haigh which is "home" and Pearl Lake in South Beloit, and Mermet Springs in far southern IL. You can hit 3 Great Lakes within an 8 hour drive. The wrecks are just fabulous.

You can easily dive every weekend from early April to late October, which I did this year.

The DRIS instructors are just wonderful. Can't recommend them highly enough.

And I'm going to recommend working out if you don't currently. Diving is a lot more physical than it looks, including schlepping all the heavy gear.

 

[RayfromTX]

Thanks Marie, I was counting on you to post that. There seems to be quite a large dive community there.

 

[Marie13]

OP, and I don't know anything about shore diving in Lake Michigan.

 

[KathyV]

I'm extremely interested in diving, but I live in Chicago and do not have any opportunity for travel in my near or distant future (young kids, work, etc.)...If you know of any dive sites in the Chicagoland area, please advise. Also, I need to find a buddy! Any cool groups that dive in the area together?

OP, and I don't know anything about shore diving in Lake Michigan.

See the link below for more information:

Great Lakes Wrecking Crew

 

[Marie13]

The Wrecking Crew is much more active on FB.

 

[Marie13]

@blade_runner

I hope you like cold. Lake Michigan was 56F at 45ft on July 1 about 7 miles off Chicago.

I'm always open to more dive buddies. My dive buddies are almost all guys whose wives are not interested in diving at all. I'm single with an insatiable urge to dive, so having a variety of dive buddies is good.

 

[blade_runner]

This is all great uplifting news. I’m looking forward to April.
Happy holidays everyone.

 

[blade_runner]

@Marie13

I love the cold. I work outside year-round and I play hockey.