Is Southeast Florida diving affected by the VIRUS?

[Surfraj]

Hello, perhaps this thread can be useful not only for me but others who may have plans to travel to Florida from out of state in the next few months.

We're booked for diving in Southeast Florida at the end of April and we're wondering how our plans may be affected. We rented a VRBO vacation home and have not yet contacted the host to see if she's going to allow us to cancel and get back our $2200 paid in full. The stated policy for this property is no cancelations outside of 60 day and VRBO is being no help whatsoever to travelers except they have posted that they "encourage property owners to refund travelers upon request".

That much being said not only do we not want to lose our money, but we'd still like to dive, but who knows if dive operations will still be running and if there will be business closures as there are in other parts of the country and outside the country?

So if anyone in Florida or anyone planning a trip to Florida has any news or updates regarding the situation there, please post here.

Thank you.

My thought is planning a dive trip as a visitor to Florida at this time is a bad idea. I know Panama City Closed it beaches, asked all VRBOs to go home. Being optimistic is great but.......this is very uncertain time.

 

[tekkydiver]

Not sure why this is good. This will nail the coffin shut for many.

 

[Boiler_81]

It's amazing to me when so many are telling you not to travel that you'd still be willing to do it. Personally I don't care if you want to get a virus, but potentially bringing it down to FL with you is not okay. Please stay home.

Hopefully enough fun stuff will get closed so as to force the issue.

Looks like the OP made the banned list.

 

[letterboy]

Not sure why this is good. This will nail the coffin shut for many.

Because it will slow this down.

But feel free to go forth and frolic.

 

[tekkydiver]

In Palm Beach County there are over 40,000 registered boats. Thousands upon thousand are kept on lifts, and docks in private residences. Closing the boat ramps just hurts families that use them for access to the Ocean and ICW who desperately need some recreational activity. Just like when the Columbus Day Regatta got way out of hand, the solution was to limit boats rafting to each other. The state could put a ban on vessels rafting in places like Lake Boca or the Jupiter Sand Bar. People can be safe on their boats with little chance of getting or passing along an infection. This ban is government overstepping their boundaries.

 

[letterboy]

Or the people could have listened when they were told not to congregate.

But no, people don't have common sense.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

I've seen a mix of boats saying they will be suspending operations and ones that are still going out; questions are a) do dive charters count as "commercial marine operations" regarding the marina closures and b) shops being open for tank fills.

 

[seeker242]

Palm beach all marinas closed

Coronavirus Florida: County closes all ramps, marinas to recreational boating

 

[scubadada]

Palm beach all marinas closed

Coronavirus Florida: County closes all ramps, marinas to recreational boating

Anybody know the answer to @HalcyonDaze question regarding dive boats?

 

[Johnoly]

Anybody know the answer to @HalcyonDaze question regarding dive boats?

I think it's still a fluid situation and even field officers aren't clear on what is a "Chargable Offense". But one area is very clear. The county's legal jurisdiction ends exactly at the waterline. All waters in the state of Florida (within state waters) only have jurisdiction from the state. If everyone remembers the BHB jurisdiction problems, this follows it. So if you board your boat from private property and stay only on the water without touching land nor the sand bottom below the water (which is county 'sand') then the jurisdiction is by FWC and not the county. Now if the county wanted to be a PIA, they could 'suspend' your county business license to threaten you, but in talking about a 'chargable offense' that would be difficult on top of the water because they don't have jurisdiction, it belongs to the state. Lots of different views on this.