wittekind6
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Is it necessary to dive the high slack tide at Lauderdale By The Sea? I want to dive there in September. Any info on this site would be great.
Lauderdale By The Sea
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bilsant
Contributor
nope....pretty much any time is good. Surf conditions and viz are more determinant than time at LBTS.
sportxlh
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Here's a couple of links:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/florida-diving/290550-lauderdale-sea-beach-dive.html
Fill Express -- The Best Shore Dive in Florida
and a meetup group that dives there often:
Gold Coast Scuba Divers (954) 616-5909 (Fort Lauderdale, FL) - Meetup
I would get there very early so as to get a place to park. It is a fairly long swim to the area I prefer to dive and even longer to the third reef. If you swim past the end of the pier and keep going, keep going, you come to some white mooring buoys. That area is a nice shallow reef with lot's of critters, nurse sharks, turtles. Keep going, keep going, keep going, watch the bottom after the third "keep going" and you should come to the break. Here currents can be stronger. I would say it is a 45 minute swim on my back, tooling along. The place marked by the first flag is the reef most seem to dive. The second flag is where the white mooring balls are that I just described as a nice shallow reef and the anchor I marked is from my GPS as the break I swam to on some of my dives there:
If you go that far, like I said, count on a 45 minute swim, have a large flag, bring a signal mirror and flares and keep them in your surface float and GPS. So, consider, 45 minutes out, say 45 on the dive, 45 minutes back in so that is two hours and fifteen minutes, figure on three hours. I have done this dive several times, solo. Last time, a rain storm came during my swim out. It rained hard enough and long enough I could not see anything, I used my GPS to stay on track and kept swimming out. The thunderstorm cleared, the sun came out and I had a great dive.
N
If you go that far, like I said, count on a 45 minute swim, have a large flag, bring a signal mirror and flares and keep them in your surface float and GPS. So, consider, 45 minutes out, say 45 on the dive, 45 minutes back in so that is two hours and fifteen minutes, figure on three hours. I have done this dive several times, solo. Last time, a rain storm came during my swim out. It rained hard enough and long enough I could not see anything, I used my GPS to stay on track and kept swimming out. The thunderstorm cleared, the sun came out and I had a great dive.
N
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The reef in front of and just past the the pier is shallow and best dived @ high tide. When the tide's coming in, it can get pretty sandy. It's nice to come back in with the tide though. Tide information is in the daily paper and fighting the tide is kind of mmmmmmmmmmm................... an extravagant waste of energy with little benefit.
acteg
Contributor
I dove it today by 2nd street about an hour after high tide. Vis was about 10 ft on the first reef. Saw a lobster, turtle, nurse shark, and sting ray.
---------- Post Merged on September 2nd, 2012 at 08:39 AM ---------- Previous Post was on September 1st, 2012 at 03:59 PM ----------
Some video from yesterday's dive. Will give a good idea of current visibility.
[video=youtube;OjMX1F2DyIQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMX1F2DyIQ&feature=youtu.be[/video]
---------- Post Merged on September 2nd, 2012 at 08:39 AM ---------- Previous Post was on September 1st, 2012 at 03:59 PM ----------
Some video from yesterday's dive. Will give a good idea of current visibility.
[video=youtube;OjMX1F2DyIQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMX1F2DyIQ&feature=youtu.be[/video]
Tz7
New
Thanks for the video. I came to this board to see if there is a way to see the latest visibility in LBTS, after the storm.
acteg
Contributor
No problem. Yesterday was a little better. Took some more video. Didn't see as much. There were a lot of divers out there. Everyone getting lobsters. Saw about a half dozen lobsters. We dropped down North of commercial pier and then headed south. We couldn't find any parking near the "normal" entry spot south of the pier. Visibility seemed to improve south of the pier.
We did a meetup with gold coast scuba on commercial blvd. Very nice guys. I would recommend anyone who is new to this dive that wants to do it with a group first, to contact Steve at gold coast scuba and do their next meetup dive.
[video=youtube;mT3sQlx-nuA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT3sQlx-nuA&feature=plcp[/video]
We did a meetup with gold coast scuba on commercial blvd. Very nice guys. I would recommend anyone who is new to this dive that wants to do it with a group first, to contact Steve at gold coast scuba and do their next meetup dive.
[video=youtube;mT3sQlx-nuA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT3sQlx-nuA&feature=plcp[/video]
rha600
Contributor
Nemrod, Why not buy a "cheap" kayak to paddle out there? At least to the mooring balls are and then swim the rest of the way? Or is the current to strong to get back?
acteg, I was there yesterday. First time there, we dove from Datura. the vis was pretty bad. Real bad at first but as we got out closer to the reef it opened up to maybe 30ft at best. I did see a lot of critters but no Lobster, sharks or turtles. Of course I was also having issues with a new mask fogging up constantly so I may have had a 15ft great white in front of my face and just not seen him. haha.
acteg, I was there yesterday. First time there, we dove from Datura. the vis was pretty bad. Real bad at first but as we got out closer to the reef it opened up to maybe 30ft at best. I did see a lot of critters but no Lobster, sharks or turtles. Of course I was also having issues with a new mask fogging up constantly so I may have had a 15ft great white in front of my face and just not seen him. haha.
acteg
Contributor
Lol hopefully no great whites. Hope you get your fogging issue squared away. I generally use spit, but my GF thinks its kind of gross, so I guess I'll have to break down and buy some defog/nofog for when I dive with her. When she first started diving her masked fogged up constantly and was always leaking.... her instructor told me the mask I bought her was the biggest piece of crap he's ever seen (sherwood Rona mask.. was rated best mask for the money a couple years back). Anyway, once I suggested she stop exhaling through her nose it stopped fogging and stopped leaking lol.
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