New DC Diver

[BobbyWombat]

Hi all,

I've been reading the board for a while and thought it was time to sign up and join the conversation.

I'm a new diver in the Washington, DC area. Looking forward to getting some more dives under my belt this summer.

As a newbie, I'll be mostly asking questions rather than answering them. I work as a Naval Architect, so I stand a decent chance of being able to field boat-related questions, if they come up. Found this board and the advice on it to be great.

Thanks!

 

[k4man]

Welcome to ScubaBoard....enjoy your upcoming summer dives!

 

[Hoyden]

Welcome to scubaboard and to the DC area. There are lots of divers and diving in the area - if you are interested in meeting local divers, you could check out the Mid-Atlantic Bottom Feeders section on this forum, check out local dive clubs - Olney Scuba Adventure, Atlantis Rangers, Patowmack Divers or Ocean Rovers or get more involved at a local shop which offers dive opportunities. Taking additional classes is a good way to meet new buddies and some shops set up local dives which they organize at no charge.

As far as dive sites - there are several local quarries. Lake Millbrook is the closest. Lake Rawlings is the warmest and Dutch Springs is the nicest. There are a couple of other ones like Bainbridge and Guppy Gulch, but I see no reason to drive there from Rockville.

There is pretty good ocean diving within 3 to 4 hours from our area - Ocean City, MD or VA Beach and just a little farther north gets you to New Jersey diving. I have done both OC and VA Beach as day trips from Rockville, MD. This is not warm water diving and a good day has about 40ft of vis - 15-20ft would be more average. But it sure beats quarry diving. There are lots of good wrecks right off our shores. If you like low vis diving, there is also the U-1105 - MD's very own shipwreck preserve, although it is an advanced dive and you'll want to get more experience and be comfortable in no-vis diving before you try it. There is no need to go too far for ocean diving if you can take water temps in the mid to high 50s - which is warmer than most of the local quarries at depth anyway.

The shop with which I am affiliated does monthly trips to NC which has fabulous diving, but you need to be AOW to go on those trips with us as we stick to the offshore wrecks if conditions permit. That is almost always high vis warm water diving.

Anyway, as you can see, there are lots of diving opportunities in the area and as you gain more experience, more opportunitoies will open up - there is a volunteer diving program at the National Aquarium in Baltimoreand two local underwater archaeology groups, the Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society and The Institute for Maritime History.
Hope to see you in the water,

Jackie

 

[Diving Doc]

Hey chappie and welcome to the board from sunny england

 

[Ocean One]

Welcome to the ScubaBoard! Great to have an expert in Naval vessel aboard!
Why do you have you hand up that critters behind!!! LOL

 

[Jason Ooi]

Welcome to :sblogo:
:wave-smil :wave-smil

 

[BobbyWombat]

Thanks for the welcome.

Hoyden - I appreciate all the links you put up. I'll check them out.

-BW

 

[SteFord]

Welcome to Scubaboard! I look forward to seeing you in the local waters sometime soon. Give a shout if I can be of service, I'm in NoVA.

 

[DandyDon]

It does help with discussions if you complete your Profile. And it's even more fun when you load an Avatar (personal pic for each post) and a Profile pic. See UserCP to access these if you'd like to...?

If you haven't yet, click Forums above and start going thru the list - looking for those of interest to you, especially your local dive club. Always good to try a Search before starting a new thread, tho and be careful about posting Threads & Replies without reading the Stickies at the tops of most forums. Click the link in my Sig below to PM me if I can help you around here..

don