Palm Beach County v. The Keys

[devinesigns3]

Haha you are right, Cajun. Grandma and Grandpa would gladly take her several days so we could go to the Keys (too far to day trip) but I'm not sure I'm ready to leave my munchkin overnight when she's so little They offered to come with us down there but that would cease to make it a vacation for my husband and me! We need some breathing room to get along

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[uncfnp]

Consider a day of diving out of Jupiter, 1 to 2 days in WPB including the BHB and another few days around Boynton, including the Castor. I have done Islamorada and Marathon, not Key Largo, but keep going back to WPB.

Richard, out of Jupiter/WPB

1) it's all drift dives. Except the BHB shore dive.
2) Dives ops do put at least one DM in the water with you to carry the flag.
3) Mostly reefs that run 50 to 100 feet deep. But several good wrecks at 80 to 100 feet.
4) Mostly 2 tank trips during the week with 2 tank am and pm dives on the weekends.
5) Reefs are just a short ways off shore. Most of the ride is either north or south along the coast to the dive site. Averages maybe 20 minutes. Seas can be flat to 8+ feet! it's the luck of the draw. I'd say my ride average is 1 to 3 foot waves.
6) Before we bought tanks Eric had no trouble renting AL 100's, steels were a little harder to find.

 

[devinesigns3]

Another question: I'm thinking of renting a house with a private pool for the trip. What towns do you recommend in WPB area? In addition to diving we want easy access to the beach (walking distance preferred or short drive), and decent roads for bike riding. We like Boynton's beach area but I'm wondering if another town may have walking access to the beach.

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[sportxlh]

Cool this is great info so far! We love drift diving and one thing I disliked about Key Largo was how every reef dive was shallow. I prefer multi level dives. We love seeing abundant reefs and bigger fish- is Jupiter our best bet? We don't mind diving different areas of WPB each day. What locations/dive ops do you recommend?

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I'm biased since I live about 10 minutes from Jupiter Dive Center's dock and do at least 50 dives or so with them each year. Its a rare dive not to see goliaths or turtles or big green morays or sharks or all of the above. I dive in WPB if I can get off work early on a Friday and I see the same sort of big see creatures, just not as often. One of the most beautiful sites in WPB is Breakers reef: you'll probably see tutles but it is not known for other big critters: however, the reef topography is beautiful and the troplical fish life is incredible.

Sometimes vis in Jupiter is so-so: it was about 30 feet yesterday, but two weeks ago was 100 feet on one site. WPB and Boynton get similar vis conditions, though the low side vis I've personally experienced in the two southern locations is more like 40 or 50 feet. With the bad vis yesterday, I only saw 6 turtles a couple of big green moray eels and half a dozen nurse sharks. Two weeks ago we saw 10-12 reef sharks, 4 or 5 lemon sharks, at least a dozen turtles, 6 or so goliath grouper, huge schools of spadefish, etc. etc.

Another question: I'm thinking of renting a house with a private pool for the trip. What towns do you recommend in WPB area? In addition to diving we want easy access to the beach (walking distance preferred or short drive), and decent roads for bike riding. We like Boynton's beach area but I'm wondering if another town may have walking access to the beach.

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Not sure about houses, but check out vrbo.com and look in Juno Beach, Jupiter and Singer Island. I think you'll be more likely to find condo's though. I used to be a huge cyclist until I moved to Florida: typical after work ride was 30-50 miles and 100 on the weekend. I've all but given it up down here and ride lifecycles at the gym since the drivers are so so so very bad. Old people, young people on phones, foreign vacationers learning to navigate our roads etc. Unless you ride with a club and have some protection with a large number of riders creating a visual mark for drivers, I think cycling sucks around here. With that said, there is a nice and relatively safe ride up Jupiter Island: you'll need to park your car at the Jupiter lighthouse and then ride your bike north. The roads around Jupiter Beach/Juno Beach can be nice early in the morning too. I've ridden on Palm Beach Island a few times: once you get north of the north bridge, traffic is pretty light and its a nice enough ride: plus you get to see how quadrillionaires (well maybe only billionaires) live

 

[devinesigns3]

That's disappointing about the cycling conditions but I'm glad you warned me. We'd be riding with my daughter in the bike trailer so that means extra caution with planning our route. I've had good look with vrbo in the past and so far it looks like there's reasonably priced listings in all those areas. Hoping to find a house over a condo because with a little one who goes to sleep early we have more options of things to do at night. I can't help but laugh because we live in NJ and the beachhouse rentals up here are so much more expensive and you get so much less. We don't even bother trying to dive the Jersey Shore because while it is clean, there is no viz whatsoever and rough conditions. So 30-50' viz would be acceptable!

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[Lorenzoid]

Is it possible to generalize how vis in WPB/Jupiter compare with vis in Key Largo? I've done half a dozen dive trips to Key Largo over the years but have only recently begun considering WPB/Jupiter after reading good reports.

 

[sportxlh]

Is it possible to generalize how vis in WPB/Jupiter compare with vis in Key Largo? I've done half a dozen dive trips to Key Largo over the years but have only recently begun considering WPB/Jupiter after reading good reports.

In my experience, 65-70 feet is about the norm in Jupiter. But you'll occasionally find terrible days of 30 feet, such as yesterday, and less often 100+ feet such as two weeks ago. But it depends on the dive site too: one popular dive site known for shark and goliath grouper encounters (Tunnels) is located very close to the Jupiter Inlet so it tends to have worse vis because of the fresh water that washes out of the inlet compared with sites a mile or so south (incoming vs outgoing tide also impacts sites, like Tunnels, close to the inlet). People dive Tunnels often, despite the generally poorer vis, because of the large sea life.

The Keys can have similar conditions, though with the shallow reefs, poor vis is not a big deal to me since the sun still penetrates and lights up the reef plus you're not generally drifting on shallow sites in the keys. On the shallow reefs, you are looking at what's right in front of you, and not down a long ledge like you'll find in Jupiter, Boynton and WPB. I've had nice Keys dives in less than 20 feet vis as I focused on macro life. In the Keys the vis is more important on the deeper sites in my opinion, I've dove the Eagle wreck in conditions where I could easily see half way down each wreck (100+ feet??) and dove it where I could hardly see 30 or 40 feet.

With all that said, generally the poor vis days in Jupiter and WPB mean that the current isn't very robust, so you drift much much slower than normal and can focus on macro life, which is fun in its own way.

 

[MrChen]

In Jupiter, I've had my best dives with Capt Sl8r and JDC. Sl8r is running Wednesday specials right now, rent a tank and get a 1 tank dive for free. I prefer the 2 tank trips, but you can't beat $20 for a ride on the boat and a full tank.

You'll want your Nitrox cert, else your bottom time will be 20-25 min. On Nitrox we get 45-50 min. I usually get a steel 100 and it works out just right.

Don't fret too much about the DM not being there, the drift currents and reef lines keep you on a predictable path. I've only had one dive where the DM was active in keeping track of the group and even then she wasn't trying to lead the group. I've surfaced at times to find multiple boats waiting next to my SMB to see if we were with them.

Depths, 60 - 90 ft. But 90's would be sitting on the bottom. I find myself in the 75-85 depth range most of the time.

Don't forget the shore dives at LBTS and BHB. I haven't been to LBTS yet, but I hear it's a decent shore dive. BHB I've been too countless times and is great for macro photography, checking out gear, and seeing smaller aquatic life. The cool thing is you never see the same stuff twice. Lots of small rays, plenty of fish, crabs, small eels, octopus, sea horses, nudis, etc. They also have free sponsored night dives a couple of times a week with Force E and Pura Vida.

---------- Post added February 9th, 2014 at 07:19 PM ----------

6) Before we bought tanks Eric had no trouble renting AL 100's, steels were a little harder to find.

Scuba Works in Jupiter has a lot of steel 100's. All the other ops seem to struggle with this. I think Abernathy gave me a LP95 and several others gave me AL100's. I think Sl8r is now renting steel 100's. Sl8r has his Wed special going on right now for a few months, rent a tank and dive for free. It sucks that it's only a 1 tank dive, but $20 is a great deal.

 

[acteg]

I've done most of my diving from Jupiter to Lauderdale. I've done a handful of dives in Key Largo and a handful in Key West. Personally, I prefer diving the Jupiter/Palm beach area. Huge ledges with lots of life, and more "big" encounters. If you are into wrecks, I would definitely head to the Keys for the Spiegel Grove and the Vandenberg (Key West).

If you want more tropical/colorful varied reef, then Key Largo may be better for you (although there are sections of reef in the pompano/lauderdale area that I have done shore dives on that rival anything I've seen in the keys).

I dove Jupiter this weekend. I saw 2 sailfish, a huge eel, lots of lionfish (which became dinner), a massive loggerhead, 2 leatherbacks, spotted eel, a few lobsters, 4 reef sharks (2 of which stayed with me until the boat picked me up), 1 bull shark, 2 queen triggerfish, and a multitude of other reef fish (snapper, grouper, spadefish, etc).


L

 

[sheeper]

Palm Beach and the Keys are BOTH great areas to dive. Different kinds of diving.
Jupiter and Palm Beach diving is great for big animals. Sharks, turtles, Goliath Grouper, etc. Jupiter Dive Center aka JDC (www.jupiterdivecenter.com) and Kyalami aka Capt SL8r(www.jupiterscubadiving.com) are two favorites. Depths are a little deeper from Jupiter than Palm Beach so nitrox would be recommended. And both are drift dives (so an SMB is a must).
There are some great dive shops ranging from Force-E (at the foot of the Blue Heron Bridge) to ScubaWorks and JDC in Jupiter. I have found each of these 3 to be super helpful, knowledgeable and great resources.