One of the differences in diving areas like our Mispah and Amaryllis ( the Corridor) is that you are so close to shore, it really would be crazy for someone to be nervous. From the Mispah, Sandra and I "could" easily swim to shore in about 45 minutes or less. That would be just a leisurely swim in, watching the bottom below like Eric is talking about, and looking for patch reef or fish that hang out off of the main reef areas. This last weekend, the vis was pretty awesome, and when we came up from finishing the Corridor dive , we all noticed we could see the ripples in the sand below, from floating on the surface.
Which reminds me, one time years ago, Jimmy Abernthey threw a line to me from Deep Obsession when I was freediving off of the Breakers Resort ( about 70 yards off the beach), and pulled me from the beach area to the 60 foot reef. Vis was about 120 feet that day, and the way he was dragging me, I could be 15 feet down or on the surface, and watch the bottom flying by....there was actually lots of cool stuff to see, and this ride was an absolute riot
He was pulling me at about 5 knots, my only issue was keeping my mask on ( fortunately it was a very low volume freedive mask, that was optimal for this).
But of course, the real issue in this thread is that there are so many diveboats immediately in this area, all working together.