St. Andrew's Jetties Question

[skubadad]

I thought diving was a lazy-man's sport!?! (or lazy woman's).

I've done 30+ dives at the jetties, and have yet to find it necessary to circle the point. I usually dive to the area around the sunken boat, maybe 200ft further, turn, and work my way back to the entry point. You'll see 10,000 more things just taking your time and looking for the small critters.

There's nothing illegal about diving the jetties as long as you have a flag, and don't have a speargun. I suspect the fisherman was just protecting his spot by feeding you some misinformation.

This happened in 2008:

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Where is the sunken boat? I've dove the jetties many times but have never encountered a sunken boat. It has been about 3 yrs since I've dove there but I'm planning on diving them in a couple of weeks when I'm down there.

 

[shawn b]

I live down the road from the park, and dive there 3 times a week that dude is WRONG!!!!!! He is just pissed you were diving near his fishing. Yesterday there were 100 plus divers all were diving the wall. Don't worry you are not going to get in trouble. The local dive shops do there check out dives there.

---------- Post Merged at 02:45 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 02:40 PM ----------

Not only is it legal to dive there, the Florida State Parks website list it as a diving location in the things to do section.

 

[jviehe]

So I dove the jetties today here in PCB for the first time since moving here. Absolutely LOVED it! We planned on drifting down the entire wall, going around the point and then head back up the beach area but we surfaced to see about where we were and noticed no divers and tons of fisherfolks on the rocks. That got me pretty nervous as I don't fancy becoming someone's really good fight and "the big one that got away" story. We dove back down and planned on high tailing it around the point and getting out of the risk.

It ended up being a further trip around that point than expected so we climbed up over the rocks and hit the other side. My question is this: while climbing up those rocks, this fisherman yells out (not rudely, just informatively) that we could be fined for diving there. I've never heard that before and think he's wrong but then again we were the only two divers there so it makes me doubt myself and I now wanna be sure. Is there a fine or no? Even as I'm typing this I'm thinking to myself - that's crazy talk, there no fines....there's no fines in scuba diving! So be there or no?

If you do get hooked, just cut their line. They can see you, but you cant see them, so its on them to avoid you. I tend to stick to the rocks near the break at the lagoon, and no one fishes there. Plenty to see without going near the fishermen.

 

[Hetland]

just a hull. 20ft+ vessel. nothing special. about 20-40ft off the rocks in 68-70fsw. been there 4-5 years, probably longer.

 

[skubadad]

Does anyone have a preferred website for tide charts for the jetties? Or do you just check with the local dive shops for this? I've looked at a few different sites for this and I get different readings on the times for the high tides. Only one site actually let me pick the St. Andrews channel entrance though...so maybe the others are just giving me general tide times for the area. This is the one I've been using... Tide Location Selection for Florida Gulf Coast. Just not sure of how accurate it is.

 

[Hetland]

^ That's what I use, and it is as accurate as any other tide prediction. It's nice to have so many locations in one spot, so you can easily check Destin, PCB, and Pensacola all at one time.

 

[skubadad]

Thanks...I guess will trust it too then. Looking forward to some diving down there next week.