What do you like about your local diving?

[ozziworld]

Since most divers probably do more dives near where they live, I thought asking the question about what they like about their local dive spots other than the convenience might encourage others to look at dive vacations other than warm tropical locations.

I for one miss diving in Southern California where I learned to dive. Since moving to the Philippines I have not dived anything but warm tropical water. Diving here is great but totally different from California Diving which is also great in a different way.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

Since most divers probably do more dives near where they live, I thought asking the question about what they like about their local dive spots other than the convenience might encourage others to look at dive vacations other than warm tropical locations.

I for one miss diving in Southern California where I learned to dive. Since moving to the Philippines I have not dived anything but warm tropical water. Diving here is great but totally different from California Diving which is also great in a different way.

Sorry, can't resist, but I live in a "warm tropical location".... so anyway...

A good local shore dive is 15 minutes from my office. It's nice to be able to go for a single tank dive and visit the turtles during a long lunch break now and then

 

[1_T_Submariner]

I like the Low Vis, Cold water, Freezing air temps when you surface (in the Fall, Winter and spring). The lack of color and exotic wildlife are also a plus.

 

[Scott M]

Up here on Lake Champlain many have stopped diving the lake because once you have gone warm it's not a lot of fun to dive a cold dark lake. I was guilty of this myself until recently. I was re-introduced to the lake by some good friends and am really enjoying the challenge of diving something tougher. I have gone to a dry suit and am just really enjoying everything this lake has to offer. I have only been to one wreck so there are a lot of historic sites yet to see and there are a lot of places to scavenge around due to all the boats that anchor every year and drop stuff.

So what do I like? I like being under water close to home, diving off my boat, diving with my friends, diving dry, exploring my back yard (I live on the lake), looking forward to diving the historic sites, scavenging and just plain diving.

 

[spectrum]

1. I can be in the water within an hour of leaving work
2. The overhead is a couple extra miles of driving and I don't need to go through security.
3. No pain about packing the minimum. I can bring 1/2 a dive shop as my save-a-dive and not give it a second thought.
4. We have lots of sites and keep locating more.
5. I get to experience the same environment over the seasons and see how things evolve over the seasons as well as year to year.
6. By warm water standards our visibility is limited but in general it's perfectly fine for 2-3 person dive teams to keep track of each other and there's plenty to see.
7. Plant life that I find as interesting as any other bottom I've seen. Maybe not as exotic as other places but it's often lush and colorful.
8. I have fresh and salt water sites nearby that I can choose with the conditions.
9. Conditions allow a wide range of diving from permitting a shorty to making a drysuit very desirable. Oh, and we have ice in the winter too.
10. If I come down with a cold or get sick I do something else and no investment is lost.
11. I know I don't have bed bugs
12. No dive master tells me I need to be up in 45 minutes
13. I get to share our local sites with guests from away
14. We get to dive cheap, for the price of fills that are 1/2 of what many pay. Eating out is the most expensive part.
16. We get to shore dive from my vehicle at our own pace, no boat schedules, fees crowds or lugging of gear.
15. ll in all I have no complaints. The off season reduces the diving and that give me time to play with my snow blowers and gives life some balance.


Pete

 

[ianw2]

Excellent topic, ozziworld!

I AM fortunate enough to live in Southern California. The diving here is world class. It’s just not a warm and toasty tropical dive. On the other hand, show me one place with warm, tropic water that sports a kelp forest like ours.

From the southern end of San Diego (including the Coronados, I suppose) to Santa Barbara, we have some 400 recognized places to dive. And that doesn’t include the Channel Islands!

Catalina is an absolute jewel that is relatively easy to access. We have the Dive Park at Avalon, a superb resource as well as a large fleet of world–class dive boats servicing local divers and providing incredible service to Catalina and the other Channel Islands. The cost for what we get on these boats is, in my opinion, second only to luxury live-aboards.

As a Divemaster, I often hear students talking about getting certified so they can dive on vacation in the tropics. They have no intention of diving here in our home waters off Southern California. What a shame and what a waste. First, denying yourself of all there is to see and experience in Southern California waters is a travesty. Second, limiting yourself to only diving in warm tropical waters when you don’t already live in those waters limits your diving and limits your skills.

I am very gratefully for living so close to superb diving. It may be colder than the tropics, but its sure a lot warmer diving here in January that it is in say, Calgary! Where else but Southern California can you dive in 70 feet of visibility off the rocky cliffs of a small island and see huge fish 4-6 feet long weight up to 600 pounds on one day and then spend 50 minutes with a great dive buddy investigating macro life at the edge of a huge marine canyon system? It may be cold here, but my dive partner and I managed to spot 5 different nudibranchs species last Sunday at Vallecitos Point!

What do I like about my local diving? EVERYTHING……

 

[diveborg]

The ONLY thing that I like about local diving is that I don't have to fly somewhere to dive.

 

[TSandM]

As a Divemaster, I often hear students talking about getting certified so they can dive on vacation in the tropics. They have no intention of diving here in our home waters off Southern California. What a shame and what a waste. First, denying yourself of all there is to see and experience in Southern California waters is a travesty.

I had to answer this. For my birthday last year, I asked for a week trip to Southern California to visit Mo2vation and HBDiveGirl, who have become good friends. At the end of the week, we had dived Anacapa, Catalina, Vets Park, Deadman's Reef, and the oil rigs. My reaction? Why does anybody go to Cozumel!

But I live on the edge of Puget Sound. What do I like about my local diving? Well, I have dozens of dives sites within an hour's drive of my house, and several very good charter operators if I want to range further, and I now have a boat to explore sites where nobody else goes. (If I remember to put the plug in it, that is.) In any weather conditions where I'm willing to leave the house, there is SOMEWHERE I can dive.

We have NO surf. Not ever. Not anywhere. Boat wakes make me wait to get in the water.

We have tons of nudibranchs. And they're nudibranchs on steroids. They aren't the quarter inch long things my buddies in SoCal have to search for on their dives. We have SERIOUS nudibranchs. Some are more than six inches long.

We have Giant Pacific Octopuses. These are amazing animals, and they aren't rare, although frequently the view one gets of them is an eye, a pulsing siphon, and an arm with suckers on it.

We have an AMAZING community of active, skilled, enthusiastic divers, many of them with superb critter-spotting and critter-identifying skills. HERE is a long-running thread, full of photos and cartoons of Puget Sound animals and dive sites. When somebody comes in from out of town, we can almost always scramble a reception committee and ensure they get some good diving in.

The scenery at the dive sites in Puget Sound is stunning. Coming up from a night dive in Cove 2 and seeing the whole Seattle skyline spread before you, and reflected in the water, is amazing. Surfacing at Titlow and facing the entire majesty of Mt. Rainier is incredible. The boat ride into the San Juan Islands, between craggy, rocky cliffs topped with evergreens and divided by blue water, is breathtaking.

Puget Sound divers are fortunate enough to have a bunch of GOOD local dive shops -- places that rent good gear, pump good gas, and have reasonable prices.

What's not to like?

 

[Tigerman]

Ummm...
I get wet?

Nah, althought the HUGE lage 1,5 minute walk from my door is quite boring a lot of places, the water temp is below 15 c/60F most of the year and the water freeze while im down in the fall its still nice to have an easilly accessible divesite right outside of your front door. Im still trying to find the really nice sites though, I know they are there!
Also im located "in the middle" of the southern part of norway, so its a 2-4 hrs to the coast almost no matter which direction I start driving..

 

[Darnold9999]

Just up the road from TSandM - all that plus ripping currents that generate giant everything. Carpets of life so thick you can't see the rock below. Last dive but one I came upon two nudi's mating - put my dry gloved fists together beside them to just check that my eyes were not deceiving me. The two together were bigger than my two fists in dry gloves together - and we have the small ones too.


An island almost 300 miles long a 90 min ferry ride away or a four hour boat ride (slow boat) with too many dive sites to dive in a lifetime. Hundreds of islands just off shore. There are places to dive, if you have a boat, that nobody has explored yet, that are as good as it gets in cold water diving. Some of the best cold water diving on the planet within a day's drive.

The vis can be crappy, but that is what creates all the life from macro to orca and humpback. The water can be cold - well not can be - IS cold all year round. But you can dive 12 months of the year and most do.