What’s Your Favorite Dive Spot for Beginners?

[Bookmon]

I look at this reply with aspect of location, location, location. In Alabama? Go to the quarries or NW FLA Springs like Vortex or Morrison. Fallon, NV? Soda Lake or drive over to Lake Tahoe. When you are young and excited, any place to get wet is fine, fine, fine. Seek the local hidden gems and go. Heck fire, for some of us older than Mae West BCDs dirt divers, any place is fine.

 

[DanBMW]

Probably any place in the Florida Keys, Gulf of Mexico, Eastern Atlantic, and especially the Caribbean. My wife and I got certified in the early 80's and those were our go to place for many years. We have since branched out to the rest of the world.

 

[askip3]

Depends on a lot of factors, but for easy, safe beginner diving I’d look at going to some of the Florida springs. Most of them are crystal clear, and its shallow water diving in a contained area so lots of down time with no current or need to navigate. Just be sure to educate yourself on not going into caves. You can plan a day, or several days, and hit several spots in a single day and they’re all very different. All of them are great to visit in the off season when the crowds are down. Some you can dive…some only allow snorkeling. A few good ones I can remember are drift diving in the Rainbow river, Ginnie springs which is actually three springs along the Suwanne river, Devil’s den, Salt Spring which I believe is snorkel only, and Vortex which is in the panhandle which has a beautiful cavern entrance with limestone formations.

 

[Submerged_Stories]

I strongly recommend Grand Cayman. The conditions are ideal for a beginning diver: compared to other caribbean islands it's fairly protected from the weather so you never get blown out, theres no current for a new diver to deal with, viz is great, water temp is perfect, and, oh yea, lots of reefs, sea life, and wrecks.

And the top side infrastructure is great. It's a long established dive destination with a lot of high quality dive operators to choose from. Many of them do "valet" diving and will help you set up gear and get on/off the boat. English is the primary language and lots of nice resorts and restaurants.

The biggest challenge for me is price. Hotels can be costly and sell out quickly during the high season. But I took my partner there to learn to dive and it worked! She got hooked and has eased her way into more challenging dives.

 

[xanaphyst]

I'm a brand new diver and did Kyalami Divers in West Palm Beach for my first dive. Its a boat dive in about 60ft water. I hired a private DM and everything worked out great. Its a drift dive so you barely even have to swim. It was a great experience and very reasonable cost.

 

[The Chairman]

The Keys are great and safety is way above par. I do a lot of new dives in the North Florida Springs.

 

[Brett Hatch]

The house reef at Buddy Dive in Bonaire is my favorite dive site for newbies. But, not every newbie is up for an international dive trip, so they'd be best off asking local dive shops for advice about easy local sites

 

[34109411]

Hi everyone,

I’ve recently been helping a few friends get into scuba diving, and it made me wonder: what are your favorite dive sites for beginners?

I think shallow reefs with good visibility and mild currents are the best for building confidence. Places like Key Largo or Cozumel come to mind.

For those with more experience, do you have any tips for introducing beginners to their first open water dive without overwhelming them?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and learning about some great starter spots!

my bathtub ?

 

[Altamira]

Curacao, Bonaire, and Grand Cayman would be at the top of my list if you want to venture a little farther away than Florida.