Beach dives in Florida??

[Timothy McCandless]

Does anyone know of any good or descent beach dives on the East or West coast of FL? Preferrably areas with good vis. Doesn't have to be the best reefs, just nice. We want to get some more diving in, but hate doing lake dives and don't want to spend the money to go out on a boat every other weekend.

Thanks
Tim

[oceanjunkie]

Tim,

Although I havent done much of it, I know theres good beach diving around here. South of the dania beach pier theres reefs in pretty close, and north of the pier theres an artificial reef called the eurojacks. Then supposedly theres a good beach diving spot up in Pompano on commercial ave (i think) and somewhere in Boca. I think theres a book out there dedicated to the topic, and I know I've seen websites listing sites around the area.

-jb

[max628]

Scubatec out of Destin offers a two dive boat trip for $45. a person if you have your own gear. Did it last week vis was ok at 90 ft . Dove white hill reef and a sunken liberty ship. Was pretty cool.

[max628]

Forgot you could also dive the jetties in Destin pretty small area but tons of fish, its where all the snorkel trips take there fares. Also I was in Panama city a few years ago at the jetties there, its a state park, but you could rent dive gear right there at the park and it was very cheap.

[AzSnake]

Wow all this talk about Destin. I was in Destin in July 2001 and the water was horrible. They had an algae bloom and the vis sucked. Also I didn't see a whole lot of live in Destin other than fish. Me and 3 friends chartered a boat and we brought home about 40+ lbs in Snapper, grouper, King Mac etc fillets. The fishing was unbelievable. We dropped a line in and it was in the water no more than 2 min and we were reeling our catch up. I also caught a 8' Black tip when I was surf fishing. I was up to my waste and was using light tackle. I thought I had a nice ray but after 35 min of bringing this fish in I realized it was a shark. you could imagine the sinking feeling when I say the fish about 10' away and I was up to my chest in the water. I hadn't turned on a TV in the 2 weeks I was their and I latter found out that during this time is when most of the shark attacks were happening just East and West of Destin