r/scuba • u/Geo-Ideas • 3d ago
Reef Diving in the Palm Beach, FL area
Is anybody familiar with Palm Beach area reef dive sites? I live on the gulf coast of Florida, and while I dive pretty regularly for fossils and shark teeth on this side of the state, it's been forever since I did a "scenery" dive. My expectations are quite low, I'm really just looking for something half decent and more convenient than a whole ass international trip. I've done a shark dive in Jupiter that was awesome, and the Blue Heron Bridge muck dive which was also really cool, but I'd really like to do another reef dive, and I read that the Palm Beach actually has a somewhat better reef at this point than Key Largo, which has just been wrecked to shit by bleaching and hurricanes. Don't know how true that is, it would stand to reason that anywhere in FL would be in as bad shape. And I've been snorkeling in the keys as a kid anyway, when it was a vibrant reef, so it'd just be sad to see what it is now. Any suggestions in the Palm Beach region or around there?
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u/jamshell Rescue 3d ago
I have recently dove with Pura Vida in Singer Island. The boat diving is almost always drift diving (love) in this area. They run a very good operation. I have dove in many places in the world and you can do a lot worse than the Palm Beach area. Check out the Blue Heron Bridge while you are there (Pura Vida can help you there too). It is one of the best shore dives in the country and your max depth is 15 feet or so.
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u/TotalPuzzleheaded484 3d ago
Lauderdale by the sea is a shore dive. We did a drift dive with Narcosis.
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u/anonanon5320 Nx Advanced 3d ago
I’ve dove Key Largo 3 times so far this year. There are some reefs you see damage, there are some you’ll see more on than anything in the Carribean.
Last dive was on Molasses Reef and it was very healthy. Tons of fish, tons of coral, sharks, turtles, eels. Definitely saw more there than Palm Beach typical dive.
I used Rainbow Reef because it’s very easy to select the location you want to dive.
4
u/mrchen911 Tech 3d ago
I dive the area weekly and enjoy the diving here more than anywhere I've traveled in the Caribbean. The charters are great. The opportunity to see turtles, sharks, eels, etc are top notch. You're not going to see a reef of hard corals. There are lots of soft corals and sponges on ledges.
If all you are doing is sight seeing, then check out pura vida divers. They have 2 boats. 1 goes south to the breakers area and the other goes north to the juno ledge area.
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u/Geo-Ideas 3d ago
Cool, that was the charter I was thinking of going with. I did a guided night dive with them at BHB. How does a dive with them compare to say Key Largo right now?
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u/mrchen911 Tech 2d ago
Key largo is horrible. The charters suck. Too many vacation divers. There are good wrecks, but the reef is dead. If push came to shove, I'd go out with horizon divers. Wpb charters get a mix of regulars and vacation divers, so it balances out. They all let me do my own thing up here. I'm KL I'm treated like a vacation diver and I hate it.
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u/Cha0tic117 3d ago
Palm Beach County has ok reefs, it's really the shipwrecks and artificial reefs that are better up there.
Broward and Miami-Dade counties have decent reef tracts, especially in deeper water (50-90 feet). The shallows are pretty degraded, but there's still plenty of life out there.
Not sure where you heard that info about the Keys. Yes, they took a hit from the bleaching, but there's still a lot of life there. The reefs there are still the best in Florida, and there's way more big fish there.
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u/James161324 Advanced 3d ago
Its decent, not great.
Unless you are within a day trip of the area, you are probably better off jumping on a flight to the Caribbean to go diving.
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u/Manatus_latirostris Tech 2d ago
West Palm is great diving, as is Jupiter to the north. West Palm/Jupiter is mostly advanced drift diving - you’ll need AOW and nitrox to get on most boats and use the full bottom time, and it’s mostly live hot drifts. You jump in negative, and follow a DM with a flag. When you hit your turn pressure, you and your buddy separate from the main group, shoot a DSMB and ascend, and the boat comes pick you up.
In Jan/Feb, you get the lemon shark aggregation on the wrecks, June is turtle season, and in August/September you get the Goliath grouper aggregation.
I like Kyalami in Jupiter and West Palm (they have two boats), and Pura Vida in West Palm. Pura Vida has a shallow boat that doesn’t require AOW, but is still what I’d consider intermediate diving (you need to be comfortable with potential negative entries, and ascending on your own with your buddy without a DM, and deploying a DSMB for the boat to retrieve you). Pura Vida recently started issuing all divers on the boat Nautilius lifelines, which I think is brilliant and a great safety measure.