scuba diving in florida

[7trx400ex]

I plan on taking a trip to cocoa beach florida during this summer and i wanted to know of somewhere to go scuba diving along the coast. I was wondering if anybody had any suggestions where to go. It dosent have to be right in cocoa beach area but within an hour or two along the coast.
thanks
kevin

 

[dkeithma]

That's a good question. I live in Jacksonville (pretty close to there) and there aren't any charter boat dives that I know of around here. I personally wouldn't want to go scuba diving on this side, I would go to the Gulf side for that. Just my opinion though.

 

[dRockReefer]

I live about ten minutes South of Cocoa Beach, and there isn't much for diving in this area. Depends on what you want to do though. If you're wanting to dive for lobster or spearfishing you can do that. It would be 80 to 100 ft. normally and the visibility is not good at all.

To see reefs and tropical you would have to go farther South about 2 or 3 hours to the West Palm or Lauderdale areas.

 

[Robert Hoeck]

I've only dove off Cocoa once and it was during lobster season. If you can find a dive boat, there are some pretty decent areas to explore off shore. As far as beach diving goes, my advice is to get a copy of Diving Guide to Underwater Florida. There's some decent shores dives a little South of Sebastian, around Vero Beach.

I'd agree with the previous post and West Palm is going to be the prettiest area or maybe check out Jupiter. It's generally a little deeper dives and shorter of a drive.

Once you check out the book you'll get a better idea of places to explore. Also, Blue Springs in Orange City(near Orlando) is worth a dive. Need to be Cavern certified to have a light, but it's a nice place to rinse the salt off your gear.

HTH, Robert.

 

[Subw00er]

On my bucket list is to go diving (or snorkeling if possible) and pick coral frags for my tank. Is it possible to do that, perhaps with a company that has a license to do so?

 

[Raoul5Duke]

Its been several years, but my father used to live in Cocoa and we always made the trip down to West Palm to do our diving. Its drift diving, but there is some neat stuff there. Couple of small wrecks and the reef off the Breakers Resort, doubt that is even there anymore. Like I said, this was years ago.

 

[NiTr0x911]

West Palm has incredible diving.better than the Keys IMO.If you want to go out on a boat I recomend -Deep Obsessions.Incredible staff.Jim Abenethy owns it and is hands on.If you dont want to charter, theres a fair amount of shore diving.

 

[likefish]

any of the piers or jetties will have zoas and inverts if you look enough. I have found quite a few in the pompino beach area. You can harvest them with a salt water fishing license. The laws are very specific, read em before you go.

 

[YamahaF934]

Thanks for the info. I am planning my trip right now.

 

[AC11337]

I live in Melbourne. South of Cocoa. I am poor and limited to beach dives. The furthest north I've ever dove is in Sebastian Inlet and just off Vero beach. But the vis is unpredictable at best. Pepper Park in Ft. Pierce is the closest reliable shore dive. Further south, Blue Heron Bridge is another free and easy dive. Down in south Florida there's great diving all over. The Lauderdale by the sea pier is an excellent shore dive.