Places to Scuba Dive in Florida

The seas surrounding the Florida coast are warm and often provide excellent, unclouded underwater visibility–making Florida highly attractive to scuba divers. Scuba (short for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus") divers wear tanks containing a supply of air that they breather underwater. With its wrecks and natural and artificially constructed reefs, the Florida coast–especially the area from Miami to the Florida Keys–is teeming with exploration opportunities for scuba divers.

  1. Miami

    • Miami has much to attract scuba diving enthusiasts. Seventy-five shipwrecks off the Miami coast are available to divers, and more wrecks are being added by the Dade County Environmental Resource Management Division, which arranges for the planned sinking of ships to make artificial reefs. These artificial reefs become home to marine life, which makes them attractive to scuba divers. Artificial reefs protect the natural coral reefs, which are nearer to the coast, and have always been visited by divers. The natural reefs are often found in shallow waters, making them suitable for novice divers to explore. Graceland Reef lies in just 20 feet of water, and Emerald Reef is 30 feet down, making them ideal places for beginners to enjoy open-water diving. The Tenneco Towers is a dive site for more experienced divers. The Tennoco Towers are three oil platforms that were sunk off the Miami coast to form an artificial marine environment, and the deepest of the three requires a dive down to 190 feet.

    Florida Keys

    • The John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is well-known for being the first undersea state park in the United States. Established in 1963, it can be found near Key Largo. More than 80 species of coral are found in this protected environment, including brain coral and sea fans. Divers enjoy close-up views of hundreds of species of colorful tropical fish, and even barracuda. Shipwrecks in the waters of the Florida Keys form artificial reefs, and two large wrecks divers can explore are the Spiegel Grove and the Duane, which are in the process of becoming permanent hosts to marine life, as natural corals grow around the ships' superstructures. The Crocker Wall, just of Islamadora, southwest of Key Largo, lies in just 50 feet of water, and divers can view a variety of tropical fish there, including yellowtails and grouper.

    Fort Lauderdale

    • More than 100 recognized dive sites populate the waters off Fort Lauderdale. An ideal spot for novice divers to gain open-water diving experience is a reef just 100 yards from the shore, at a depth of 20 feet. The reef runs along a 23-mile stretch of coastal beaches, from Hallandale Beach to Deerfield Beach. At its deepest, diving at the reef reaches a depth of 100 feet, and recognized dive sites, including Barracuda Reef, have mooring buoys so that dive boats do not have to drop anchor and risk damaging the marine ecosystem on the reef below. More than 75 wrecks can be found along this stretch of the Fort Lauderdale coast, including the Jay Scutti, lying in 50 to 70 feet of water, and the Jim Atria, which more experienced divers can explore, lying in 110 to 130 feet of water.