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Jacksonville Area Diving
What's diving like in the Jacksonville area?
Few
divers think of Jacksonville when they think of great Florida diving.
But the diving here is often surprisingly good. We think it is one
of the better kept secrets around. The area water is rich with
nutrients.
This
does meaning that average visibilities are lower than the
average visibility in South Florida or the keys. But it also means
richer sea life in greater abundance.
In today's Florida Keys diving, a school of even 100 fish bigger
than juveniles has become unusual. Offshore Jacksonville, it is
still not uncommon to see
schools of thousands of grunts or baitfish which can totally obscure
a wreck from 30 feet away.
A newly-placed wreck in Miami or farther south may
be down for years; yet you can still easily read painted letters
on the hull. A wreck which has been down half that length of time
in Jacksonville often has its painted signs completely obscured
by inches of thick growth.
Like any ocean location, storms or unseasonable thermoclines can
trash the temperatures or take visibility down to zero. But typical
area
summer visibilities
range
from 40 to
100 feet with bottom temps in the low 80's at sport diving depths.
Typical winter visibilities might be more like 15 to 40 feet with
bottom
temps in the mid-to-high 50's.
The St. Johns River exits into the ocean at the Mayport Jetties
on the southeast side of Jacksonville, carrying with it a dark
brown natural Mangrove-based stain color and its associated poor
visibility. This staining
limits
typical
visibilities
within a few miles of shore. The point where this ends varies,
but by
9 miles out the visibilities are unaffected.
There is a great deal of diving variety within sport diving depths.
In the nearer-shore area quadrants like 9-Mile, depths typically
vary from 68 to 85 feet on the sand. Shallower training depths
in the 60 foot range can be found on the upper decks and bridges
of some wrecks. The very productive hunting
areas more like 20 miles offshore typically range from 90 to 105
feet in depth. Jacksonville diving extends all the way to the Gulf
Stream (whose track varies from 60 to 90 miles or so
offshore) at which depths range from 120+ feet to as deep as you
care to go.
Currents are not unusual offshore. It's usually a good idea to
keep your discipline in coming back up the anchor line.
The Jacksonville area has some natural limestone offshore ledges.
Fortunately it also has a very active artificial reef building
program. The annual Greater
Jacksonville Kingfish Tournament brings
millions of dollars of spending to the area each year. (The tournament
has had to cap the number of entries at 1,000 boats each of
the last few years)! The tournament's success has helped maintain
shared goals of reef building between the city, the
local
sportfishing club, and area divers. The city and the Jacksonville
Offshore Sport Fishing Club typically arrange for the reef material
and the funding for transporting it offshore. Volunteer divers
of the Jacksonville Reef Research
Team (a volunteer group originally
founded by the Jacksonville Scubanauts) perform the underwater
engineering surveys required for reef permitting by the EPA.
As a result, there are large numbers of sites offshore Jacksonville.
Until a few years ago, the old Dry Docks reef was the largest offshore
artificial reef on the Eastern coast of the United States. (The
Spiegel Grove and, I believe, one other recent placement are now
longer).
If your tastes run to fresh water diving, there are large numbers
of inland spring dives within a 2 to 3 hour drive from the area.
Where I can I book a public dive
boat?
Here are the public dive boats we know of which are currently
running the Jacksonville area. We'll be glad to list more if anyone
will
bring
them to our
attention.
Legal disclaimer: We receive no consideration of any
kind for mentioning any of these resources and explicitly do
not warrant them, their competency, or any related opinions or
information (prices, times, etc.) in
any way.
We
are merely letting you know they exist so you can research them
for
yourself.
(Our
apologies
for
having
to
put
you
through even reading such a disclaimer).
The largest and oldest operator is Atlantic
Pro Dive (904-270-1747). They have
been in this area for many, many years. They currently run the "Native Diver II";
the largest public dive boat with accommodations for 12 divers.
The boat is based near the Mayport Jetties and is
a fixture in the area. The pro's are that this operation knows
what
they
are
doing
and
is
used to new divers
and divers unfamilar with the area. Spearfishing and lobstering
are permitted in season. The con's are that Native Diver II is
relatively slow
(12 knots
or
so)
and
usually
visits
only
relatively close-in sites in 9-Mile are offshore.
Jacksonville Scuba Center (904-223-1300)
runs a smaller 6-pack dive boat. A typical dive is $100 a head
for 2-tank
dives and goes out 20-25
miles. They typically leave at 6:30am
and get back round 3:00pm. Spearfishing and lobstering are permitted
in season.
What are the current dive conditions offshore
Jacksonville?
Probably the quickest way to get sea state and temperature
from afar is to check the NOAA
Station 41012 sea buoy 40 miles ENE of St. Augustine. It will
give you surface temps and average wave heights. Recent visibility
and subsurface conditions can be found on our home
page. We list other dive planning resources on the our Dive
Links pages.
From the dive links, you
may want to check the Florida East Coast Spearfishing forum on Spearboard.com -
a spearfishing web site whose posters are great about mentioning
bottom temps, visibility, and current information. The forum
usually has recent postings about dives in the Jacksonville or
nearby St.
Augustine area.
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