Looking for some unique and interesting scuba diving in the US? With hundreds of amazing dive sites around the US, divers can find a wide variety of options… Sometimes diving in your typical lake, river, or reef can get dull. But fear not! We’ve put together a list of the more unique and interesting dive sites in the US! Seekout these unique and interesting locations!
Bonne Terre Mine
Bonne Terre, Missouri
This flooded mine, located far from the ocean, is now a year-round underground lake. Scuba divers may explore the region’s mining past by swimming past mine carts, tools, elevator shafts, and other relics that have been preserved in the chilly freshwater.
What you Need to know: Divers can explore the freshwater region with 24 guided dive routes which travel through buried movie theaters, offices, picks and shovels, and a drinking fountain—all remains from America’s mining past.
What’s special with this dive site: Stretching beneath the town, Bonne Terre Mine is one of the biggest artificial caverns in the world. It is a significant location in mining history, having formed more than a century ago.
Homestead Crater
Midway, Utah
Scuba divers from all over the world go to The Homestead’s hot spring, which has a base width of 400 feet and a depth of 65 feet. The quiet and mild environment doesn’t yield many noteworthy wildlife encounters, but the absence of interruptions allows for a focused, peaceful dive. Homestead Crater is a mellow dive site—no strong currents or rough waves to be found here. Rocky limestone shapes the bumpy depths, which can usually be seen in relative clarity.
What you Need to know: It’s a geothermally heated body of water that is consistently 92-96 degrees all year round. Also, you must have reservations to be able to dive into this site
What’s special with this dive site: Homestead Crater is the only warm scuba diving destination in the continental US.
Blue Heron Bridge
One of the best dive locations in the world, not just in Florida or the United States, is the Blue Heron Bridge. That’s quite amazing given that its maximum depth is only about 22 feet. This treasure, which is situated in West Palm Beach’s Phil Foster Park, has the best clarity, visibility, and accessibility.
What you need to know: This dive site is well-known for its knack to deliver exceptionally beautiful underwater photos.
What’s special about this dive site: Many divers and snorkelers have reported over 100 species of fish sighted on a single dive on this premier dive location.
Spiegel Grove
Key Largo, Florida
Approximately six miles off the shore of Key Largo is the Spiegel Grove dive site. This amazing dive site is ideally suited for more experienced divers because it is situated in approximately 135 feet of water, with the highest point being around 65 feet.
What you need to know: Because of its size and accessibility, this is a wreck you should definitely visit if you have a wreck diving certification.
What’s special about this dive site: The Spiegel Grove is so wide that on many days, the view of the superstructure will fade into a green-blue abyss.
Point Lobos
Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, California
At the northernmost point of California’s Big Sur coast, on the Monterey Peninsula, sits Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, a breathtakingly picturesque state park. Known as the “crown jewel” of California’s 280 state parks, the reserve is home to some of the richest marine habitat on the state’s coast and includes two marine protected zones. Divers can find seals, sea lions, otters, and migrating whales.
What you need to know: Diving Point Lobos is by permit only, and the park allows a maximum of 15 buddy pairs to dive per day. Most visitors explore the site as a shore dive.
What’s special about this dive site: The swimming marine life ranges from seals, sea lions and otters to torpedo rays, rockfish and lingcod.
Black Rock Point
This site has one of the most abundant and diverse fish populations on Maui, and was rated one of the top 4 beach dives in the USA. This site has abundance in marine life which includes Snapper, crocodile fish, lyre tail, small triggerfish, wrasse, parrot fish, lionfish and scorpionfish, box fish, many butterfly fish and regularly visited by turtles.
What you need to know: Approximately 10 resident Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles call this dive spot their home.
What’s special about this dive site: The Black Rock dive site has large, hard coral stacks where turtles can be found resting; between these are gullies and there is a swim-through and the wreck of a barge to explore.
Oil Rigs
Southern California
Over 25 oil platforms may be found along the coastal stretch between Santa Barbara and Huntington Beach. These enormous structures are amazing man-made reefs that provide a wall-like habitat for a wide variety of encrusting marine life. In addition to millions of barnacles, soft corals, sponges, and anemones, divers can find a variety of macro animals clinging to the metal constructions.
What you need to know: Sea lions frequently dive off the rigs to play with divers during their safety stop, and all three of the rigs are popular with recreational divers because of the amazing marine life that can be found between 30 and 100 feet (9 to 30 meters).
What’s special about this dive site: The Eureka platform sits off shore from the Los Angeles area, and is the deepest rig accessible to divers.
The HMCS Yukon Dive
San Diego, California
The HMCS Yukon was an obsolete Canadian Navy destroyer that the San Diego Oceans Foundation brought to improve the local scuba diving scene. It sank as an artificial wreck in July 2000. At a maximum depth of 100 feet (30 meters), she lies on her port side.
What you need to know: She is the largest and best preserved wreck in San Diego’s wreck alley, drawing divers from all over the nation to investigate her 100 compartment, 366-foot superstructure. The Yukon is now home to a large number of critter species, including many different nudibranchs.
What’s special about this dive site: The HMCS Yukon was a Canadian destroyer escort, 366 feet long, 40 feet wide, with six decks and over 100 compartments.
La Jolla Cove
San Diego, California
La Jolla Cove, a small beach nestled among the sandstone cliffs of Southern California, is often regarded as one of the most scenic locations in the state. Swimmers, snorkelers, and divers love this place because of the great visibility underwater. The marine life in the cove is quite healthy because it is a part of the 6,000-acre San Diego La Jolla Underwater Park Ecological Reserve.
What you need to know: Moray eels, stingrays, guitarfish, lobsters, and turtles are some of the aquatic animals you may encounter. During the summer, female leopard sharks can be spotted in shallow waters near shore, and between April and June, divers may be able to spot a sevengill shark.
What’s special about this dive site: La Jolla Cove is one of the few places in California where you can access giant kelp beds, rocky reefs, and sea caves all from a single beach entry.
San Juan Islands
Washington
Divers can find the entire spectrum of Pacific Northwest marine life, including wolf eels, giant pacific octopuses, Puget Sound crabs, rockfish, decorated and mosshead warbonnets, scalyhead sculpin, and lingcod among dense kelp forests and rocky reefs, in the nutrient-rich, inland waters of Washington.
What you need to know: The majority of diving around the San Juan Islands is done via local boat charter from Anacortes on the mainland, while there are a number of sites that may be accessed from the shore.
What’s special about this dive site: On your way to the various dive sites you may well encounter seals, steller sea lions, the elusive minke whale, Dahl’s porpoise, harbor porpoise, pacific white-sided dolphins and one of the three resident pods of orcas for which the San Juan Islands are so famous.
Baranof Island
Sitka, Alaska
If you visit in the summer, you should be able to witness large colonies of innocuous moon jellies that reach a depth of eighty feet, even though the presence of jellies can vary seasonally according to current shifts and temperature variations.
What you need to know: The numbers of moon jellies there are massive, among other species of jellies.
What’s special about this dive site: This site is a narrow canyon that offers an incredible experience, you can expect the dive to have a maximum depth of about 80 feet.
Niihau
Hawaii
Niihau has fewer corals than Kona and is not as accessible, but it more than makes up for it with an abundance of unusual and huge species. The private island of Niihau harbors some of the most unspoiled diving in Hawaii.
What you need to know: Located at the far north end of the Hawaiian archipelago, Ni‘ihau is a private island owned by the Robinson family, so there’s no tourism or industry to degrade the marine habitat.
What’s special about this dive site: Divers are likely to have close encounters with the critically endangered and endemic Hawaiian Monk Sea on this premier dive spot.
This guide is just a start to some of the best diving spots in the U.S., but these are our top 12. Now that you know ours, what are some of your favorites? Let us know in the comments section below!
