Posted by Elaine on October 27, 2003 at 18:47:01:
In Reply to: North (or South) Carolina Diving. Anyone done it? posted by Wayne on October 27, 2003 at 16:32:51:
I dove off North Carolina not long ago. If you think you can get on a boat that will go it is definitely worth taking your dive gear.
I went out with Olympus Dive Center in Moorehead City, North Carolina. They have an excellent reputation as a dive operator and for my trip they lived up to it.
North Carolina Diving is a bit different than California Diving. The boat trip out to the diving is about two hours - similar to an LA to Catalina run. What is different is that in North Carolina a two hour boat run puts you in the middle of the ocean over a wreck with no land in sight.
The wrecks are perfectly good. One of the ones that I dove was covered with silversides, and had many colorful resident tropicals such as Angelfish and Atlantic Spadefish. Sharks are a common sight, but, on my dive day there were none. All wrecks that I dove were missing the colorful anemonies etc. that we enjoy in California. The North Carolina wrecks were basically steel, covered with short dull marine life such as hydroids, and, not much else. The amount of structure left depends on the wreck. Taking parts of the wrecks home with you is evidently the norm, I don't think they are protected at all.
It is a great experience. I only had one day to dive the Outer Banks, and, I would have loved to have had at least a week. I personally think our California wrecks are "better", but, we don't have the warmer water and a norm of good visibility.