United States Dive Sites — Page 28

Showing 649–672 of 1,024

Continued from the United States dive sites guide, which covers regions, seasonality, and planning details.

Navajo Lake

New Mexico · 3–30.5 m

New Mexico's largest lake, a 15,590-acre reservoir on the San Juan River in the state's northwest corner, with depths to 100 feet in the dived areas near the dam. Most diving is by boat from the state park marinas; walk-in entry is possible near the dam/spillway when the lake level is high, though it requires hauling gear down a steep hill. Visibility is modest (10-15 ft) and water ranges from the 40s F in winter to about 75 F in summer.

IntermediateShore + boat

Navy Dive Tender YDT-15

Florida · Up to 27.4 m

Artificial reef built from 132' Navy Dive Tender, 312 tons (1 1st of two this date)

IntermediateBoat entry

Nelson Ledges Quarry Park

Ohio · —

Nelson Ledges Quarry Park is a private 250-acre spring-fed quarry lake, campground and festival venue in Garrettsville, Portage County, that also operates as a scuba site. Local dive schools maintain training courses and marked bottom attractions in water averaging about 30 feet deep, and the park hosts diver events such as Halloween and treasure dives. Water is officially tested twice a season and rates among the cleanest in Ohio.

Shore entry

New Hope Rock

California · Up to 12 m

A rocky pinnacle reef in the Point Loma kelp beds peaking within about 20 feet of the surface and dropping toward 40-60 feet on the sand. Boat access only, typically launched from Shelter Island or Mission Bay, with kelp forest, caves, and dense fish and invertebrate life.

Boat entry

Newport - South Jetty / Yaquina Bay

Oregon · 4.6–18 m

Newport on the central Oregon coast hosts roughly ten dive sites in and around Yaquina Bay and just offshore, with the south jetty area at South Beach being a longtime shore- and boat-diving hub. The 'Newport Fingers' are five rocky outcroppings off the south jetty; fingers 3 and 4 are favored as they are more protected than the fifth and deeper than the second. Sites offer rocky reef structure, marine invertebrates and fish in cold, often surgy Pacific water.

IntermediateShore + boat

Newport Beach Center

California · Up to 21.9 m

A dive site in United States. The site reaches a maximum depth of about 22 m. The site is reached by boat.

IntermediateBoat entry

Newport News Middle Ground Reef

Virginia · Up to 6.7 m

Artificial reef built from concrete

Boat entry

Niagara Wreck

Wisconsin · Up to 16.8 m

The 245-ft sidewheel palace steamer Niagara caught fire and sank on September 24, 1856, off Belgium, Wisconsin, killing more than 60 people in one of Wisconsin's deadliest transportation disasters. The wreck lies in 55 ft of water one mile offshore, almost directly off Harrington Beach State Park, and is an underwater museum of mid-19th-century technology: the huge walking-beam engine, cylinders, boilers and hull. A WHS seasonal mooring buoy marks the site.

IntermediateBoat entry

Niles Beach

Massachusetts · 3–7.6 m

Niles Beach sits inside Gloucester Harbor on Eastern Point, giving it some of the most protected water on Cape Ann. The gradually sloping sandy bottom only reaches about 15-25 ft, so it serves mainly as a training venue and a reliable backup when ocean-facing sites are blown out. Summer parking requires a Gloucester resident beach sticker, though walk-on access is open to all.

Shore entry

Noquebay Wreck

Wisconsin · 3–5 m

The Noquebay was a 205-foot schooner-barge that burned and sank in Julian Bay off Stockton Island in 1905. The wreckage field lies in only 10-15 feet of water, trending north/south for about 230 feet, with large intact sections of bow, sides and machinery variably exposed or buried in sand. Marked by a Wisconsin Historical Society mooring buoy, it is one of the Apostle Islands' most popular beginner wreck dives and an excellent snorkel and kayak site.

Boat entry

Nordmeer Wreck (Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary)

Michigan · Up to 12.2 m

The Nordmeer was a 471-ft German steel freighter that ran onto Thunder Bay Shoal in November 1966 after turning the wrong side of the marker buoy. Once partially above water, the wreck has collapsed and now lies fully submerged in about 40 ft of Lake Huron roughly seven miles north of Thunder Bay Island, with the large diesel engine and big steel hull sections to explore. It is one of the most visited dive sites in Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary and suits newer wreck divers in calm conditions.

IntermediateBoat entry

Norfork Lake (Robinson Point / Henderson Bridge area)

Arkansas · 6.1–45.7 m

A clear Ozark reservoir near Mountain Home with about 31 charted dive sites concentrated around the Robinson Point, Hand Cove and Jordan recreation areas. The marquee attraction is the old Henderson Bridge, a massive concrete highway span submerged when the lake filled in the 1940s, lying near Robinson Point. Recreational diving is good at 20-40 ft, with deeper sites to 70 ft and a couple of wall dives dropping toward 150 ft. Spring visibility can reach 40-60 ft.

IntermediateShore + boat

Norman Wreck

Michigan · 52–64 m

The Norman, an 1890 Globe Iron Works steel steamer and one of the first propeller-driven steel lakers, sank in a 1895 collision and lies 10.5 miles east-southeast of Presque Isle in Lake Huron. She sits broken in two with a 45-degree port list in 170-210 ft of water, her double-wheeled wheelhouse lying alongside and a yawl boat and massive collision hole on display. Cold water has preserved her superbly, making her one of the marquee technical dives of the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary's deep Presque Isle group.

ExpertBoat entry

Norris Lake - Loyston Point

Tennessee · Up to 36.6 m

Norris Lake, the TVA's oldest reservoir (1936) north of Knoxville, is rated the cleanest lake in the Tennessee Valley and is a popular freshwater dive destination. The Loyston Point area features a standing 'ghost forest' whose treetops can be reached around 80 ft, with the bottom near 120 ft. Shore and boat diving are both practical from the TVA Loyston Point recreation area; visibility typically runs 10-15 ft.

IntermediateShore + boat

NORTH STAR (55 ft long wooden eastern rig dragger) Wreck

Massachusetts · Up to 25.6 m

The North Star was a 55-foot wooden eastern rig dragger built in 1967 in Portland, Maine, that fished out of Gloucester until it capsized on August 28, 2003, when an overloaded clam dredge rolled the vessel; both crew members were rescued by a nearby fishing boat. The wreck lies in about 100 feet of water on the northern end of Stellwagen Bank in three scattered sections: the hull, a clam dredge roughly 100 feet away, and deck machinery still linked to the dredge by towing cable. NOAA's Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary once maintained a dive mooring here, but the site has since been heavily damaged and displaced by scallop fishing gear and is no longer maintained as a recreational dive site.

IntermediateBoat entry

Northern Neck Reef

Virginia · Up to 10.1 m

Artificial reef built from concrete

Boat entry

Northerner Wreck

Wisconsin · 20–43 m

The two-masted schooner Northerner capsized and sank off Port Washington in 1868 while under tow and now sits upright and remarkably intact in about 140 feet of water. Her main mast still stands some 75 feet above the deck, the bowsprit and a rare carved figurehead survive, and her cargo of cordwood remains stacked in the hold. Frequently 80-plus-foot visibility makes it one of the most photogenic wrecks on Wisconsin's Shipwreck Coast, but the depth makes this a serious advanced dive.

AdvancedBoat entry

NOSC Tower

California · 9–18 m

The NOSC Tower was a 100-foot steel research platform secured to the seafloor about a mile off Mission Beach in 1959 by the Naval Ocean Systems Center for oceanographic and acoustics experiments. A large winter storm toppled it in 1988, leaving a 40-foot-square base and a tangle of girders and beams in 30-60 feet of water - the only Wreck Alley structure not sunk intentionally. The open lattice is plastered with strawberry and yellow anemones, gorgonians, hydrocoral, sponges and mussels, making it one of the most life-dense and photogenic dives in San Diego.

IntermediateBoat entry

Nubble Lighthouse (Sohier Park)

Maine · 1.5–15.2 m

Maine's signature shore dive at Sohier Park in York, beneath the famous Cape Neddick 'Nubble' Lighthouse. Divers enter from sloping granite ledges into a kelp-covered shallow ledge that drops along a steep wall to about 40-50 feet, with boulders, nooks and dense invertebrate life throughout. The entry/exit over the ledge is the crux and is far easier near high tide; the site draws check-out classes from all over New England.

IntermediateShore entry

O.J. Walker

Vermont · 18.3–19.8 m

An 86-foot schooner-rigged sailing canal boat built in Burlington in 1862, sister-type to the General Butler, which sank in a sudden windstorm on May 11, 1895 while hauling bricks and tiles from Mallett's Bay. She sits upright in about 65 feet of water in Burlington Bay with her ship's wheel, masts, anchors, and cargo of bricks (plus the hand carts used to move them) still in place. It is the only Vermont Underwater Historic Preserve wreck that requires a per-dive permit, reserved in advance at the Burlington Community Boathouse.

IntermediateBoat entry