United States Dive Sites — Page 32

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

Portage Quarry

Ohio · 3–21.3 m

Portage Quarry Recreation Club, just south of Bowling Green, was for decades one of Ohio's most popular dive quarries: a 23-acre spring-flooded limestone pit with average depths of 50-60 feet and a maximum around 70 feet. Attractions sunk for divers included a 68-foot Hansa jet, a bladeless helicopter, a school bus, a grain silo and a swim-through semi-trailer. The property changed hands and the recreation club is now listed as closed; divers should confirm status before planning a visit.

Shore entry

Portsmouth Mine Pit Lake

Minnesota · 3–137.2 m

A flooded iron-ore pit on the edge of Crosby in the Cuyuna Range, and at roughly 400-450 ft the deepest lake entirely within Minnesota. Its rock-filtered water gives up to 50 ft of visibility, and divers work the sheer walls, shelves and old mine features; most recreational dives stay in the 30-100 ft range while technical divers go far deeper. The Minnesota School of Diving in Brainerd leads group dives here several days a week from May through October.

IntermediateShore entry

Poseidon's Playground (3-Mile Reef)

Alabama · Up to 12 m

Poseidon's Playground is a permitted recreational dive site about 3 miles south of Perdido Pass on the eastern edge of the R.V. Minton Artificial Reef Zone, set in roughly 40 ft of water. It features placed statues (Venus, Apollo and Poseidon) and reef structures, making it a popular shallow, easy site for novice divers and refresher dives. Boats are asked to anchor outside a designated no-anchor zone over the structures.

Boat entry

Poseidons Garden

Florida · Up to 13.7 m

Artificial reef built from 14 - 12" Blocks Arranged in 55" Base L X 36" Base W X 36" High

Boat entry

Possum Kingdom Lake - Hell's Gate

Texas · 3–30.5 m

Hell's Gate is a pair of 90-foot limestone cliffs framing a cove on the clear south end of Possum Kingdom Lake on the Brazos River, long regarded as the best natural lake diving in North Texas. The rocky bottoms and limestone walls near the cliffs and Morris Sheppard Dam can produce visibility far better than typical Texas reservoirs in dry years. The former lakeside dive operation (Scuba Point) has closed, so divers now access the area by boat from local marinas or from coves in the state park.

IntermediateBoat entry

Presque Isle State Park (Lake Erie)

Pennsylvania · 1.5–7.6 m

Pennsylvania's only Great Lakes shoreline, a sandy peninsula on Lake Erie at Erie, PA, and one of the few places in the state where open-water shore diving is officially permitted. Certified divers must register at the park's Public Safety Building to be briefed on which waters are open for diving. Conditions are weather-dependent, with modest visibility and shallow sandy bottoms near shore; snorkeling is prohibited in park waters.

Shore entry

Pretoria Wreck

Wisconsin · 12–16 m

The 338-foot Pretoria, the largest wooden schooner-barge ever built on the Great Lakes, foundered off Outer Island in a 1905 storm with the loss of five crew. Her broken hull — large sections of sides, deck and bottom — lies on sandstone bedrock in a maximum of 54 feet of water amid a debris field that extends for miles. A WHS seasonal mooring buoy marks the main wreckage, making this remote Apostle Islands site a worthwhile intermediate dive when Lake Superior cooperates.

IntermediateBoat entry

Princess Anne

Florida · Up to 29.6 m

Artificial reef built from 340' X 58' X 52' Steel Ferry. Hull Has Broken into 2 N/S Sections

IntermediateBoat entry

Proteus

Florida · Up to 21.9 m

Artificial reef built from 220' Steel Ship, the "Proteus"

IntermediateBoat entry

Proteus

North Carolina · 27–39 m

The Proteus was a 390-ft luxury passenger liner that ran between New York and New Orleans, lost on 19 August 1918 in a collision with the SS Cushing about 20-25 miles south of Hatteras Inlet. She lies in 120-130 ft of water as a broad wreck site with engine, boilers and stern machinery providing relief. Bathed in Gulf Stream water, the site is a reliable aggregation point for sand tiger sharks plus big pelagics like amberjack, African pompano and barracuda.

AdvancedBoat entry

PS Alexander Hamilton Wreck

New Jersey · —

PS Alexander Hamilton Wreck is a wreck dive in United States. The site is reached by boat.

IntermediateBoat entry

Purnell's Reef

Maryland · 7–10 m

Purnell's Reef is a 413-acre Maryland artificial reef site 2.4 nautical miles northeast of the Ocean City Inlet, built from prefabricated concrete modules and concrete rubble in roughly 30-35 ft of water. The shallow depth and short run from the inlet make it one of the easiest ocean reef dives off Ocean City, holding sea bass, tautog, spadefish, croaker and triggerfish in season.

Boat entry

R.G. Stewart (shipwreck)

Wisconsin · —

The R.G. Stewart was a 100-foot packet steamer that ran aground on Michigan Island in fog in June 1899 and burned the next morning when her overworked boilers set the woodwork alight; one crewman drowned. Her hull remains and a scatter of superstructure artifacts lie partially buried in sand over a cobble and boulder bottom in shallow water off the island's southeast shore. The site, listed on the National Register in 1991, makes a relaxed shallow dive or snorkel for boaters exploring the outer Apostle Islands.

Boat entry

Rainbow Spring North

Florida · 1.5–7.6 m

The Rainbow River is one of Florida's classic drift dives: a crystal-clear, sand-and-eelgrass river fed by the first-magnitude Rainbow Springs group, flowing at a steady walking pace over limestone vents and fossil beds at 10-25 ft. Diving is prohibited in the Rainbow Springs State Park headspring; divers stage from KP Hole County Park, ride the water taxi upstream and drift effortlessly back to the dock. Constant 72°F water, 100 ft+ visibility and abundant fish, turtles and bubbling sand boils make it a superb beginner drift.

Shore entry

Ralph H. Skelton Reef

South Carolina · Up to 25 m

Artificial reef built from Approximate Center of Reef

IntermediateBoat entry

Redbird Reef - Chesapeake Cruiser

Delaware · 24–30 m

Redbird Reef is Delaware's best-known artificial reef, 16.5 nautical miles off the coast, built from more than 700 retired New York City 'Redbird' subway cars plus 86 military vehicles, eight tugboats and barges and thousands of tons of ballasted material. The structures sit in roughly 80-110 ft of water and are completely encrusted with cold-water corals, frilled anemones and mussels, with sea bass, tautog and flounder swimming through the car windows. The Chesapeake Cruiser record marks one of the reefed workboats on the site.

AdvancedBoat entry

Redfish Lake

Idaho · 6–30.5 m

A high-altitude glacial lake in the Sawtooth Valley near Stanley, sitting at roughly 6,547 feet of elevation, with summer visibility of 40 to 80 feet. A beach-entry training site lies at Point Campground near the lodge, where local dive centers use a navigation course and buoyancy markers. Notable features include Schoolhouse Rock (a ~14-foot boulder rising from about 20 feet), a sunken 20-foot cabin boat at 60 feet, and 'The Wall' at the south end with ledges descending to about 100 feet.

IntermediateShore + boat

Redondo Beach (Des Moines)

Washington · 3–30.5 m

One of the most popular training and night-dive sites in south Puget Sound, on the Redondo waterfront boardwalk in Des Moines next to the MaST Center aquarium. A gentle sandy slope holds guide ropes (shallow line ~50 ft, deep line ~100 ft), sunken boats, a VW bug and other debris that act as artificial reef. It is famous for muck-style critter hunting - red octopus, stubby squid and Pacific spiny lumpsuckers on night dives - with easy stair entry next to the boat ramp.

AdvancedShore entry

Redondo Beach Center

California · Up to 21.9 m

Artificial reef built from Quarry Rock, Augmentations

IntermediateBoat entry

Regina Wreck (Sanilac Shores Underwater Preserve)

Michigan · 7.6–24.4 m

The Regina is a 250-ft steel package freighter lost with all hands in the Great Storm of November 1913 and not located until 1986. She lies upside down off Port Sanilac in the Sanilac Shores Underwater Preserve in about 80 ft of Lake Huron, with the hull bottom reached at roughly 25 ft. A 56-ft opening in the hull allows qualified wreck divers into the hold, and scattered cargo still litters the lake floor around her.

IntermediateBoat entry

Research Reef

Maryland · Up to 21 m

Research Reef is a dive site located in United States. Depths run to roughly 21 m. The site is reached by boat.

IntermediateBoat entry

Rio Grande Valley

Texas · 14–20 m

RGV (Rio Grande Valley) Reef is the largest and most complex artificial reef off the Texas coast, a 1,650-acre site 13 miles northeast of South Padre Island built since 2017 from tens of thousands of recycled concrete railroad ties, cinder blocks, box culverts and cleaned steel-hulled vessels. The graduated low- and high-relief patches in roughly 45-65 ft of water hold huge numbers of red snapper and other reef fish, and local dive operators run charters to the reef alongside the nearby Texas Clipper wreck.

IntermediateBoat entry

Robert C. Pringle Wreck

Wisconsin · 85–91 m

Built in 1903 as the excursion steamer Chequamegon and converted to a tug, the Robert C. Pringle sank without loss of life off Sheboygan in 1922 after striking floating debris. Discovered by Steve Radovan in 2008, she sits upright and remarkably intact in about 300 feet of water — pilothouse with glass still in its windows, wheel, bell and searchlight all in place. This is one of Wisconsin's premier extreme-depth technical wreck dives, reserved for experienced trimix/CCR teams.

ExpertBoat entry

Rockaway Reef

New York · 9.8–12.2 m

Rockaway Reef is a 635-acre NYSDEC artificial reef in the Atlantic Ocean about 1.6 nautical miles south of Rockaway Beach, in 32-40 ft of water. Built from a barge, 60 steel buoys, Tappan Zee Bridge materials, rock and assorted concrete, with rock rubble scattered throughout, it is a relatively shallow but exposed reef. Black sea bass, tautog and scup are common; visibility runs 10-20 ft—an intermediate boat dive close to NYC.

IntermediateBoat entry