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NORTH AMERICA
Health of Marine Environment
1. Florida Keys — Here’s how it happens in North America’s tropical escape: You designate 2,900 square miles of water as a marine sanctuary — encompassing huge swaths of sea grass, endless miles of mangroves, the world’s third largest barrier reef — and then sink dozens of giant ships to take on the overflow from the reef. For marine life, this ensures a protective shell around the cycle of life; it means intact habitat and places of refuge for fish and invertebrates. For divers, this means more fish, more predators and more prey, and encounters that range from manatees to tarpon to turtles. Best of all, these experiences don’t require a passport — they’re a short flight away in the Florida Keys. — TS
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/florida
2. Canada/British Columbia — www.scubadiving.com/canada
3. Southeast Florida — www.scubadiving.com/florida
Big Animals
1. North Carolina — North Carolina has long been known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic for its more than 2,000 recorded wrecks, including three WWII German U-boats and Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge. And, like all good shipwrecks, they attract marine life like an oasis in the sea. At several sites, you’ll be able to get within kissing distance of snaggle-tooth sand tiger sharks, big nurse sharks and giant mantas. Big, bad animals, it would seem, like to hang out in graveyards. — TS
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/northcarolina
2. Southeast Florida — www.scubadiving.com/florida
3. Texas — www.scubadiving.com/texas
Macro Life
1. Southeast Florida — Divers might think exotic macro diving is the sole domain of the Pacific or the Caribbean, but they’d be wrong. North America is home to a number of destinations where, if you look closely, you’ll be surprised with macro finds. While there are a handful of good macro spots, Florida’s best site for the weird and wonderful — and the reason it gets top spot — is West Palm Beach’s Blue Heron Bridge, where colorful flounders vie for real estate with Pegasus sea moths, and octopuses make discarded bottles and sneakers their home. — DE
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/florida
2. Canada/British Columbia — www.scubadiving.com/canada
3. Southern California — www.scubadiving.com/california
Wreck Diving
1. North Carolina — Ship captains might hate the shallow shoals off its famous capes, but divers love them for the wrecks they’ve snared. While North Carolina doesn’t have the purpose-sunk stars of the Keys (the Spiegel Grove comes in at No. 8 on the Gold List) or Southern California (the Yukon grabbed No. 74), it does have plenty of swoon-worthy WWII wrecks to choose from. The highlight is the U-352, a WWII German submarine that sits 120 feet deep. There’s also the Papoose, the submarine Tarpon and more than 50 other wrecks that have been accounted for. The Great Lakes might have more wrecks and New York/New Jersey more challenging ones, but the divable wealth of rusted metal beneath North Carolina’s balmy waters make it the capital of Wreck Diving in the USA. — DE
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/northcarolina
2. Florida Keys — www.scubadiving.com/florida
3. Southern California — www.scubadiving.com/california
Diving for Advanced
1. Great Lakes — Beyond the easy diving most recreational divers prefer is the fist-pumping adrenalin of more advanced sites. Great Lakes divers have a certain swagger. They like the challenge of deep-wreck dives in cold waters. They like the feel of twins on their back, and redundant gear. Trimix is as common as snow in winter. Drysuits are sexy. Diving to 200 feet with deco time is considered a lunch break. The allure here, despite the conditions, is the thousands of intact shipwrecks that date from the Colonial era to present day. Every Great Lakes diver has a little black book of GPS coordinates for the “secret” wrecks they share only with their friends, but never with nondivers, and certainly not with warm-water princesses. — TS
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/greatlakes
2. Canada/British Columbia — www.scubadiving.com/canada
3. New York/New Jersey — www.scubadiving.com/northeast
Underwater Photography
1. Florida Keys — Go to Key Largo, open the phone book and look up underwater photographers. There are lots of them. Real famous shutterbugs like Stephen Frink, Bill Harrigan, Tom and Therisa Stack, among others. They tend to gather in places where the subjects are evocative, interesting and diverse, the water’s clear, the conditions are favorable year-round and the sky is sunny. The expanse of the Florida Keys that stretches from Key Largo to Key West encompasses a lifetime’s pursuit of Underwater Photography. There are giant wrecks (the Spiegel Grove and Vandenberg), Big Animals that range from sharks to manatees, and a healthy ecosystem famous for its large aggregations of snapper, grunts and spadefish. Every dive here represents two things for underwater photographers: opportunity and more opportunity. — TS
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/florida
2. Southeast Florida — www.scubadiving.com/florida
3. California/Channel Islands — www.scubadiving.com/california
Value for Diving Dollar
1. British Columbia — It’s not so much the exchange rate, or the multitude of dive shops and boats on this Canadian dive island. It’s just that they like to dive, and to take you to see things you’ll not experience anywhere else. So they make it reasonable and easy (and the Vancouver Island Canadians are just so dang friendly about it too). After dives on bountiful shipwrecks off Nanaimo, Victoria and Campbell River (there are 1.5 shipwrecks per mile here, including the famed Saskatchewan, Cape Breton and Riv Tow), seeing the primitive six-gill sharks off Barkley Sound and such cool critters as monkey-faced eels, wolf eels, sea lions and giant Pacific octopuses on the big side, and hooded nudibranchs on the small side, you’ll have one single compulsion: to emigrate. — TS
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/canada
2. North Carolina — www.scubadiving.com/northcarolina
3. Southeast Florida — www.scubadiving.com/florida
Overall Rating of Destination
1. Florida Keys — Protect it, nurture it, grow it. Throw in great diver bars, interesting night life, sun, sand, a free-spirited local community that favors personal freedom over profit, and conch chowder, and you’ve got North America’s top-rated destination by the people it matters most to: readers. If you dig shipwrecks, there’s a shipwreck trail that will take the rest of your life to fully explore. If you like healthy reefs, the world’s third-largest string of coral seascape parallels the 126 miles of the Keys. It’s all part of the massive Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary, and it just keeps getting better each year. — TS
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/floridakeys
2. Canada/British Columbia — www.scubadiving.com/canada
3. Southeast Florida — www.scubadiving.com/florida
Marine Life
1. Canada/British Columbia — www.scubadiving.com/canada
2. California/Channel Islands — www.scubadiving.com/california
3. North Carolina — www.scubadiving.com/southeast
Visibility
1. Southeast Florida — www.scubadiving.com/florida
2. Florida Keys — www.scubadiving.com/floridakeys
3. Great Lakes — www.scubadiving.com/midwest
Wall Diving
1. Canada/British Columbia — www.scubadiving.com/canada
2. Monterey — www.scubadiving.com/california
3. California/Channel Islands — www.scubadiving.com/california
Snorkeling
1. Florida Keys — www.scubadiving.com/floridakeys
2. California/Channel Islands — www.scubadiving.com/california
3. Southeast Florida — www.scubadiving.com/florida
Shore Diving
1. Monterey — www.scubadiving.com/california
2. Southeast Florida — www.scubadiving.com/florida
3. Florida Keys — www.scubadiving.com/floridakeys
Diving for Beginners
1. Florida Keys — www.scubadiving.com/floridakeys
2. Southeast Florida — www.scubadiving.com/florida
3. Monterey — www.scubadiving.com/california
Overall Rating of the Diving
1. Canada/British Columbia — www.scubadiving.com/canada
2. California/Channel Islands — www.scubadiving.com/california
3. Florida Keys — www.scubadiving.com/floridakeys
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