After weeks of social distancing and staying home, venturing out to dive at the Blue Heron Bridge was the perfect interlude we needed! The Blue Heron Bridge is a popular shore dive in Florida, especially during weekends. It’s an awesome muck dive site, perfect for underwater photography. Blennies, gobies, seahorses, batfish, pipefish, frogfish, and many other tiny creatures call the Blue Heron Bridge home. Large schools of reef fish are a common sight and if you’re lucky you can also see the occasional shark, ray, turtle or manatee.
The shallow water allows plenty of sunlight to light up little critters that take refuge in the natural and manmade structures making it ideal for macrophotography. Check out this seaweed blenny spying on us from her hiding spot.
On this dive we didn’t encounter any of the big stuff, but we did see lots of small critters: gobies, blennies, arrow crabs, cleaner shrimp and even a coral clinging crab. We also saw lots of colorful reef fish, juvenile angelfish, barracudas, groupers and large schools of grunts.
Some interesting manmade features turned reef at the Blue Heron Bridge include shark sculptures, small wrecks, shopping cart arrangements and the Snorkel Trail. The latter is a row of rock piles that runs parallel to the beach at the Phill Foster Park and each one is full of life.
Look inside the nooks and crannies and find some of the beautiful critters living on the reef. It’s like going on a treasure hunt!
This dive site is very shallow (5-20 feet) and allows for long dives, snorkeling, and there’s even a swimming area for your non-diving friends to enjoy while you dive.
How to dive the Blue Heron Bridge
Unlike many other shore dive sites, diving the Blue Heron Bridge requires some extra planning. First things first, you must be able to enter and exit the water during the Phil Foster Park opening hours. Second, you must time your dive with the tide (see our post on the topic, but the general rule is to start your dive 30 minutes before high slack tide and exit 30 minutes after). Otherwise the current can be very strong and you could end up in the boat channel.
Good to know:
Parking is free at the Phil Foster Park, but it can fill up quickly, especially on weekends and holidays. So, get there early otherwise you may not find a parking place in time to dive. It’s happened to us and it was disappointing to say the least since we missed out on our dive.
Not sure what to do with your car key when shore diving, see our post: DRYFOB, A Waterproof Car Key Fob Container That Really Works!
Get a DRYFOB
Conclusion
It was wonderful to be back in the water and to escape the reality of life for an hour. Underwater there’s no talk of politics, the pandemic or racial unrest. It’s peaceful, beautiful, relaxing and all the critters seem to get along just fine. We can’t wait to do it again!
Another excellent shore dive spot in Florida is off the beach in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea
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2 replies on “Scuba Diving Break at the Blue Heron Bridge”
Nathalie, Wow beautifully explained and photos are amazing. I can not resist myself to relax at this beautiful place after reading your excellent post but I can not fly to Florida I need a visa 🙂
Awesome article pinpointed each and every thing 😍😍
Thank you Suresh! I’m glad that you enjoyed reading this article and found it useful. 🙂