Located just off Hollywood Beach between Johnson and Michigan Streets (near the Margaritaville Hotel), you’ll find the Yellow Brick Road dive site. It’s a great shore dive for all levels of divers and with lots of macro photo ops.
The site is a former outfall pipe structure used for sewage and wastewater. The 800 foot-long ‘road’ made up of cinder block like pavers is about 30 feet wide and provides nooks and crannies for all kinds of cool creatures between the blocks.
It’s close to shore and a short surface swim out, approximately 200 meters or 600 feet. Try to line up with the lifeguard station and swim out about 200 meters, then veer off to the north at a diagonal angle and you’ll cross over the Yellow Brick Road and find it. There is a broken rocky/reef line just where it begins giving you an idea if you are far enough out.
Depth ranged from about 15 to 25 feet and the ‘road’ goes perpendicular to the shore. We were able to go up and down a couple of times with our tanks and while visibility wasn’t great on our day out, we still saw a Pederson cleaner shrimp, lots of porcupinefish, lobsters, and other creatures. Other divers told us that nurse sharks are often found here, and larger fish come to feast on the smaller residents.
The swim out was a bit of work in the chop and despite the poor visibility on the day we went, we are glad to have been able to add this site to our local shore diving options. Frequent divers here tell us it’s always best to do this dive early in the day.
Good to know
- You can pay for parking in the many lots, which are expensive (and we were told that they WILL boot or tow your car so be sure to pay!). It cost us $20 to park for 4 hours. If you get there early enough you can park at the metered street parking spots for less.
- Entry is a short walk across the beach. There are benches to help you get setup and showers available to rinse your gear.
Shore diving requires planning and having a plan for your car key fob is part of it. Hiding your keys in the bushes is far from ideal! This was a dilemma that we faced, so we developed our own waterproof car key containers. Read about it in our post: DRYFOB, A Waterproof Car Key Fob Container That Really Works! You can buy a DRYFOB here.