Dive Review of Jupiter Dive Center/Marriott Resort, Singer Island in
The Continental USA/Jupiter, Florida

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Jupiter Dive Center/Marriott Resort, Singer Island, Aug, 2010, by Brent Barnes, OK, US ( Sr. Reviewer 10 reports with 8 Helpful votes). Report 5652.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food	N/A
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	I spent a long weekend with my family on Singer Island and drove 15 minutes north to Jupiter Dive Center for a 2-tank Saturday afternoon dive trip and a 3-tank Sunday dive trip. Jupiter Dive Center runs an excellent operation and answered all my emails promptly in advance. The check-in process was easy and nitrox was readily available. In fact, most of the divers dove nitrox due to the deep profiles. The boats are equipped with all safety equipment and excellent dive briefs were given by the divemasters. Soft drinks and snacks were readily available in between dives for free and the Sunday 3-tank dive included a provided lunch. My only complaint of the boat is that when we had 18 divers on Saturday the boat was crowded. With the 11 divers on Sunday it was much more comfortable. All diving is done as drift dives and the captain is excellent at following the divers. The divemasters and crew worked hard and were open to requests for dive sites by the divers. Jupiter is a spectacular place to see pelagic life and is one of the better places in the world to see goliath grouper. In August and September, the goliath grouper congregate at specific sites to spawn. The wrecks of the MG-111 and the Zion are areas where the goliath grouper congregate. In our three dives on Sunday in mid-August, we counted 57 goliath grouper! Six were seen at Captain Mike's reef, two at Kurl's reef and 49 at the MG-111. The 49 were confirmed by a count by the divemaster and a diver collecting data to report to the REEF organization. Experiencing that many goliath grouper in one area was amazing and many of these grouper were enormous. This is the same area that lemon sharks congregate for mating in the later winter/early spring. In addition to the many goliath grouper, we saw several Caribbean reef sharks, several nurse sharks and many green and hawksbill turtles. We did see an average of about one lionfish per dive. In addition to the boat dives with Jupiter Dive Center, we also did a shore dive on the Blue Herron Bridge in West Palm Beach and I would highly recommend that for any divers who love to see unusual critters and for the macro photographers. This dive must be done at slack high tide as the current is too strong to dive it outside of slack high tide. Entrance is easy as you can simply walk into the water from the small beach at the Phil Foster park on the east side of the Blue Herron bridge going over to Singer Island. Enter the water about 30 -40 minutes before slack high tide and you can dive it until about 45 minutes after high tide so you can easily get in a 90 minute or more dive. The maximum depth is about 15 feet or so. Visibility for us was about 30 feet. The quantity of life is amazing at this area and frogfish, gurnards, seahorses and sea robins are seen commonly. In addition to an array of small critters, we did see some larger fish including spadefish, barracuda and a spotted eagle ray. I would highly recommend this dive and if you have time try and do the bridge both during the day and at night. You can rent a tank and weights from E-force dive shop which is just on the west side of the bridge. There are changing facilities and showers at the park. We stayed at the Marriott condominium resort on Singer Island which was wonderful. I had a family of five and several non-divers so the resort was perfect as it had two large pools with a slide, beach access and two restaurants. Obviously, the Marriott was expensive but was a wonderful place to stay and was a three minute drive from the Blue Herron bridge and 15 minutes from Jupiter Dive Center. We stayed in a 2-bedroom condo and purchased groceries and made our own lunch daily. It was fascinating to see the fresh turtle nests on the beach each day and they were roped off and marked and it is illegal to tamper with any turtle nests. A visit to the Turtle rehabilitation center for injured turtles in Juno, which is 10 minutes north of Singer Island, is certainly worth an hour.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	251-500 dives
Where else diving	Saba, St. Eustatius, Dominica, Bahamas, Florida Keys, Grand Cayman, Belize, Cocos Island, Costa Rica, Cozumel, California
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	rainy	Seas	calm
Water Temp	78-84°F / 26-29°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	40-50 Ft/ 12-15 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Recommendations of 50 minutes or returning with 500 PSI were made but not strictly enforced
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	The boat has a dedicated camera rinse bucket but would not hold all cameras when there were multiple photographers on board.

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Dive Review of Jupiter Dive Center/Marriott Resort, Singer Island in The Continental USA/Jupiter, Florida

Jupiter Dive Center/Marriott Resort, Singer Island, Aug, 2010,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Jupiter Dive Center/Marriott Resort, Singer Island in
The Continental USA/Jupiter, Florida