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#97
Best shop to dive with near Wilmington, NC
tbarcia - 4/23/2014 9:19 AM
Category: Travel
Replies: 9

I’m looking at the NOAA ocean water temps and it looks like Wilmington, NC has the warmest water within 9 hours of home so the wife and I are planning a trip next month. I spoke with a shop who stated that I can call and put dives on their calendar however if there aren’t enough people to fill the minimum for the boat, I don’t think I get to do my dives.

With all of that being said, I’m wondering what the best shop would be to dive with where I’ll have the best chance of getting the dives I want? We’re looking to do 2 trips (2 tanks / trip) on a Saturday and at least 1 (two tank) trip on Sunday and don’t want to be on the boat all day so close to shore is best and there are no less than 6 wrecks within 8 miles of shore.

Thanks.
#11592
badintexas - 4/23/2014 9:27 AM
How about Beaufort, NC instead? More wrecks, same water conditions. Try Discovery Diving or Olympus.
#97
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tbarcia - 4/23/2014 9:40 AM
Beaufort is about 30 minutes more driving but I’ll check them out. Thanks.
#20384
LatitudeAdjustment - 4/24/2014 6:23 AM
From badintexas: How about Beaufort, NC instead? More wrecks, same water conditions. Try Discovery Diving or Olympus.

I’ll second Olympus, I’ve probably used them a dozen times.
#51828
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Greg - 4/24/2014 6:45 AM
It is a little further due to some back roads you have to take. Beaufort and Morehead City are the most common ports of call to access "wreck alley" in NC. The gulf stream also comes a little closer to shore around Beaufort, which usually produces clearer, warmer water.

Plus, you can eat at the Sanitary Seafood Restaurant in Morehead City!
#51828
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Greg - 4/24/2014 6:52 AM
In Wilmington, there are two dive shops listed on DiveBuddy that look nice...I have just never dove with them before...but if they’re on DiveBuddy, they must be smart :)

Aquatic Safaris
Dive Quest Scuba
#97
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tbarcia - 4/24/2014 8:10 AM
So I’ve now spoken with two different shops in NC and may have more questions than I did before... I guess I just have to figure out what we want to do because we want to maximize our dive time but at the same time we’re limited because the wife gets seasick and doesn’t feel comfortable going much beyond the 60’ we’ve already done.

The prices are vastly different between these two shops so I’m wondering why, other than distance to the site, why one shop would charge almost twice as much for a single tank dive than another shop charges for a two tank dive. We may just have to roll the dice and do a dive with each shop and see which we like better.
#97
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tbarcia - 6/23/2014 11:24 AM
Laural, it turns out that trip never happened but now we’re considering this weekend, June 28-29. Still considering WIlmington / Beaufort but haven’t made a decision yet. Still not sure that we’re even going to make it this weekend but we’re trying.
#97
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tbarcia - 7/02/2014 6:03 AM
So, we never made it to NC last weekend but now we’re looking at Aug 15-17.