Orange Beach, Alabama
An estimated 20 million tourists visit Alabama each year, including a surprising number of scuba divers who like to get wet and explore a plethora of dive sites, some of them within yards of the beach. Alabama offers an abundance of scuba opportunities for both the novice and expert, including the forest-lined banks of the state's interior lakes, but it's the wrecks and artificial reefs off its Gulf of Mexico shores that really captivate divers.
** ORANGE BEACH**
With a beautiful stretch of sandy beaches and big blue ocean lining the southern edge of the state, Orange Beach, Alabama, offers a wide selection of beach vacation possibilities. Add in wonderful dining experiences, dolphin cruises, recreational centers with tennis and basketball courts, golf-course condo communities, rental beach houses and, for divers, dive operations able to get you in the water on the state's best sites, and you've got the ingredients for the perfect dive-and-play getaway. Dive operations in Orange Beach offer scuba enthusiasts a choice between shore diving from the beach or booking a charter boat and reaching more remote dive sites off the coast.
The charter trips that leave from Orange Beach also make this a scuba diver's ideal weekend getaway. A variety of wrecks on the Gulf's sandy bottom have turned into Caribbean reefs, with moray eels, snapper and barracuda taking up residence.
Boats depart from Orange Beach on two- and three-tank dives to sites including Atlantis for amberjacks and Swing-Bridge Barge for possible encounters with eagle rays and sharks. Atlantis is an example of the "bridge rubble" off the Alabama coast - the remnants of bridges and highways now serving as homes to a variety of Caribbean critters.
Special charters to Pensacola to dive the Oriskany are also arranged - Orange Beach is about a two-hour boat ride to the famed aircraft carrier off Pensacola, Florida.
** POPULAR DIVE SITES**
** Whiskey Wreck:** The Whiskey Wreck is a shore dive from Gulf Shores located roughly 150 yards due south of the beach. It lays just beyond a sandbar offshore, and that sandbar provides a useful landmark and staging area. The wreck is a 200-foot rum runner boat in less than 20 feet of water. The visibility is not great -- at the site it's usually limited to the 10- to 15-foot range. The Whiskey Wreck is also a popular night dive.
** Perdido Pass Jetties (aka Alabama Point):** These are shore dives with access on both the east and west side of Perdido Pass. The west side is beyond the sea wall; the east side is beyond the beach. To experience optimal conditions, it is always best to dive the Pass on an incoming tide an hour or more before the peak.
** Rome:** Fourteen miles south of Perdido Pass in 90 of water, Rome is comprised of the remains of the old Perdido Pass bridge. It gets it's name because of the columns that are standing straight up, resembling Romans ruins. This site attracts a lot of fish, including amberjack, snapper and grouper. Also a good number of tropical fish such as angelfish.
** DIVE CONDITIONS**
Surface water temps range from the mid-50s in winter to the mid-70s and mid-80s from May to September. Visibility at inshore sites is generally 25 to 50 feet and from 40 to 100 feet farther offshore, Use minimal thermal protection in summer and a 5 or 7mm wetsuit or drysuit in winter.
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