American divers are the luckiest on the planet. Our fair country boasts some of the best variety of any nation, from the towering kelp forests of California to the silent underwater museums of the Great Lakes, the deep, cold quarries of the Midwest, the wreck-littered Outer Banks of North Carolina and the sunny coral gardens of the Florida Keys. We might not enjoy the same biodiversity as those who live in the center of the Coral Triangle, but we have heaps of other superlatives to enjoy — and celebrate. The largest artificial reef, the only divable ICBM silo, the largest underground mine dive, the best preserved wooden shipwrecks — not to mention the most passionate tribe of divers on the planet (pat yourself on the back). We salute the best of American dive culture. (Cue the fireworks.) O say can you see ...

Hawaii Volcanoes

The forces that created America’s tropical Pacific paradise also formed some of the most compelling structures in any ocean — arches, tunnels, caverns and canyons. The glorious First and Second Cathedral of Lanai to the dramatic Kaloko Arches of the Big Island, the Pu’u Mu lava tubes of Ni’ihau and Maui’s Molokini Crater — there’s a playground of frozen lava below the surface of Hawaii.

Sharks Galore

Our territorial waters are blessed with a wide, exciting and often surprising variety of sharks. From the lemons, Caribbean reef, bulls and blacktips of Florida to the sand tigers of North Carolina, the blues and makos of the Northeast, the leopards, sevengills and great whites of California, and the whale sharks, hammerheads, tigers and blacktips of Hawaii — we’ve got apex-predator action from sea to shining sea.

The often surprising variety of sharks includes the pygmy, which has the distinction of being the second-smallest of all shark species after the dwarf lanternshark. It's a rare shark that you might bump into off California or Hawaii.

National Marine Sanctuaries

Did you know almost all of our 61 National Park Service areas not only allow but encourage diving? See your natural heritage in a whole new light: A diving guide and lots of fun photos are available at nps.gov/submerged.

For sheer wind-swept romance, it’s hard to beat the lovely, lonely Channel Islands of California, five of which comprise the Channel Islands National
 Park (San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa and Santa Barbara); the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary encompasses the waters around all the national-park islands but Santa Rosa. Farther east and south, San Clemente, San Nicolas and Santa Catalina round out the group, which stretches more than 160 miles and offers divers playgrounds from majestic sunstruck kelp forests to walls to deep-sea pinnacles, home to sea lions, seals, sharks, eels, bass, wrasse, lobsters and more.

Anacapa has three main islets, East, Middle and West Anacapa, which are collectively known as the Anacapas. This small island group provides critical habitat for seabirds and pinnipeds such as California sea lions, which in turn attract great white sharks that feed in these waters.

Florida Springs and Caves

Florida is slowly eroding — and cave divers love it. Thanks to
 a substrate of soft, porous limestone shaped by eons of swift-flowing springs that transform into rivers, the Sunshine State is a magnet for advanced divers who flock to cave country in the central and northern parts of the state for some of the world’s best subterranean routes. The region also offers recreational divers compelling options, from cavern sites like Blue Grotto and Devil’s Den, manatee encounters at Crystal River, and a unique drift dive down Rainbow River.

Little River Spring in Brandon. There is a sizeable boil over the vent near the center of the spring pool. The spring discharge flows through a 150-foot-long run southwesterly into the Suwannee River.

The Florida Keys

The Conch Republic was officially declared in 1982, but Key West and the Florida Keys have been going their own way for a heck of a lot longer — a frontier spirit and anything-goes attitude is still prized here. It’s also America’s first-recognized dive treasure — a movement to protect Key Largo’s reefs started in the 1930s, and the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State
 Park was the first underwater park in the U.S. The Keys today are catnip to wreck divers: The Florida Keys Shipwreck Heritage Trail comprises a dozen ships from Key Largo to Key West.

Giant Artificial Reefs

The United States was one of the first nations to turn retired warships into amazing dive sites. As early as the 1830s, South Carolina pioneers began building log structures to attract fish. Before long, forward-thinking fishermen were sinking railroad cars, school buses, automobiles and other structures. The U.S. government’s Liberty Ship Act of 1972 made available a vast decommissioned fleet of metal hulks. Explosives started sending ships to the bottom soon after, a trend that bestowed upon American divers a vast smorgasbord of world-class wreck dives around the country — including two of the world’s largest, the Oriskany, in the Florida Panhandle and the Spiegel Grove in Key Largo.

Urban Diving

In Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Chicago, San Diego, Los Angeles, Seattle, Honolulu and other coastal American metropolises, there’s action above and below the waterline. For lucky locals and visitors alike, quality diving that’s easily accessible is only the beginning. Cities offer attractive topside options for culture and cuisine, plus large dive populations mean competition among shops and operators, which helps stretch your dive dollar.

Sea Turtles

They’re America’s favorite reptile, but until you watch a sea turtle underwater, in the environment it was designed for, you’re missing the best part. Protecting that environment has paid off in spades in the U.S.: Recorded nesting of green sea turtles is up 600 percent along Florida’s beaches since 1990 — scientists credit the region’s network of marine protected areas for the increase.

Playful Pinnipeds

No other sea-dwelling creatures are more flat-out fun to encounter than the sea lions, fur seals, harbor seals and monk seals commonly found on the West Coast of the continental U.S. and in the Hawaiian Islands. Whether they’re dive-bombing divers from out of nowhere or blowing a blast of bubbles in your face, these smart, swift-swimming mammals are typically having a great time.

Kelp Forests

Like diving into Oz, a day in a sun-dappled kelp forest is a magical experience for divers, especially when playful pinnipeds are present. Found around the world in temperate waters, kelp is strongly associated with California for U.S. divers, and indeed the most diverse kelp forests in the world are found off the Golden State coast. From its wavy, leafy canopy that can extend to the surface — giant kelp grows from 10 inches to two feet per day — to its benthic roots, kelp forests are home to a host of invertebrates, fish, marine mammals and even birds.

Bonne Terre Mine

An abandoned lead mine in Bonne Terre, Missouri, has become a gold mine for divers from around the world who are looking for something unique. The sunken mine has plenty of submerged ore carts, scaffolding, staircases and elevator shafts to navigate, inspiring the adventurous explorer spirit within every diver.

Quarries

Typically cold and often murky, the water of your average quarry is a complete about-face from the warm topside experience, where dedicated regional communities foster enough concentrated scuba stoke to light a small city.

Local quarries are essential bastions of our sporting culture. Go-to sites for training, they’re often filled with all manner of quirky attractions: submerged school buses, airplanes, fire trucks, wacky statuary — and the proverbial toilet, a must-snap photo op.

Andrea Doria

One of the world’s most challenging technical dives can be found off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. Felled by a collision in 1956 with the MS Stockholm, what’s left of the Italian-owned SS Andrea Doria now lies in a large debris field between 190 and 240 feet — the depth and frigid temperatures make this 700-foot former passenger liner the Mount Everest of wreck diving.

Aquarium Dives

Controversial as they might be in
 our community, aquarium dives 
offer three attractions unique in the world of scuba: guaranteed perfect conditions, for-sure encounters with exotic marine life and the opportunity to turn nondivers on to our sport, not to mention create a sense of stewardship for our oceans in Americans who might never have the opportunity to enjoy them. One heart-melting encounter with a wide-eyed youngster on the other side of that thick glass will make you a believer.

Blue Heron Bridge

Hauling over the freeway from West Palm to Riviera Beach, Florida, few would guess what lies beneath. The worlds under the bridge’s east and west sides are a muck paradise, offering sightings of exotics like batfish, flying gurnards and frogfish. (Keep one eye on the channel for sharks and eagle rays.) Phil Foster Park, on an island right under the bridge, offers plenty of parking, bathrooms and pavilioned grills — it’s a great place to meet other divers, who are found here pretty much every day of the year.

Manatees

Cuddle up to a manatee — it’s up to the animal how close it comes — and you might not believe these tubby sweethearts of the springs inspired mermaid legends. Diving with them is uncommon, but many operators offer snorkeling — and you very nearly can’t avoid “sea cows” off Florida’s southwest coast, where they head when ocean temps rise in late spring.

The Great Lakes

The clean, cold fresh water of the world’s largest lake system has begotten an unprecedented cache of well-preserved shipwrecks — and arguably the most pristine wooden wrecks on the planet — not to mention some of the hardiest divers in our tribe. Hundreds of divable sites in all of the five lakes have kept local and visiting wreck hounds captivated for decades at hot spots such as Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Straits of Mackinac Underwater Preserve and Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve. Here, the Sandusky in Michigan's Straits of Mackinac.

Dive Bars

Nothing loosens the tongue like a
 cold one — setting up divers for their second-favorite post-dive activity: spinning yarns. From the Marlin Club on Catalina Island to Sharkey’s Pub and Galley in Key Largo, Waikiki’s Hideaway Bar to Harpoon Larry’s in Hampton, Virginia, America’s salty dive bars give our tribe a place to let it all hang out.

Diving Museums

Every sport has its hallowed halls; diving is no different. From the Florida Keys History of Diving Museum in Islamorada, Fla. (the world’s largest collection of helmets) to the Lockwood Pioneer Scuba Diving Museum in Lowes Park, Ill. (Lake Michigan wrecks and more) to the International Legends of Diving Museum at Portage Quarry, Ohio (annual Legends of Diving Festival in August) and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum 
of Paradise, Mich. (everything you ever wanted 
to know about the Edmund Fitzgerald, plus an annual fish boil), each museum celebrates not only the sport as a whole but the special characteristics of diving in its home region.

Unique Dives

The United States has its share of strange and unusual dive sites: a flooded Atlas missile silo outside Abilene, Texas; the Crater at Homestead Resort in Utah (pictured); a hot spring inside a volcano-shaped limestone dome in Midway, Utah; an underwater mausoleum and sculpture garden off Key Biscayne, Florida (yes, people really are buried here; family members commonly dive to visit their graves) — and that’s just a few of the wackiest.

Historic Dive Shops

Scuba is a young sport; our pioneers still dive among us. From Redondo Beach’s legendary Dive N’ Surf (1953) — dive shop to the stars, including Lloyd Bridges of Sea Hunt — to Wolf’s Divers’ Supply in Benton, Michigan (1956), Frank’s Underwater Sports & Travel in Edmond, Oklahoma (1955), Atlanta’s Diving World (1957), and Hialeah, Florida’s Tarpoon Diving Centers (1952) — now operated by the third generation of its founding family — historic dive shops offer a wealth of experience to new tribe members.

Manta Rays

A hallmark of diving on the Big Island of Hawaii, where the regular night dive off Kona has become world renowned, these graceful pelagics also wave their wings like the Stars and Stripes off the other Hawaiian Islands, in the Gulf of Mexico’s Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, and occasionally in the waters off Florida, North Carolina, and up the Atlantic coast.

World War II Wrecks

Off the coast of North Carolina rests a sunken legacy of World War II. Ships sent to their doom by German U-boats — the Papoose, Caribsea, W.E. Hutton, Ario, Ashkhabad, Atlas, Bedfordshire and Naeco — have become underwater museums, and magnets for marine life, including the sand tiger sharks for which the region is famed. The jewel in the area’s wreck-dive crown is the U-352, arguably the best divable German U-boat in U.S. waters.