Houston. Any advice?

[Fiji Dave]

It looks like I may be spending three months early next year in the good ol' US of A. Houston to be more precise. Work need someone to go over there and test out some new software and I've been asked to go.

Does anyone have any recommendations for diving in the area? Anywhere within easy reach? I've seen that Cozumel is a couple of hours flight away, but anything more local?

[Mark Powell]

I used to spend quite a lot of time in Houston and tried to get a few dives in whenever I was there for more than a couple of days. There are a number of boats that go out of Galveston or Freeport.

Most the decent diving is a fair way out (3 or 4 hourse boat ride) as close in to shore the water is shallow and very poor vis. Once you get further out the water s much clearer and similar in many ways to caribean diving. It is also quite warm and I used to dive in either shorts/T-shirt or sometimes a shorty.

You can dive on a number of the oil rigs that are in the Bay of Mexico. As they tend to be on flat barren seabed the rigs act as a kind of artificial reef and attract all sorts of life. On one dive alone I saw a turtle, baracuda and a shark on a rig.

There are also a number of liberty ships (same class as the JE Layne) that were sunk to create an artificial reef. Most of these are in about 30m.

Finally if you are lucky you might be able to arrange a trip out to the Flower Gardens. This is a reef which is 100 miles (8 hours) offshore in about 35m which reaches up to 15m from the surface.

There are plenty of dive shops in Houston, who can arrange a boat trip for you and hire you gear. I used to use Pro Scuba at 5757 Westheimer, Tel 713 783 3483. Although this was 8 years ago so they may not still be around.

I would also recommend getting this book.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...12/divetech-21

There are also a couple of inland sites but I never tried any of them out.