Scuba Diving Texas’s Gulf Coast

Scuba Diving Texas? Texas does not jump into many people’s minds as a scuba diving destination. It should. Much like its Gulf of Mexico Neighbors, Mexico, and Florida in particular, Texas has some outstanding inland and open sea diving. Springs, quarries, lakes, and river sites offer a wide range of diving opportunities for inland divers. We will explore these in another article. In the Gulf of Mexico, Texas scuba divers have a range of diving opportunities. Texas was one of the first states to embrace artificial reef programs. Between their ship-to-reef program and the rigs-to-reef program, they have over 60 artificial reef sites, most of these with more than one sunken vessel or oil rig. These reefs range from 5 miles to 100 miles from shore. While not all these reefs are suitable for scuba diving, many of them are and some were designed for divers. Texas Parks and Wildlife also has a program to create nearshore reefing. This public reefing program is designed to create smaller reefs close to shore, using suitable materials such as construction waste. Large concrete culverts, steel piping, bridge material, and large quarry rocks are some of the materials commonly used.

Sponges and corals in Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, Gulf of Mexico.

Why an Artificial Reef For Scuba Diving and Fishing?

The Gulf of Mexico near the Texas coast is mostly mud and sand. The most prominent exception to this is the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, which we will discuss later. Mud and sand are not the ideal places for most fish to live. They want places to hide from larger fish, and places to lay their eggs, If they eat plants and algae there is not much to be found in the mud. Add a little something to the bottom and fish will start hanging around it. A couple of cinder blocks placed on a muddy bottom will soon be a home for several species of marine life. The number of outstanding shore dive sites that are piers are an example of this. Features underwater that are different from their surroundings attract fish, Shipwrecks stand higher than their surroundings and fish are attracted to them.  These aggravates become the home for fish very rapidly, with some smaller fish setting up a new home in just days. As algae will anchor to the newly found surfaces and soon fish that thrive on eating it will become established. Within months, a once barren underwater area becomes a populated area worth diving and fishing.

Scuba Diving Texas Style South Padre Island

There is a saying that everything is bigger in Texas, and that seems to extend to the artificial reef program around South Padre Island. While there are several outstanding dive destinations along Texas’s Gulf Coast, if you are considering a Texas dive vacation. The Rigs to Reef and the Ship to Reef programs have been active here.  The Texas Parks and Wildlife coordinated with the federal government in a program that disposed of some World War II Liberty ships, and some of those became artificial reefs off South Padre Island.

Padre Island (sometimes called North Padre Island) is the home of Padre Island National Seashore which has 66 miles of undeveloped natural habitat and beaches. It is a barrier island protecting the Texas coast. It was once a continuous island that included the 34-mile-long South Padre Island. A channel was cut on the island to allow access to Port Mansfield and other locations along the coast.  While Padre Island is uninhabited, South Padre Island is a resort community. Here are some of the more notable dive sites.

• Texas Clipper: This is considered the premier dive in Texas. The Texas Clipper was a WWII troop transport and attack ship, then named the USS Queens. She served in the Pacific theater and was part of the landing at Iwo Jima. After the war, she was retrofitted to become a luxury liner, providing service between New York and the Mediterranean. She continued this role until about 1965 when air travel displaced ocean travel between the US and Europe.  Texas A &M purchased the ship as a training vessel, naming it the Texas Clipper, retiring it in 1996. In 2007, The ship was sunk as part of an artificial reef program. The Clipper is 473 feet long and sits in 136 feet of water about 17 miles from South Padre Island. The sinking did not go exactly as planned, and she sits on her port side. The ship had been prepared for divers and most dives are between 80 and 90 feet, a range suitable for open-water divers. Wreck divers can do penetration dives.

• Port Mansfield Liberty Ship Reef: Most Liberty ships did not survive the war, and many that did were just stored for possible later use. Over the years, they became unfit for service, and either were sold for scrape or used in artificial reef programs. Texas received many of the ships and set up 5 locations to sink them. Port Mansfield is one of the sites and is now the home of three of the liberty ships. These 400-foot (ca 122 meter) ships sit in 100 feet (ca 30 meters) of water with the decks about 85 feet (ca 26 meters) from the surface. The reef also includes a number of other features, such as nine old oil rigs that became a part of the rigs to reef programs.

• Offshore Rigs: As mentioned, a few times before, old oil rigs have been left behind to start the formation of new reefs. To overview this in the very simplest of form, During the operational life of an oil rig the legs and other underwater portions of the rig attract marine life. Encrustation begins early and continues to grow over the years. In the past, when a site was no longer profitable, the rig was dismantled and returned to the mainland. There it was often sold for scrap.  Under the rig-to-reef programs, the portion of the oil rigs above water was removed and returned to shore. Those bellowed water were inspected and all traces of oil were removed. Then the rigs would be toppled so they laid on their sides. Already having healthy marine growth, the rigs would continue to attract marine life. There are several of these rigs around the island and each dive center has its favorites.

• RGV Reef: In many ways, this is an extension of the nearshore reefing programs mentioned before, however on a massive scale. RGV Reef is located about 12 miles from South Padre Island and covers over 1650 acres. To list what material was used to create this reef which is still being expanded would take ages. Look at the Friends of RGV Reef website to see some of the efforts. The reef does have a few boats included in the artificial reef, it is mostly discarded concrete and construction materials.The reef is well planned with both low-profile areas, which are great nurseries, and high-profile areas that draw in the larger species.

Scuba Diving Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary

Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary is in the Gulf of Mexico, some 80 to 125 miles off the coast of Texas and Louisiana. Designated a Marine Sanctuary in 1992 it was made up of two banks, the East and West Flower Garden Banks, with Stetson Bank added in 1996. In 2021, portions of 14 more Banks were added to the sanctuary.  As mentioned before, most of the upper range of the Gulf of Mexico has a muddy or sandy bottom. Here salt deposits created when the Gulf was very shallow became domes that pushed other substrata upwards, creating mountain ridges, troughs, and hard patches. These features enabled the development of coral reefs and represent the northernmost reefs in the Gulf of Mexico.

The reefs of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary are some of the healthiest in the world. Most of the reefs start or extend beyond the depth limits of recreational and even technical diving, however, many dive sites are suitable for recreational divers.

The distances involved show that these are not a typical two-tank half-day dive trip. Multiple-day trips are the normal way to access the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. A typical trip would leave on a Friday evening and sail overnight to the sanctuary. Saturday and Sunday would be diving days and overnight back to land, arriving Monday morning. These mini-liveaboard trips are the only way to dive this great destination.

Traveling fact for Scuba Diving Texas

The Gulf Coast of Texas shares similar vacation patterns as South Florida. The winter months see an influx of retirees from the colder northern states. Spring break sees college students flocking to the beaches and clubs. The scuba diving season generally runs from March to October. The best time to dive is June to September, when the water temperature will reach the Mid 80s. This is also when the Gulf Stream brings the best visibility.

South Padre is about two miles (ca 3 km) off the coast and is connected to Port Isabel on the mainland by a causeway.  The nearest airport is Brownsville just 30 miles away. You can also enjoy a visit to Mexico as the area is near the border.