How to Dive Blue Heron Bridge in Riviera Beach, Florida

A World-Class Macro Dive in a Public Park

By William Drumm, underwater photographer and ocean ambassador

You park in a county lot, walk across a small beach past picnic tables and barbecue grills, and wade in with a highway overhead. A few kicks from the sand, in water shallow enough to snorkel, there are seahorses, frogfish, octopus and batfish living in the rubble.

That is Blue Heron Bridge. It is free, it is shallow, and it is one of the most famous macro dives in the world.

On my first dive here I saw spotted eagle rays, eels, jawfish and octopus, and then we found a seahorse, which made the whole trip. What surprised me most was how accessible it is. You walk in from the beach, and there is so much life just off the shore.

Watch my macro dive at Blue Heron Bridge, filmed in 4K.

Play the Game: Can You Dive Blue Heron Bridge?

Take a practice dive before you get wet. Pick your tide, find the critters, photograph a jawfish or a seahorse, and make it back to the beach before the current turns.

What Blue Heron Bridge Is

Blue Heron Bridge and Phil Foster Park are the same place. Divers use the bridge name. Palm Beach County calls it Phil Foster Park, a 33-acre park at 900 Blue Heron Boulevard in Riviera Beach, Florida, sitting under the Blue Heron Boulevard bridge where it crosses the Intracoastal Waterway.

It is a shore dive with a walk-in beach entry. Depth runs from about 5 to 20 feet, and most of the animals people come to see live in 6 to 12.

The bottom is sand, seagrass and rubble around the bridge pilings, plus an artificial reef and snorkel trail built after the state approved it in 2012. Clean Atlantic water pushes in through the Lake Worth Inlet on every rising tide, and the sheltered, structure-heavy shallows under the bridge concentrate small and juvenile animals in a way few sites anywhere can match. I spent 10 minutes with a batfish right under the bridge on my first dive at Blue Heron.

The Tides Rule at Blue Heron Bridge

Dive Blue Heron Bridge around high slack tide, and at no other time. Local shops put the window at roughly an hour before to an hour after high tide, and the clearest water usually arrives in the half hour before the peak.

What slack tide is

Tide is a flow, not just a water level. For most of the cycle, water is pouring into the lagoon through the inlet or draining back out, and it moves fast under the bridge. Slack tide is the short pause at the top and bottom of the cycle when the current nearly stops.

Why this site depends on it

Visibility. At high tide the site fills with clear ocean water. SDI’s local guide describes visibility reaching as much as 100 feet on the best high tides. At low tide the water in the site is lagoon water, and it is murky.

Current. Outside the slack window, current runs hard through the bridge channel. It is strong enough to move a diver, and the direction it moves you is toward the boat channel.

How to read a Blue Heron Bridge tide chart

• Look for HIGH tide only. Low slack is calm but dirty.
• Plan to be in the water before the peak, not at it. Enter 30 to 60 minutes before high tide and you will have the cleanest water for the longest time.
• Use a table made for this site. Use the tide chart on this page. It is set up for the bridge itself, so you can see today’s high tide and plan your dive around it instead of guessing from a generic Riviera Beach listing. If you want a second opinion, any local dive shop will tell you what time the water will be good tomorrow
• Plan the day around the tide, not the other way around. On good slack tides the parking lot fills early.

What happens when you get it wrong

You get low visibility, a current that pushes you around, and a short dive. There is nothing to fix once you are in. Get out and come back on the next high tide.

The Dive Map

The site divides into a few zones.

Parking and entry. Parking at Phil Foster Park is free. It fills quickly on weekends and good tide days, so arrive early, and stay out of the boat trailer spaces, which get ticketed. The park has restrooms, showers, picnic tables and grills. You walk in from the beach, with no surf and no swell.

The snorkel trail. The Phil Foster Park Artificial Reef and Snorkel Trail sits off the central beach between the two bridge spans. It covers nearly two acres and is built from more than 600 tons of limestone boulders, in roughly 6 to 10 feet of water.

The east span. The shallower side, used heavily by snorkelers.

The west span. The deeper side, with concrete pilings and small structures. This is where much of the serious macro photography happens.

The rubble and seagrass. It looks like nothing, and it is where the seahorses, frogfish and octopus are. Move slowly and look at every piece of debris twice.

The boat channel. Stay out of it. The park has a busy boat ramp, and boat traffic is the real hazard at this site.

What You’ll See

Blue Heron Bridge is a nursery, and nearly everything here is small, young or strange. Shops and local guides report the same core list.

Seahorses. Lined seahorses live here year-round, gripping vegitation and rubble with their tails. This is one of the most reliable places in the United States to photograph one. Look for them attached to pilings in weedy areas.

Frogfish. Several species, sitting motionless and looking like a sponge until they strike.

Octopus. Including the Atlantic longarm octopus, often out on the open sand in daylight.

Banded jawfish. Hovering over their burrows and retreating tail first when anything gets close. Jawfish build and maintain their burrows with their mouths, and males brood eggs in their mouths too.

The octopus was a great encounter, but the jawfish was my favorite. It was bold. It kept coming out of its burrow and let me move in close with my camera. I watched it spit out rocks it had picked up and then suck them back into its mouth, again and again. It is a small fish doing something you could watch for an entire dive.

Batfish, flying gurnards and stargazers. A fish that walks on its fins, a fish that fans out blue-edged “wings” when disturbed, and a fish that buries itself with only its eyes showing.

Bandtail puffers. Small, sand-colored puffers that blend into the bottom until you get close. Look for the iridescent green eye and the row of dark spots along the lower side.

Nudibranchs. Pura Vida Divers reports more than 100 species recorded at the bridge.

Bigger visitors. Spotted eagle rays, eels, nurse sharks, green sea turtles, snook around the pilings, and manatees in the cooler months. If you want more on the snook that sometimes crowd these pilings, I wrote about snook fish in Florida, and the manatees of Florida have their own post.

When to go. Any season works. SDI’s local guide names mid-March through May as the peak for octopus, seahorses and nudibranchs.

Is There Anything Dangerous?

Boats are the real hazard, then the tide. Sharks are what people search for, so here is the full answer.

The 2011 shark bite. In April 2011, a 32-year-old spearfisherman was bitten on the calf by a bull shark and brought ashore at the Phil Foster Park boat ramp. He survived after surgery. According to a friend who was with him, he had just shot a fish and was bringing it up when the shark went for the fish and got his leg. Reports do not say exactly where in the water he was, only that he was spearfishing.

That situation does not exist at the dive site today. Spearfishing and lobstering are not allowed at the bridge, and neither is taking any marine life. A bull shark going after a struggling speared fish is ordinary predator behavior and has nothing to do with a diver or snorkeler looking at seahorses. Nurse sharks and small sharks pass through the lagoon, and they ignore people. For more on how these animals behave, see my post on bull sharks.

The real safety brief:

• Fly a dive flag. Florida requires one at least 12 by 12 inches, red with a white diagonal stripe. Stay close to it and surface next to it.
• Stay out of the boat channel, even if something interesting swims into it.
• Respect the tide window. Current outside slack is the second real hazard.
• Watch your hands. Fireworms and stinging life live in the rubble. Look, don’t touch.

Snorkeling Blue Heron Bridge

You do not need a tank to see most of this site. The snorkel trail sits in 6 to 10 feet of water, and seahorses, octopus and jawfish all live in the shallows.

• Same tide rule: high slack only.
• Bring a mask that fits. Leaking rental masks waste the short window.
• Go slowly. A bottle is a jawfish house. A broken tile hides a frogfish. The snorkelers who see the most are the ones barely moving.
• Stay on the snorkel side and clear of the boat traffic.

Fine Art Prints

Bring the water home

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Ghost in the Ripples – Bull Shark Over Sandy Bottom

From $45View print →

Bubbles and Brawn – Humpback Whale Heat Run

From $45View print →

The Long Drift – Sea Turtle Gliding Over the Seafloor

From $45View print →

The Little Leviathan – Young Humpback Whale

From $45View print →

Wreck Watcher – Sea Turtle Guarding a Shipwreck

From $45View print →

The Hidden Hunter – Mahi Mahi Bait Ball

From $45View print →

Skyward Shadows – Fever of Mobula Rays

From $45View print →

Silken Voyager – Brydes Whale Below the Surface

From $45View print →

Whale Glow – Lone Humpback Whale Print

From $45View print →

Roar of the Deep – California Sea Lion Blowing Bubbles

From $45View print →

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Night Diving at Blue Heron Bridge

Night diving is only possible on scheduled, permitted dives run by local shops. The park is open sunrise to sunset, and anyone in the park after hours without a permit can be ticketed.

Force-E Scuba Centers and Pura Vida Divers both run permitted night dives. Check their calendars and book ahead. Night divers need their own lights, and the dive flag has to be lit with a glow stick or beacon. After dark, octopus hunt in the open and the rubble fills with animals you never see in daylight.

Practicalities

• Cost: free. Parking is free.
• Address: Phil Foster Park, 900 Blue Heron Boulevard, Riviera Beach, Florida.
• Hours: sunrise to sunset, except permitted night dives.
• Depth: 5 to 20 feet. Dives commonly run 60 to 90 minutes, so bring enough gas and enough warmth.
• Water temperature: roughly the low 70s °F in winter to the mid 80s in summer. A 3mm works most of the year. Macro divers who lie still on the sand get cold faster than they expect, so wear more than you think in winter.
• Tanks and rentals: local shops, several within minutes of the park.
• The beach vs. the water. The beach can be crowded, and there is sometimes trash on the sand, including broken glass, so wear booties or shoes down to the water line. It gets better the moment you are underwater. Don't let the beach put you off.
• The people. Some of the best divers and photographers in Florida dive here regularly. It is a good place to meet people and make connections in the dive world.
• Take nothing. Since April 1, 2019, collecting tropical aquarium species in the park and surrounding waters has been illegal, after a local campaign to protect the site. The reason the bridge is still this good is that the community has defended it for years.

Photographing Blue Heron Bridge

Bring macro. A 60mm or 100mm-range macro lens covers most of this site. Wide angle is for the pilings and the bigger visitors, and a seahorse shot with the wrong lens is a lost frame.

On this dive I shot a Canon R5 in a Marelux housing with a 100mm macro lens and port, lit by two Light & Motion Sola 2500 lights. There was so much ambient light in the shallows that I'm not sure I needed them. If you are deciding what to carry, the macro lens matters far more than the lights here.

• Get low and shoot up. The default shot here looks down at a subject on sand. Get the port close to the bottom, angle slightly upward and put the surface or the bridge in the background, and the photograph has a place in it.
• Use the bridge. Few macro sites have a highway overhead. A seahorse framed against the silhouette of the bridge tells the story of this site in one frame.
• Buoyancy is everything. The bottom is silt. One careless fin kick ruins visibility for every photographer behind you. Frog kick, stay horizontal, and never put a knee down.
• Be patient with jawfish. Settle in at a respectful distance and let the fish get used to you.

For settings, see my guides on how to take underwater photos and underwater camera settings.

Frequently Asked Questions