Hull Cleaning, Dock & Seawall Divers in Fort Lauderdale, FL

The New River is a tidal estuary rather than a true river: a channel made up of many tributary canals that runs through downtown and joins the Intracoastal and the Atlantic at the Port Everglades cut. The currents at the port entrance are strong, averaging about 2 to 4 knots at the surface inside and outside the jetties. The Intracoastal forms the eastern edge of Rio Vista and Coral Ridge, the Middle River forms Coral Ridge's western edge behind the fixed Sunrise Boulevard bridge, and the Stranahan River is Rio Vista's eastern boundary.

Under the state manatee rule, the New River and its North and South Forks, the Middle River and the Port Everglades area (New River, Stranahan River and the turning basin) are slow-speed zones, and the power plant area on the Intracoastal is idle speed from mid-November through March. Slow water is where growth stays put: props and shafts pick up hard barnacles, and the waterline grows an algae band, on every boat that isn't moving.

Bahia Mar Yachting Center at 801 Seabreeze Boulevard, between the Intracoastal and the ocean, has about 250 slips and hosts the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, and it is a few doors from our office. Las Olas Marina, built by the city with Suntex on the north side of Las Olas Boulevard at the beach, has 88 slips for yachts up to 315 feet. Lauderdale Yacht Club on SE 12th Street has been there since June 1938.

Behind the marinas are the neighborhoods: Las Olas Isles, the man-made finger islands north and south of Las Olas Boulevard (Seven Isles alone is 315 households on islands dredged in the 1920s); Rio Vista, about 1,000 homes between the New River and SE 12th Street; Harbor Beach, between the Intracoastal and the ocean with Port Everglades to the south, including Laguna, Lucille, Del Lago and Harborage Isles; and Coral Ridge, about 1,350 single-family homes between the Intracoastal and the Middle River. ZIP codes 33301, 33304, 33305, 33308, 33315 and 33316 are all on our daily route.

On March 23, 2023 Fort Lauderdale raised its required seawall height from 3.9 feet to 5 feet NAVD88. The rule applies to new walls, walls damaged more than 50%, and walls that let water flood neighbors or streets, and since the end of 2022 sale contracts have had to disclose the county's tidal-barrier standard. We don't raise walls. We clean them, inspect them, document their condition ($250 for a home, $350 for a multi-family or commercial property) and fill cracks all the way through with custom cement tubes, which is what most Las Olas Isles and Rio Vista sales actually need.

Call 561-666-3716 or use the form with the boat's length, where it lives (Bahia Mar, Las Olas Marina, the yacht club, a New River dock or a finger island in Las Olas Isles) and whether the hull has bottom paint. Yacht crews can book a standing two-week schedule. Our office is on Seabreeze Boulevard, so the first dive is usually quick to arrange, and nobody needs to be aboard.