Cruise Fish Dive

Cruise Fish Dive has spent more than 25 years building what amounts to a one stop shop for anyone in Bonita Springs who wants to get out on or under the water. The retail storefront on South Tamiami Trail is a PADI 5 Star dive center, which means it handles everything from open water certification classes to gear sales and repair for working divers, but the business extends well beyond the dive shop counter.

Fishing charters run both offshore into the Gulf and back into the calmer backwater estuaries around Bonita Springs and the Imperial River system, giving anglers a choice depending on what they are after and how much boat ride they want to deal with. For visitors who want the water experience without the fishing rod, the company also runs nature cruises, dolphin watching tours, and sunset cruises, which tend to be popular with families and couples staying in the beach corridor hotels who want an easy, guided way to see the coastline.

Kayak rentals and guided mangrove tours add a quieter, self powered option for people who want to explore the backwaters at their own pace, while jet ski rentals and tours cover the opposite end of the spectrum for visitors who want more speed. The business even brokers helicopter tours and sales, and runs organized hog hunts and kids summer camps, which is an unusually broad menu for a shop this size.

That range is really the point. Rather than specializing narrowly, Cruise Fish Dive built itself into the kind of business a visitor can call once and walk away with a dive certification, a fishing trip, and a kayak rental all booked through the same office. For locals, the dive shop side alone, with certified instructors and equipment service on site, is a resource that is genuinely hard to find elsewhere in Bonita Springs.

Summer hours run Tuesday through Saturday with the shop closed Monday and Sunday, though charters and tours operate seven days a week by appointment. With a quarter century in business and a presence across nearly every category of Southwest Florida water recreation, this is one of the more established names in the local outdoor recreation scene.

The South Tamiami Trail storefront doubles as a retail counter for dive and fishing gear, so regulars often stop in to pick up tackle or have equipment serviced even when they are not booking a trip that day. That kind of everyday foot traffic, on top of the tour and charter bookings, is part of what has kept the business a fixture in the local recreation scene for so long.