Jupiter Inlet jetty diving
— the drift the Gulf Stream gives back.
Not only on a wall.
Jupiter Inlet jetty diving, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“The north jetty at Jupiter Inlet, where the Loxahatchee River meets the Atlantic and the Gulf Stream runs closer to shore than almost anywhere on the U.S. East Coast. Divers drop on the slack and let the current carry them north, parallel to the rocks, in eighty-foot water that often clears to a hundred. In late summer goliath grouper aggregate here to spawn, sometimes thirty or more in a single school, the size of refrigerators. The current does the work; the diver only watches. — from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Jupiter Inlet is the natural cut between the Loxahatchee River estuary and the Atlantic, on Florida's southeast coast about ninety miles north of Miami. The inlet sits at a point where the Gulf Stream swings within a mile or two of the beach, the closest such approach on the U.S. East Coast. Twin rock jetties stabilise the cut, dredged and maintained by the Jupiter Inlet District. The north jetty is the launching point for drift dives that follow the current up toward Coral Cove and Blowing Rocks Preserve, a stretch of limestone shoreline owned by The Nature Conservancy.
The Gulf Stream brings the water that makes this dive: surface temperatures hold near eighty-two degrees Fahrenheit through summer, dropping into the low seventies in winter. Visibility frequently exceeds eighty feet and reaches over a hundred when the wind has been calm for several days. The drift runs north at one to three knots, so divers carry surface marker buoys and the boat tracks them from above. The bottom is a mix of limestone ledge, sand channels, and patch reef in forty to ninety feet of water, threaded with overhangs that hold lobster and goliath grouper.
Goliath grouper aggregate at the Jupiter ledges from late August through October to spawn — one of the most reliable large-fish gatherings in U.S. waters. Individual fish reach over eight hundred pounds and eight feet long; the species was nearly extirpated by spearfishing and a 1990 federal harvest ban brought the population back. Summer also brings lemon sharks, sailfish offshore, and clear flat seas. Winter diving continues with cooler water and stronger north winds, when boat schedules tighten around weather windows. Hurricane season runs June through November and overrides every plan.
