Northern California is not even comparable to South Florida when it comes to boating, fishing, diving, swimming, beaches.

Florida is absolutely a garbage state (born and raised Floridian speaking) but there's no place in the US that is even in the discussion when it comes to water recreation-- MAYBE Hawaii.

No doubt, but OP is saying nothing in Fort Lauderdale (our "Salt Life") is on axis with SV, With a fair reading I didn't claim the same. Florida keys and Caribbean are Home to the 3rd and 4th largest reefs in the world, so at minimum we can agree it's on the same axis as SV's quality of water activity.