Florida Keys Trip Report

My wife and I recently did five days of diving in the Keys from June 14 - 18, 2009. We dove four days with It's a Dive at the Key Largo Marriott and one day with Looe Key Reef Resort and Dive Center. It's a Dive offers a significant discount at the Marriot if you book through them. The Marriott is a decent resort with a large pool area.

Day 1: June 14, 2009

We were scheduled to go out on the afternoon boat with It's a Dive. We walked over to the shop located in the center of the resort in the morning and checked in. They had our reservation on the calendar and were expecting us. I asked for a tour of the shop and back room. They have a real clean setup with two compressors and banked air and nitrox. The shop is truly first rate. We purchased a five trip package which worked out to $65 a trip which included two tanks and weights. You can trade in dives for jet ski rentals too.

The boat left promptly after the 12:30 check-in by the other divers. We did have 24 people on board including some snorkelers but their boat the Seastar has a ton of room and never felt crowded. The boat has four exit points two of which have ladders but from the top step of the ladder you can easily enter with a giant stride. This made for quick exits and entries.

The trip to the reef requires going through a mangrove channel and some canals as the Marriott is on the Gulf side of the keys. I read on Scubaboard that this added significant time to get to the reefs and wrecks but everyday we beat every boat out to the dive sites.

Our first dive was at Anchor Chain. It was a nice and easy first dive with the water temperature holding steady at 83 degrees. Diving in board shorts and rash guard is nice change from our drysuits in the Pacific Northwest. At the end of the dive I watched a pair of spiny lobster dance around for a while.

Our second dive was on the Horseshoe. There was an instructor taking someone on her last open water dive so we followed them around for a while. The instructor noticed a nurse shark hanging out under a ledge. He spooked it out and swam right toward the new diver who was trying to take a picture not realizing it was headed right at her. I always love watching people try to swim backwards in a hurry. There are also a couple of good swim-throughs here.

Day 2: June 15, 2009

We started out day two on the City of Washington wreck. This is a neat busted up old wreck with a nice variety of life. We then headed over to South Ledge which is a finger and groove coral formation. Another shallow dive but still great.

Day 3: June 16, 2009

The day I have been waiting for since last year; a two tank dive on the Spiegel Grove. Last year we couldn’t dive the Spiegel because the current was just ripping. There was very little current this time and the visibility was awesome. On the first dive we just checked out the superstructure and swam through the bridge area. We were again the first boat there and moored on ball six. This was a two tank dive so it was great to see the other boats leave after the first dive leaving the whole ship to ourselves. There were only nine divers on the boat and it was sunny and clear. It couldn’t have been a better day and the second dive was even better than the first.

Day 4: June 17, 2009

We decided to drive up to Looe Key instead of diving in Key Largo. I did a fair amount of research and went with Looe Key Reef Resort and Dive Center. I chose them because they do a three tank dive with the first dive on the Adolphus Busch and two dives on the reef. I have to admit I was a little nervous with this dive operator after checking them out on Scubaboard. The woman on the phone was a bit harsh and insisted we be at the shop an hour before the boat departs even if we weren’t renting gear. Once we got there I understood why and what everyone had said on the board was true. It was a cattle boat. There were more snorkelers than divers. This was however the same type of pontoon boat as It’s A Dive’s but for some reason their boat was never crowded. They gave everyone numbers that we had to wear on our wrists while we waited to get aboard. The paperwork was the longest I have ever had to fill out for a dive boat. The two women running the check-in were a little rough to put it nicely. Once we got to the boat things got a little better. The co-captains were jovial and gave very thorough briefings. My only complaint about them was they ended up being more concerned with selling concessions then they were about helping divers on and off the boat and never once offered to swap out our tanks. I think this is why the boat felt crowded as well because there was a BBQ and two huge coolers full of drinks for purchase.

The Adolphus Busch was the first dive. We couldn’t even see an outline of the wreck so I knew right away the visibility wasn’t going to be good. It was down right terrible. Maybe 20 feet tops, not like it was on the Spiegel. There was also a serious thermocline at 85 feet which took my breath away at first. It was an okay dive and probably would have been better if we could see.

On the second dive we headed to Looe Key. The captain recommended swimming three fingers over and then working our way back. Let me tell you, I was impressed with this reef. We saw everything that was on my list: groupers, rays, moray eels, nurse sharks, lobster and so many fish. This reef is spectacular. I am still a relatively new diver with only 41 dives but this is what I imagined scuba diving would be like before I started diving. While I was diving I kept thinking how fake I thought the Wii game Endless Ocean was and then I looked around at my surroundings. The visibility however slowly worsened throughout the dive and I noticed the surf picking up on the surface. When we surfaced the captain yelled for us to get aboard. A thunder storm had rolled in and everyone was on the boat except for a few other divers. We quickly got on board and the boat moved out of the storm. This was of course a perfect time for the captains to sell $3 hotdogs and $5 sloppy joes. Let me just tell you they made a killing. There was no need to help us with our gear and earn tips because they made more money selling overweight snorkelers two or three hotdogs each.

We were able to do the third dive but by this time the bottom was pretty churned up. It was still a great dive because the reef is just that good. I will for sure make a trip to Looe Key next time we are in they keys. I might even dive with Looe Key Reef Resort again because despite my complaints the price was right.

Day 5: June 18, 2009

We did our last day of diving with It’s A Dive again and I was glad to be back on a less crowded boat with a laid back captain and crew. Because there weren’t any snorkelers Captain Mike took us out to the Benwood Wreck so we could get a little more depth. Again, we beat every boat to the wreck and were moored right over the bow. This is a great wreck with a max depth of around 40 feet. We cruised up and down a few times looking in all the nooks and crannies. We did our safety stop hovering over the bow. Quite a few boats had shown up at this point so it was nice to get out of there.

Our second dive was on French Reef where we found a couple of swim-throughs. This was nice and easy dive and still had a little more depth than the shallower reefs we did earlier in the week.

Five days of diving and 11 dives later I had my fix of warm water diving. I was looking forward to heading north to Miami and just hanging at the beach and pool for a few days before returning to Bellingham, Washington and the 46 degree water of the San Juan Islands.