The Florida keys

Packed tight: a school of blue-striped grunts at Snapper Ledge, one of the most fish-populated reefs in the entire Florida Keys All photos: Stephen Frink Praise be: the Christ statue off Key Largo Dry Rocks reef was a gift to the Underwater Society of America from the Cressi dive equipment family in the 1960s Clear water: a diver takes a giant stride into the crystalline waters off Key Largo’s Elbow Reef Friendly Floridian: queen angelfish are easily approached in the Florida Keys Cave dweller: schools of great barracuda can often be found near Fire Coral Caves, a dive site at the south end of Molasses Reef Under Control: the Lower Keys’ Looe Key reef tract was once a standalone National Marine Sanctuary, like the one in Key Largo. Both now fall under the broader regulatory control of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The rich marine life, such as this scrawled filefish, is the happy result of >decades of preservation initiatives Preservation order: grunts and elkhorns at Snapper Ledge, which is scheduled to become a Sanctuary Preservation Area in 2010 On air: an aerial view of the coral formations marking Molasses Reef West end: Key West is a weird and wonderful town unlike any other. Duval Street is the centre of the action, home to great restaurants, bars and shopping A shot of the Duane from 1987, when the ship was sunk, still gleaming with white paint The arches of the now-defunct Bahia Honda Bridge in the Lower Keys Open door: the Duane was intentionally sunk as an artificial reef in 1987 and has now matured with a cloak of orange cup corals and encrusting sponges, which provide a colourful backdrop for the resident schools of grunt and barracuda Passing through: manta encounters in the Key aren’t guaranteed, but the rare and unusual can swim by at any time. This one was along a shallow reef near the Christ Statue Map of the Florida Keys

The Florida Keys are affectionately called the ‘Conch Republic’, after the big shellfish that gets served as fritters or chowder on the islands. Accordingly, a person born and raised in the keys is often referred to as a ‘Conch’. Now, I’m not a pure Conch, but I have been here for more than 30 years, having arrived in 1978 to open a studio for underwater photography in Key Largo. In that time, I’ve had the privilege of diving the best sites along this 126-mile long string of islands. Here are a few of my personal insights about what makes these islands so endearingly special, where you should go and what to see once you come here.

My extensive travels throughout tropical dive destinations have allowed me to compare my home diving to that in the rest of the Caribbean. While this isn’t about ranking the Keys relative to the wider Caribbean, I can’t help but do that myself each time I jump in the water locally. We may not have the walls of Little Cayman, or the water clarity of the southern Bahamas, but what the Florida Keys do have, in staggering numbers, is fish. The marine life population in the Florida Keys is more profuse than anywhere I’ve seen in the western hemisphere.

The marine conservation legacy began in 1960 with the establishment of John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, and expanded with the creation of the Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary in 1975, Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary in 1981 and finally the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) in 1990. Protecting waters on both Gulf and Atlantic sides of the landmass, the sanctuary covers 3,674 square miles of sea, an area approximately half the size of Wales.

The sanctuary is dotted with 100 per cent no-take zones that help to regenerate the surrounding reefs and their populations. Divers travelling throughout the Caribbean will see many places under constant pressure from sustenance and commercial fishing: destinations with beautiful reefs, but with no living creatures larger than the mesh of a fish trap. Yet the marine life on many reefs in the Florida Keys is much more profuse than two decades ago, a tribute to enlightened conservation and enforcement.

Shipwrecks are an important aspect of the maritime heritage in the Keys, and contribute significantly to the diving portfolio. For as long as mariners have been travelling the Florida Straits, there have been those unlucky or unwise enough to lose their ships to our reefs. Maybe they were running a little too close to shore to avoid the Gulf Stream current, or maybe the afternoon sun was glaring off the water and they couldn’t see the coral head below them, even in 30m visibility. Each major dive destination in the Florida Keys offers both historical shipwrecks and artificial reefs sunk as attractions.

The artificial reefs in particular are impressive, with vessels ranging from 60m coastal freighters to the colossal 153m Spiegel Grove. Really, when considered in aggregate, the artificial reef programme in the Florida Keys is quite impressive. And having been personally involved in a few of them (Bibb, Duane, and Spiegel Grove), I can testify that putting these vessels on the bottom is an arduous and expensive task. Yet, a shipwreck is the gift that keeps on giving, becoming more attractive and fascinating with each passing year. So, here’s a Conch-eye’s view of some of the must-see underwater attractions in the Florida Keys.



Key areas

Key Largo

At 30 miles long, Key Largo is the largest landmass and benefits from the fact that the island forms a barrier, preventing the turbid water from Florida Bay washing to the offshore coral reefs on outgoing tidal shifts. The other accident of geography that makes Key Largo so special is that the clear waters of the Gulf Stream pass quite near the island here, which is a big advantage when it comes to enjoying good visibility on the reefs, which typically lie about six miles offshore. It can also provide some challenging currents on deep wrecks such as the Duane and Spiegel Grove, as they are even more exposed to Gulf Stream flow.

The City of Washington ran aground in 1917 in only 8m of water, and was blown apart to prevent it becoming a hazard to navigation. As a result, the attraction is not high-profile wreckage to explore, but fascinating marine life that calls this wreck home. Decades of fish-feeding on this site have created some especially friendly locals, as well as boosting the population. Moray eels and barracuda were the traditional participants in this underwater circus, but recently nurse sharks and goliath grouper have taken centre stage.

The Benwood is a more traditional wreck dive, even though it too suffered from the engineers’ dynamite after sinking. Running without navigation lights due to German U-boat activity, the Benwood collided with another ship on 9 April 1942. However, the bow section remains intact and is home to big schools of porkfish and schoolmaster snapper.

People talk about diving Molasses Reef, but since there are 33 mooring buoys on it, there are multiple unique subsets of the reef structure. My favourite is known as Fire Coral Cave. Located at the southern end of the reef, this is a pelagic paradise, with eagle rays and turtles commonly sighted. A pair of goliath groupers is normally in residence as well.

The hulking Spiegel Grove dock landing ship is the best-known shipwreck in the Keys. Initially sunk upside down on 17 May 2002, before landing on its starboard side on 10 June 2002 and finally turning upright on 9 July 2005 by the passing waves from an offshore hurricane, the Spiegel Grove merits multiple dives.

Actually, the 110m-long Duane is more manageable as a wreck to sample on a single dive, and as it has been on the bottom since 1987, its cup coral and sponge encrustations make it far more colourful. Turtles are often found around the wheelhouse resting from the current, and massive schools of grunt take refuge on the ship. The Duane’s sister shipwreck is the Bibb, which ended up on its side, and is a deeper dive that’s mostly the preserve of mixed-gas divers.

Snapper Ledge is equally accessible from dive shops in Key Largo and Tavernier, and is noted for the sheer mass of fish that congregate there. You will find clouds of schoolmaster snapper there (I guess that’s how the site got its name), and there is also the greatest concentration of goatfish, blue-striped grunt and French grunt of any reef I’ve dived anywhere on the planet.

The island of Islamorada is best known as the sport-fishing capital of the world, but divers find much to favour here as well. The signature wreck is the Eagle, a 70m coastal freighter that previously sailed as the Aaron K. It was acquired by the Islamorada dive community and sunk as an artificial reef in 1985. It came to rest on its starboard side, with the port rail at about 22m. In 1998, a storm surge from Hurricane Georges snapped the wreck’s spine, leaving the superstructure in two sections and opening previously inaccessible sections of the wreck to the tomtate grunts and goliath groupers that now reside within. Wide-angle photographers always seem to migrate to the crow’s nest, situated well off the bottom and lavishly encrusted with colourful sponge.

Conch Wall provides a nice counterpoint to the traditional spur-and-groove coral formations of most of the reefs, in this case a mini-wall dropping precipitously for 18 to 25m. The deep section of this reef, similar to the deep end of Molasses, offers plentiful barrel sponge and gorgonia clusters, as well as slightly different resident marine life, notably the reef butterflyfish that are so rarely seen along the shallows.

If the iconic Keys sight is clouds of blue-striped grunt, Davis Reef optimises the look, although here the resident green morays provide some diversity as well. With a north–south ledge rising some 2m off the ocean floor, that little bit of structure is adequate to provide refuge for thousands of fish.

Marathon and the Middle Keys

The Middle Keys are an acquired taste, and many divers are fiercely loyal to their sublime attractions. While the Florida Keys aren’t known for their white sand beaches, Sombrero Beach in the heart of Marathon is probably the best anywhere in the Keys. As it’s not visible from the highway, it is usually uncrowded.

It has been more than a decade since I first dived with the friendly nurse sharks of Samantha’s Reef. Of course, when I say ‘friendly’, I really mean acclimatised to being fed – but for whatever reason, the nurse sharks are very eager to hear divers splash in, and will eagerly await them in the hope that some morsel might magically appear. There are other attractions here, including a long, winding ledge running from about five to 15m in depth. Schools of Bermuda chub intersperse with smallmouth grunt. Other popular reef sites include Coffin’s Patch, Sombrero Reef and Delta Shoal; collectively, they comprise several dozen distinct dive sites marked by mooring buoys.

The queen of the Marathon shipwreck fleet is the Thunderbolt. Originally commissioned by the US Army in 1942 as a cable layer – the massive, open-spoked cable wheel that still dominates the forward deck is a remnant of that service – she latterly served as a lightning research vessel. It sits upright on a sand bottom at 40m, with the wheelhouse topping out at about 22m. The cable wheel is at about 25m, and while you want to do a bounce dive to find the mostly-buried propellers, there is little reason to drop below 30m on this wreck. Barracuda often hang out in the wheelhouse, and small, hard coral heads and sponges have begun to cloak the metal superstructure.

Lower Keys

The Lower Keys are unique, beyond the fact that a herd of some 800 diminutive Key deer live only here. There is also a very nice beach at Bahia Honda Key, a state park whose campsites during peak seasons are booked years in advance. The pace is a bit slower here than some of the Upper Keys, and certainly more so than Key West. The big dive attraction here is Looe Key, a reef structure special enough to merit designation as a National Marine Sanctuary 25 years ago. The reef takes its name from a 46-gun frigate that ran aground here in 1744. These days, there are 70 mooring buoys along the Looe Key reef system. Snorkellers will enjoy the shallow reef, while divers tend to visit the patch reefs, spur-and-groove reef, or the deeper reef slope at 20–30m.

The Adolphus Busch Sr, a coastal freighter sunk intentionally in 1998, is the Lower Keys’ most popular wreck dive. It now rests upright at 35m, just three and a half miles west of Looe Key. At a depth of about 22m, divers will find the wheelhouse swarming with Caesar grunts.

Key West

You’ll find the best shopping, bars, galleries, restaurants, resort hotels, and general tourist-related civilisation in Key West. Even the totally dedicated diver should take a day off to see the sunset at Mallory Square and stroll down Duval Street, if for no other reason than to people-watch.

While you’re there, make some time for the underwater world as well. When the Key West dive community sinks the missile-tracking ship Hoyt S Vandenberg – an ongoing project that may come to fruition later this year – it will be a huge attraction, both literally and figuratively. Currently, the Cayman Salvage Master is the most popular wreck dive. The large cable-laying spool on the bow is the most interesting structure on the wreck, especially since the wheelhouse was removed prior to sinking. It now sits totally upright at a depth of 27m, thanks to Hurricane Kate doing to it what Hurricane Dennis did to the Spiegel Grove.




The seasons

Summer is absolutely the best time to dive the Keys, with calm seas and excellent water clarity the norm. Winter is popular as an escape from more frigid parts of the world: it does remain quite balmy here, but there is little protection from the prevailing winds that tend to kick up in the winter. People still dive most days, but along shallow reefs the wave action can stir up sediment and degrade visibility.

Viz ranges from highs of 25m-plus in summer to lows of 13m in winter. The average water temperature in winter is 22–23°C, with summer temperatures averaging 28–29°C.

In the summer, you only need a dive skin, or a 3mm if you feel the cold. In the winter, the suit of choice is a 5mm, perhaps with a hooded vest for extra warmth.

Where to stay

You can choose from big Holiday Inn-style chain hotels to the myriad bed-and-breakfasts (or, as they are called locally, ‘Mom-and-Pops’). Most dive shops have dive/accommodation packages, so it is best to research by destination, then by dive operator, and then by the recommendations the dive operator gives. You will probably save money that way, and also get the benefit of local knowledge.

Getting there

Most people arrive at Miami International, rent a car, and drive on down to the Keys. Here’s a tip to help you plan and map your route. Go to www.mapquest.com and enter Miami International Airport as your start point and Sloppy Joe’s Bar in Duval Street, Key West as your end point on the route-planner. You’ll be given a set of directions, and pretty much every place you want to see in the Keys will be somewhere between the two points.



Contacts

Amy Slate’s Amoray Dive Resort, Key Largo
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Web: http://www.amoray.com

Silent World Dive Center, Key Largo
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Web: http://www.silentworldkeylargo.com

Florida Keys Tourism
Web: http://www.fla-keys.com/diving