Experience Key West

©1996, Robert E. Lee, All Rights Reserved

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Note: It has been 9 years since I wrote this piece and I had not revisited the information it contains, although I have been back to Key a few times for diving. Thanks to feedback from recent visitors I have updated some information and if you find anything else out of date, please let me know.

Thanks for all your comments and continued visits here. 2/27/2005.

Many things have been said to describe Key West, Florida. From the Caribbean in the United States, the Last Resort to Key Weird, they all invoke the notion of a special experience which is exactly what diving in Key West is.

Not only are there numerous dive sites that range from the shallow reefs with abundant young life to the deep wrecks that require the strongest of trimix technical skills, there is also an after dive life that makes your surface interval an experience almost equal to your dive.

Your experience starts well before you arrive. Many of the dive centers provide complete vacation packages or can support you in arranging for accommodations, activities and dive trips. Several, including Looker Diving, Subtropic, SeaClypse, Southpoint and Key West Diving have sites on the Internet that preview their services and the Key West experience. Check out the side bar for resources and Internet addresses.

You should plan your trip around the leisure after-diving activities you want to enjoy when choosing accommodations. The island is small, a short walk across the island in a north-south direction, easily accomplished in 20 minutes and just over twice that distance going east-west. Walking, bicycles, scooters, pedicabs and taxis are your primary modes of transportation. Parking is at a premium, so cars are discouraged.

The center of activities after dives is old town Key West and Duval street with shopping, restaurants and night clubs. Staying in a bed and breakfast in old town will immerse you in the charm of Key West. Many have suites with kitchens to help defray the cost of meals and enjoy the bounty of your catch during a dive (lobster being very abundant and quite delicious). From hotel rooms to complete apartment suites, many traditional accommodations are also available from local and nationally recognized establishments.

Once you are settled in, its on to the business of your first dive. Your challenge will be the selection of the dive destination. The cycle of life begins in the shallows, 0-20 feet, where the young of most species are spawned amongst the mangroves and then grow up in the sea grasses that populate the flats around the islands. The flats are home to numerous invertebrates, making for interesting snorkeling and shallow scuba dives.

Moving out from the shallows you go nearly six miles to reach the first reef line, where the more mature of each species takes up residence. In all of that distance you have only increased your depth to 40-50 feet. This reef line is the inner reef barrier and is home to the second dive of the morning, afternoon and evening dives. Diving is usually done from around Eastern Sambo, due south of Boca Chica Key out to Vestal Shoal some 10 miles to the west. This many miles of reefs provides excellent diving under most conditions somewhere within a 60 minute boat ride from all of the dive boat ports.

Conditions around Key West can vary visibility from 5 feet or less after a bad storm or when the Gulf Stream has swung out away from the reef to 60-100 feet in the best of times. Even during a good period, like the summer months when the visibility is usually 60+ feet, you can see varying conditions along the reef and at some of the more remote dive sites. This past summer saw an unusual swing in the Gulf Stream, leaving visibility at 10-20 feet for the first few days of my trip, gaining ground to some 50-60 feet at the deeper sites along the out reef later in the week when the Gulf Stream began to swing back in.

Many dive sites are well established and visited by all of the dive centers. With names like Sambo (western, middle, eastern), 9ft Stake, Dry Rocks (eastern and western) and Satan Shoal, each offers a unique experience for you. Many of these sites are worth diving several times since changing conditions can alter the type of sea life and visibility that you will find.

Because of the shallower depths for most dives, you can get longer bottom times, depending on the boat you go out with. Many of the shops run two trips a day, with a departure around 9:00am and 1:30pm, forcing your dive profile into no more than two dives with about 1:50 bottom time. The all day trips, run by shops like Subtropic and Looker, can extend your bottom time at a site because there isn’t as tight a schedule to keep to get you back in to port.

If you are a spear fisherman or love lobster, make sure that you get a Florida fishing license and then let the dive center know what you want to do. On a great dive it is possible to find coral heads with more lobster than your license will allow you to collect in a week of diving (the limit is six per day). Many fish, like the hogs head, are seemingly just wanting for you to take them for an evening meal at your kitchen or in one of the local restaurants that will prepare your catch for a modest fee. Remember, barracuda, nurse sharks and other hunters are regular visitors in these reefs, so follow the safety rules for spear fishing and bug hunting.

Every dive center I spoke with has a number of "exclusive" dive sites that they have located and kept hidden for only their clients. Often the sites offer better than average coral formations and numerous barracuda, sea turtles and manta rays (Devil’s Reef with Looker), collections of moray eels (Serpent City with Looker) or other unique underwater features (W.W.II Torpedo Bomber with Subtropic). It’s these special sites that give you no regrets diving with one dive center for the entire week.

Shallow dive trips take you to places like Western Sambo at depths of 30-40 feet and about 50 minutes of bottom time for each dive. Safety is foremost with the dive centers, pairing all divers up and providing you with complete dive orientations. The Sambo reefs are a great place to see smaller species of fish, like gray angels, wrasses, triggers, parrotfish, snappers, as well as moray eels, barracuda, and nurse sharks. I was surprised on the first dive when I found a really young Green Moray Eel, which I lingered around as my dive buddy moved on. When I went to leave, I found his granddaddy, easily a 5 footer, lying under a coral shelf, content to watch everything that went by. Because visibility was low, 10-15 feet, I spent most of my time looking into the nooks and crannies of the coral formations, trying to identify the vast number of corals, tube sponges, shrimp, starfish or other creatures that inhabit these tiny spaces. Sightings included: brain coral, sea feathers, sea fans, pipe-of-pan sponges, yellow tail snapper, grouper, pork fish and hundreds of other beautiful forms of sea life. On the way back to the boat we discovered a 4 foot nurse shark under a ledge, docile enough to watch, ominous enough to move on without overstaying our welcome.

Typical deeper dives might take you out to the Cayman Salvor, a cable laying ship that was sunk to provide additional habitat for the fish and to give divers a non-decompression wreck experience. This dive takes you to just over 90 feet if you explore the base of the ship. Visibility that day never exceeded 10 feet on the wreck, but was better on the next dive. Most of the superstructure has been stripped away, the encrustation has built up nicely around the ship and it is home to many schooling fish. It is also deep enough to have larger pelagics drop by for a visit, since the bottom continues to drop hundreds of feet below over the course of the next few miles out to sea.

Another popular wreck is Joe’s Tug, also sunk to enhance the diving and fish habitat. Cayman Salvor and Joe’s Tug are the mainstay for the majority of the dive centers for wreck diving. Their shallower depths, Joe’s being as shallow as 40 feet, promote an easy and fun non-intrusive wreck dive which leaves you well within no decompression dive limits for the typical second and afternoon dives of the day. Your dive computer helps tremendously with extending your maximum bottom time and the dive operators allow for this.

Drift diving can be found along the outer reef area, at sites like Trinity Cove. At a depth of 60 feet, you can sit back and relax as the Gulf Stream current takes you on a stroll through gardens of coral, grouper, angels, parrotfish, and many of species. Even at a depth of 60 feet the dives will tend to be limited to 30-40 minutes to accommodate different breathing rates and conditions, plus ample residual bottom time for the second dive of the morning.

On route to your dive it is a frequent occurrence to spot giant sea tortoises and dolphins. It is always exciting to see these fascinating creatures out at sea. While unusual, divers are occasional graced with close encounters with both of these species while underwater, a special treat for everyone.

While most of the action is south of Key West, don’t forget to consider some longer trips out to the west and north into the Gulf of Mexico. The Dry Tortugas, worthy of a live-aboard trip, has 100 foot plus visibility in what still seems to be virgin territory while the Marquesas offer a similar experience within the reach of a full day trip. To the north you find the shallow wreck of the Alexander, in less than 40 feet of water.

For the technically qualified diver, the wrecks USS Curb, USS Wilkes-Barre, S-16 and USS Kendrick offer exciting adventures at deep depths (200+). Well it has been long enough that the previous two dive operators I mentioned here are now out of the business there in Key West and I don't know who is handling technical diving in the area. When I find out, I'll let you know.

All in all, from simple snorkeling and shallow scuba to deep wreck dives, Key West offers hundreds of unique dive experiences that will keep you fascinated for many return trips. And if that isn’t enough, take in the night life on Duval street, the sunsets at the pier, or while away the time in the comfort of your Bed & Breakfast, Key West remains an experience to savor 24 hours every day.

Dive Centers

Accommodations

On a personal note, the Bed and Breakfast scene is perhaps the best way to unwind and relax after a hard day of diving or living it up at night. The suite hotels offer larger accommodations and more modern amenities, while the traditional hotels are the standard fare you have come to expect everywhere.

On the Internet

www.discover.keywest.fl.us - gets you to many of the dive centers, accommodations, plus almost everything else available in Key West to plan your vacation.

www.scubaworld.com - Fast becoming the premier Internet site with listings for many dive centers in the Key West area.

Copyright 2008 © Robert Lee, All Rights Reserved