Posted by lcarlson on September 25, 2001 at 08:51:29:
Trip Report Florida Keys- Sorry our friends from Palm Springs couldn’t make it……All work and no play makes Daryl a dull boy ; o )
Summary:
2 Days Key Largo (4 dives plus one night dive)
1 Day Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary (Big Pine Key)
Water Temp 84
Seas 1-2
Wind < 4knots
Visibility 40-80
Fun Factor 8.5+/10
Operators: Aqua-nuts (Key Largo), Amy Slates (Key Largo), Looe Key Divers (Looe Key)
****Special note: both lesli and I made it back and no one else was lost with Aqua-nuts who seems to have a problem with losing divers…..must be their strict adherence to the DAN ID Tag system
Thursday
Loaded our equipment onto the 42’ ‘Cattle Boat’ that amusingly held only six divers that day. Our Halcyon set-ups and other gear attracted curious attention from the boat critters. Light breeze took the sting out of the 87 degree day. First dive site French Reef- the donut hole. Great dive as I saw the excitement build for my buddy (lesli) who had never been in saltwater before. We saw a Caribbean Reef Shark right off the bat (3.5 to 4 ish) and I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her mask. Seeing Reef Sharks in Fl Keys is getting to be a rare occurrence at spots like this one. We drug around a disposable underwater camera good to 12 ft. So each time I took a picture I would have to ascend to 12 feet to advance the film. Good thing it was only 24 ft deep. Vis was 60+ and light current with little to no surge on the tops of the coral heads. Fish: abundant Sargent Majors, puffers, french angels, rock beauties, stop light parrot fish..heck lots of kinds of parrot fish, file fish, trumpet fish (lesli’s favorite) scrawled cow fish, and many many more.
Next dive after 12 min surface interval was at Molasses Reef. This yielded more of the same critters with Lesli taking the lead and dragging me all over the reef . I later asked her if she felt like she was in race and she replied ‘I just wanted to see it all and they only gave us 1 hour!’. I mentioned that this was the beauty of diving, that you can never see it all. And we also added a turtle and man of war to our spottings at this site. Easy boat ride back with the sun setting and lighting our path.
Friday
Early am 70 mile drive to Big Pine Key to Looe Key Dive center. Briefed on the 3 tank trip to Looe Key national marine sanctuary. The boat was a Cat and there were 8 divers and 5 snorkelers and the crew. This boat grills up hotdogs for you while you dive (if you eat hot dogs that is). Vis was the poorest of the trip at around 40 feet. But the water depths of 5 to 26 feet and the incredible health of the reef more than made up for this. Looe key for those that are not familiar with it has large spur and groove channels that undulate forming the reef system so each ‘side’ to one of these canyons or spurs is a mini wall dive with undercuts and some swim thrus. Particularly dense coral , especially staghorn variety can be witnessed here.
To be continued