Air Canada, Alamo Rent a Car, Fairfield Inn Key West, Florida Keys Reef Divers (no longer in business).
We had booked 7 days of 3 tank diving and 1 day of two tank diving. The weather was only partially co-operative, so we did 4 days of 3 tank diving and 1 day of 2 tank diving. Oh well, ya pays your money and ya takes your chances.
It was a dark and stormy afternoon as we approached Miami. So dark and stormy in fact, that we spent half an hour flying around waiting for the storm to abate, and another half hour or so because the baggage handlers do not approach aircraft when the lightning is within a certain distance of the airfield. For us, this was a minor annoyance. However, I do remember being glad that I did not have a connecting flight that was about to leave.
The flights were otherwise quite pleasant, especially since we were bumped up to business class on both the trip down and the trip back.
Our original motivation for staying in Key West was the opportunity to pay with Marriott Reward Points. In retrospect, this would have been a good choice even had we with money. With the dive shop we chose, we would have to commute from somewhere, and Key West is as good a place as any. The drive to the dive shop was only 20 miles, and there were 4 restaurants, 3 fast food joints, and 2 grocery stores within a 15 minute walk from the hotel. It was also a handy location for the time we decided to visit beautiful downtown Key West.
One of the reasons that we chose Florida Keys Reef Divers is that they advertise a maximum of 6 divers per boat. This advertisement is true; we never had more than 6 divers. Another nice thing about this dive shop is that you can customize your package. We booked 3 tank dives, which are not advertised on their website. The boat was comfortable and the service was excellent. The first couple of dives on the Adolphus Bush were guided, but we were on our own for all of the reef dives. Most of the dives had a 50 minute time limit so that the boat would be available for an afternoon trip, but being limited to 150 minutes bottom time a day is hardly a hardship. One day, we were told, "Just dive your air", and I got a 95 minute dive.
I would recommend this dive shop to anyone planning a trip to the Keys.
The diving was very impressive. The coral was in reasonably good condition and there were tons of neat things to look at. In terms of variety of fish life, Looe Key and the surrounding waters are as good as I have seen anywhere in the Caribbean. This was the first place that I have ever seen a jewfish, and I saw at least 5 on this trip. There were also lots of tarpon, sharks, blue parrotfish, midnight parrotfish, and lobster. There were also a few sting rays and spotted eagle rays, as well as one green moray and one turtle.
The visibility was in the 60 ft range most days and the water temperature was mid 80s. Most of the dives were very shallow - less than 30 feet. On the plus side this meant that computers were completely unnecessary and that surface intervals did not need to be very long. This got us back to the dive shop early, even after 3 dives. The only negative to these shallow dives is that the 5 - 10 foot depth variations we often make on reef dives has a much more significant effect on your ears at 20 feet than it does at 60 feet. There were a couple of times I had trouble equalizing in the middle of the dive.
We did three dives on the local wreck, the Adolphus Bush. There were a lot of fish near that wreck, including at least 3 jewfish (but no Goliath Groupers). On the second dive, two buddy teams went down with the Captain. The current was really ripping at the surface, and was reasonably strong at depth too. After touring through the wreck, the other buddy team decided to ascend leaving me, Patti and the Captain on the wreck. We hung around and looked at the fish, and then headed toward the mooring line. We still had time and gas available, so we decided to stay down and look at the fish. To save energy we held on to things rather than fighting the current. The Captain and Patti held on to the railing of the wreck, and I held on to the mooring line. They were peering down, so I looked down. Off in the distance (~50 ft away) were a couple of jewfish. That was kind of cool, but I decided to give my gauges a glance. As I did, I noticed something to my left.
It was another jewfish - a huge one. It was just sort of floating there, about 10 ft away. I guess when you are that big, not much scares you. Had some fishing line coming out of his mouth, bethcha that hurt. This was pretty cool. We looked at each other for a while, and then I checked to make sure Patti and the Captain were still there. Patti looked up at me and signalled me to look over the side of the boat. I did, and sure enough, those two jewfish were still about 50 ft away. So I pointed to the jewfish right next to me.
Back on the diveboat, I was telling the other buddy team about Patti and the Captain looking at those two jewfish off in the distance while a 3rd one was literally right beside me. Patti uttered, "I hate it when he does that".
There are many dive shops right on the highway. Florida Keys Reef Divers is not one of them. Also, sign outside the shop has a different name. The moral of this paragraph is that if you are going there for the first time, do something to ensure you can find the place. We did a recce. Phoning for directions also works.
| Trip Dates2001-06-23 to 2001-07-01 | Trip Report Index |