Key Largo scuba diving

Warm pristine waters, tropical fish galore, and the sound of scuba bubbles racing towards the surface. Sometimes it just doesn’t get any better than that.

Thirty feet below the surface is a sandy bottom interlaced with coral ridges leading to a labyrinth of twists, turns, and surprises. Slowly fin kicking around the edge of another coral wall finds you entering yet another stunning sight of life below the surface.

This is John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park located on the Atlantic side of the upper Florida Keys. Divers have almost unlimited choices of dive companies to take them a short distance off shore to the reefs that line the keys. You will be diving in waters between 15 and 40 feet for most of the common dive areas. 60 minutes bottom time is about average, depending on the currents of the day.

During this particular dive the visibility was greater than 40 feet making for a spectacular day. The current was running just over 1knot and the water was in the 80′s. If your not used to diving in water this pretty, get ready for some memorable moments, and by all means, bring a camera.

Today was a dive that my daughter LeAnn and I wanted to go on. She is a newly certified open water diver and looks for any opportunity or excuse to get wet, particularly if I’m paying. We called ahead and made sure we had a couple of spots with Rainbow Reef, a well established dive company.

http://www.rainbowreef.us/

This was our first dive with this particular company, but we had been told great things about them. We were not disappointed. The staff was pleasant, helpful, and very informative. The prices are consistent with the other dive operations in the area. Check the website for further details.

Our ride out to the first site was very relaxing as we took in the local scenery. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the buoy we moored to and ready to jump in.

Upon entering the water we deflated our BC’s and settled to the bottom about 25′ below. I rested on my knees for a couple of minutes while I stared off into the distance taking in all the sights. After adjusting my  buoyancy compensator my biggest decision was in making up my mind on which way to go. LeAnn gave me the sign that she was ready to follow, I just didn’t know to where . Everything was simply beautiful.

It was about that time that a school of yellow tail came by, so we followed them. It was as good of a direction as any, and hey, they probably knew where they were going.

Following the fish turned out to be a great choice. We were greeted with the returned curiosity of numerous species of aquatic life. LeAnn kept stopping to take photographs of different types of coral along the way. I kept stopping to look around, over, under, and behind all the odd shaped coral formations. Every kick of the fins rewarded me with something new to look at. This was truly a great spot.

After enjoying this site for a while we surfaced at the designated time and returned to the dive boat. It was a quick change out of the scuba tanks and we were already at the next dive site. The transit was a bit shorter than I expected.

We had traveled into just slightly deeper water on the outer edge of the reef. The Captain pointed out that it may be possible to see reef sharks along this edge. I was really hoping to get to see a few sharks, but alas, they did not reveal themselves if they were in the area.

I did find a moray eel under a rock ledge, and with a little prodding he came out to say hello. I didn’t prod too hard as I am attached to my fingers and have grown used to them being on the end of my hand for so many years.

When I looked up I saw the biggest barracuda staring back at me that I have ever seen. I don’t know how long he had been there, or following us around for that matter. We were probably just a minor diversion in the life and times of a barracuda on the reef. We were surrounded by schools of yellow tail, snapper, a grouper here and there, parrot fish, and a host of other delectable goodies for the barracuda to eat. We probably didn’t look too edible or appetizing. That was my theory anyhow, and I’m sticking to it.

We totally enjoyed the dive experience, from beginning to end. Taking the noon boat out found us returning as the sun was setting, giving us a view to remember and leaving us with some great memories.

Filed Under: Travels

Tags: Florida Keys • Key Largo • scuba