Diving Key Largo (Or, Everyone Looks Goofy in a Scuba Mask)

Ever since October when I went diving in the Keys I have wanted to get back down there to do some more diving. This Easter weekend my wish finally came true. My brother flew down and joined me for 6 dives off of Key Largo.

We stayed at the Bay Cove Inn (http://www.baycovemotel.com/). It was decent and definately worth checking out for the price. The rooms were basic but clean and there were grills and we had free use of kayaks. The grills came in very handy because we were able to cook our own dinners instead of eating out. It was cheaper and at this point in my travels, I will be happy if I dont eat at a restaraunt for a few months.

This was the view from the dock at the Bay Cove Inn. Not quite a sunset into the water like in Key West, but still very impressive.

And we also dove some. On Friday, we signed up for 4 dives. Two were in the morning at 9am and then 2 more at 1pm. We showed up to the dock and got on board the boat. The other people on our trip boarded as well and began to set up their respective gear. Besides my brother and me, there were 9 other divers on board. It is a bit more than I like but I wasn't too worried until the guy next to me asked a question. "Do you know how to set this stuff up? Its been a while since I last dived." Now, to a non-diver this may seem like a simple question but it really is a big deal. Scuba equipment is basically life support equipment. It is that important, so not knowing how to do a very basic setup was worrying. I was determined that he would not dive with me.

The boat pulled out and headed out to Elbow Reef. As we got farther out to sea, the waves grew progressively worse. They were around 2-4 feet with the occasional wave cresting at 5+feet. By the time we got to the site of our first dive, a girl on the boat threw up all over herself. She was no older than 14 and I felt bad for a second but then I had to get away from it. I cannot be around people who are throwing up. By the time we ended the second dive, 4 out of the 11 passengers on the boat had thrown up and were in verying stages of sea sickness. (I am very proud to report that I was NOT one of the 4 who got sick).

This is on the wreck of the City of Washington (http://www.silentworldkeylargo.com/City_of_Washington.htm)

These little fish followed me around everywhere like the expected to be fed. They were so close that I tried to poke them on several occasions but they were too quick for me.

More from the City of Washington. This was a pretty cool dive. The wreck doesn't look much like a ship and is really just a bunch of metal scraps and pieces strewn across the sand.

On the surface after coming up from a dive. The waves made it interesting getting back on the boat.

Overall, Friday was a long but good day of diving. We did four dives and by the end of the 4th dive I was tired and cold and needed to get out of my wet swimsuit. We also took a pretty good beating with the waves. Our reff dives were only down to about 30 feet at most and so the wave action and current are very strong. It was tiring to fight that all day.

On Saturday we woke up and got out to the dock for the dive I had been looking forward to the whole time. We were going to do 2 dives on the U.S.S Spiegel Grove. The Spiegel Grove is a 510 foot long LSD (Landing Ship Dock). More basic info can be found here: http://www.spiegelgrove.com/

In a word the dive was amazing. The wreck lies in 130 feet of water but most of the superstructure can be reached at 60-90 feet. We dropped down the morring line and as soon as we got past the thermocline, a huge ship came into view. I was almost breathless.

Here are a few videos to give you a better idea of what it is like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yCpI929fE0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO9yo8yfs3k

The Superman pose really was unintentual but I thought it was kind of eery that there was still an American flag on the wreck.

All in all a truly fantastic trip. I am already thinking about when I can dive the Spiegel Grove again.

I would also like to recommend the dive outfit we went with, Silent World. They were great and their website is here: http://www.silentworldkeylargo.com/

Catching Up: Halloween

So it has bene a while since my last post. I think I got really worn down by the travelling in the last month. But enough with the excuses...

One story I have been wanting to blog about is what I did for Halloween this year.

Picture being in Miami, FL. The weather is in the low 80's and South Beach is just a short drive away. Everyone tells me that the town is going to be crazy and wild. Sounds like a great time but I wasn't interested.

I decided to drive down to Key Largo and go Scuba diving instead. I went to bed extra early the night before and got up at 5:30am to make it down there and catch the boat. I had travelled the entire semester with my dive equipment taking up a large portion of the space in my car and I needed to get some use out of it.

I had heard about a small dive shop in Key Largo from another diver I met in the Caymans last summer. He is a doctor in Maryland and dived all over the Caribbean. I told him that I was often in Southern Florida for business (it makes me feel like such a grown up to say that). He reccomended a dive shop called Quiescence. Here is their site: http://www.keylargodiving.com/ (and if you are wondering, quiescence means "a state of repose, still, tranquil, serene, the essence of quiet).

I arrived at the shop around 7:30 ready to dive at 8am. I walked in and showed them me C-Cards (cards that prove you are a certified diver) and started filling out the paperwork. The captain came in and informed me that the seas were running 3-4 feet. I have very limited experience diving in the ocean so I really don't know what to think. Not wanting to sound like a complete amateur, I smile and tell them that its no big deal and I'm ready to go. (How bad can 3-4 waves really be right?)

We walked down to the boat, loaded up our gear and I met the captain and my dive buddy for the day.

This is Captain Steve.

And this is my dive buddy, Thierry (its pronounced like there is is no "h" in it). Thierry is from Guyana (any ideas of where that is?). He was quite impressed that I knew it was in South America. I guess geography in 6th grade was good for something after all. Also, he is a dive instructor so it was great to be paired with someone who really knew what they were doing. He also had an underwater camera with him so most of these pictures were taken by him. He was a great guy and spoke several different languages. French is the primary language spoken in Guyana and he had a pretty thick accent. I had to try to keep from laughing because all I could think of was a part from the movie "Along Came Polly" where one of the charasters is a French scuba instructor and his famous line is (in a heavy french accent) "You for Scuba?"

The waves were much worse than I anticipated but luckily I keep Dramamine in my car just for times like this. The other two divers on the boat were a mother and son from Ohio. They had just gotten certified and this was their first dive in the ocean. They made their first dive and were so sea sick that they stayed in the boat for the second one.

Once you got under the water, the surge from the waves was not too noticeable. On our first dive we came across several large grouper (pictured above). The secodn grouper we saw was hidden under a ledge and was easily as big as I am. They are harmless but it is still a big fish to be swimming near. We also saw a spotted eagle ray. It passed by too quickly to get a good picture, but here is a link to see one: http://www.akamaidivers.com/images/eagle%20ray.jpg

They are quite beautiful and graceful underwater.

The second dive we dove a site called "The Winch." As you can see above, they were not too creative when thinking of a name. The winch is leftover from a shipwreck in the late 1800's and there was some other debris around the area. On the second dive, there were baracuda everywhere. Eben though there has never been a case of one attacking a diver, it was still pretty creappy to see a large school of them swimming slowly through the water.

I tried to get close enough to have my picture taken with them, but it didn't turn out as well as I had imagined. Scuba divers are pretty noisy underwater so the fish tend to keep their distance.

We also spotted a moray eel. He stayed hidden in the coral though and after seeing one swim when I was diving in the Caymans, that was okay with me.

We also spotted a few more large grouper as well as dozens of other smaller fish.

Both dives were only down to about 30 feet so we had almost an hour of bottom time. As we were coming back to the surface from the second dive, the bottom of our boat was oscured by fish. There were dozens of them swimming around underneath it. As it turns out, the other two divers were sea sick and had thrown up over the side of the boat, thereby attracting fish. It made me kind of laugh, but I felt bad that they got sick and couldnt enjoy the dive.

Overall, it was a fantastic day, even though the waves were a little rough. I would dive again with this shop in a heartbeat and will hopefully get to go again in April when I am in Miami again.