Key Largo and Miami

[Elkman]

I went down to Miami Beach last week (I know, life is rough. ;D)  I was down there for the , an inline skating event, but I got down there a few days early with plans to go diving.

I was hoping to go diving for four days last week (Tuesday through Friday), but I only got to dive on Thursday and Friday.  The dive trip I had scheduled for Tuesday got cancelled, because the seas were still rough from recent storms.  (If you watched the Super Bowl, you remember how bad it was.)  Then, the trip I had scheduled for Wednesday got cancelled because I was the only person booked for it.  I was rather frustrated with this, especially since I had stopped into the shop the day before and checked to make sure the trip was still on.  Their Web site wasn't in sync with their schedule, either -- the Web site said the dive was Wednesday morning, while the real schedule was for a night dive at 6 PM.

Anyway, I got out on Thursday with on a trip to Molasses Reef at Key Largo.  It wasn't a very deep dive -- probably only 15 feet at most -- but there was all sorts of wildlife down there.  There were plenty of corals down there, as well as numerous fish that I had no idea how to identify.  I ended up getting a fish identification book so I could figure out what I had seen.  The visibility was great, too -- it was at least 40 feet, and the water temperature was a comfy 75 degrees.  Much different than my recent Minnesota dives!

On Friday, I went diving with the same shop for a two-tank dive.  The first dive was to the .  This was a ship seized from drug smugglers, then sunk to provide an artificial reef.  It's 90 feet deep, but the visibility was still at least 40-50 feet.  There are a couple areas of the hull that can be penetrated without needing a line or wreck diving experience.  (I had an instructor with me serving as a guide, mainly since the shop recommended a guide.)  Our second dive was to an area called The Pipes, which is another artificial reef built out of leftover concrete pipes from a sewage plant project.  My instructor/guide saw a nurse shark and borrowed my camera to take a few pictures of it.  I don't remember seeing the shark, unless I just didn't get close enough to it.  I did manage to get a closeup picture of a green moray eel, along with plenty of other fish swimming around the pipes.  Meanwhile, my guide pilfered a lobster trap and stole a lobster out of it.  He pointed to his mouth then rubbed his belly, which I guess is the underwater hand signal for "dinner".

All things considered, I had four great dives down there.  I wanted to do more, but the circumstances didn't really work out to dive every day I had planned on it.

As I mentioned, I took lots of pictures.  I'm going to try and upload them to the gallery here, but I also have them posted on my Web site already at .