Miami-Key Largo Area

[lwright]

At the end of May, I went on vacation down to Miami. While in Miami, I had an opportunity to earn my PADI Advance Open Waters certification. The South Beach Divers instructed me, who are located in a dive shop in the heart of Miami Beach’s Art Deco District. My first two dives were made in Key Largo at the John Pennakamp National Reef Park. We dove to different areas known as the French Reef, which had some great sea life. On my second dive, I saw a 6-foot Moray Eel, which blew my mind. Between dives we had a chance to go by the Spiegel Grove, which is a 510-foot WWII troop & equipment transport ship. There were contractors in the process of flipping the ship right side up with tugboats and they had divers setting floatation balloons. The Spiegel Grove is now the largest man made coral reef, supposedly in the world. On my second day of diving, I made three dives off the coast of Hollywood, FL. I had a chance to dive three wrecks, which was an awesome experience. South Florida has over 50 wrecks to dive off the coast. The Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area is a great area to dive without spending large sums of money while getting a sub-tropical environment. I dove with the South Beach Divers and these people are really good and they know all the good dive sites. Here’s there website:

[jasondbaker]

Larry, what exposure suit did you wear? What were the general costs to dive down there? Sounds like a great trip. I'd like to see the Speigel Grove now that it is sunk.

[lwright]

Unfortunately, I didn't have a 3mm wetsuit, because ideally in the summer that's all you need, if that much. The water temp was between 80 to 83 degrees. In the winter, I heard the water temp is in the low 70s and my dive instructor wears a 7mm wet, but he's cold blooded. I just wore my the farmer part of my 6.5 mm Farmer John wetsuit. If I wasn't paying for the Advance Certification, I would only pay approximately $70 for a two tank boat dive in Key Largo and that included transportation to and from Key Largo from Miami. If you drive yourself to Key Largo, which is only an hour from Miami, you can save about $30.