A week in FL: Key Largo and High Springs

[thez_yo]

With SoCal being undiveable for the past 6 months, I was excited to head over to Florida despite the chilly (read: SoCal summer-like) forecast for Key Largo. Our small dive crew all met up in Miami last Thursday, and headed down to the Keys for the dives Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, and Sunday morning. It was the usual shallow reefs & Benwood that you'd expect to dive, with ~1hr long dives, max depths ranging from ~20-35fsw, and since it was chilly, water temps steadily decreasing over the three days from 75ºF Friday to a balmy 70ºF Sunday.

There wasn't really any current except for a little on the first dive, but there was always some surge being shallow reefs as they are. Seas were pretty flat the first day, but Saturday and Sunday things picked up to 2-4'. Sunday I didn't even bother clipping up my sidemount tank at the surface and just did it while dropping to get out of the chop. I'm sure my primary 7' of hose dangling beneath me on the way down freaked out at least a few new divers, but with surface conditions as they were, stowing everything and cleaning it up is infinitely easier mid-water.

My dive buddy, G83:

And some pics of the usual suspects. Viz was pretty hazy and sandy at times, but it sure beats SoCal viz any day of the week:
Flat seas earlier in the weekend.

Usually I don't see scrawled filefish just free-swimming mid-water.

All the eels on this trip.. usually I can't spot them, but there were morays everywhere.

And as if a moray isn't frightening enough, scorpionfish right next to him.

The Benwood is my favourite dive in the shallows in Key Largo. It just has so many fish that when you swim through you feel like you're one of the school.

A gigantic moray tucked into the wreck..

..with my buddy for scale.

Even the fish are shocked at how big the eel is

 

[thez_yo]

..And then off for more reefs.

Definitely choppier up top..

Seriously, this has got to be the happiest fish I've ever seen.

Hazy viz.

..they're always watching..

The bottom of our dive boat! I guess the story is that the HD washed off the bottom a bit after getting painted because it had to get in the water a little too soon. You can see it still on one of the hulls though. Maybe in better viz it would pop a bit more.

We had some jellies. Notice the guy kneeling in the bottom left? I'll get back to the 'bad' 'divers' later..

Still watching.

I've never seen crabs in Key Largo before this trip.

 

[thez_yo]

...So we headed back to Miami for the night, where the next day the rest of the group made their way home but I headed North for some caves!

First though, let's look at all the horrifying things we saw in Key Largo. It wasn't just kneeling guy:

The guy still standing was filming something a kid was doing with someone else.. who were also standing on the bottom (they're the ones ascending in the shot). I think they were finishing up his OW and the kid was ~12 y/o.

More kneeling.

As I was cruising around the Benwood, all of a sudden someone dropped and stood right next to me scaring off a small Grouper (maybe that's what he's looking for):

Then proceeded to herd the fish around the hull on hands and knees.

More kneeling.

No.

Can we have mandatory re-OW and re-OW-instructor certification industry-wide? Because I thought we weren't teaching this any longer? I'll gladly drop a small pile of money to re-OW if it'll make things like this stop happening.

Getting back to the trip North - My cave buddy is the esteemed mpen, who is my hero for lending me and carrying around my tanks in and out of the water because alas, I'm still a cripple (back surgery.. lifting limit is 20lbs).

We went to Ginnie, because a lot of other sites aren't looking good or are closed because of flooding, and we both like it too. Because these were my first two cave dives after getting my certs, I didn't get any shots inside the caves worth writing home about because a. I'm oh so painfully newbie and b. the shots I took turned out spanning from crummy to abysmal because I haven't taken shots in a cave before. I was super nervous about the dives since the weekend before putzing around the reefs in Key Largo, but once I got into the Gallery I was feeling better about it. Once you do all the hard work to get in that far, you aren't really thinking about much else other than how much skin you lost getting in this time.

It was full of turtles topside

Going in the Eye (mpen on left), because we don't hate ourselves so we didn't go in the Ear

My one salvage-able (ok, not really, but too bad) shot from in the gallery - there was some particulate floating around that day

Me, freezing my butt off on deco

 

[thez_yo]

And here's an OW diver, snorkle and all, going into the Eye. At least 3 others with a single tank went in before this guy. Aren't they supposed to not be in the cavern? A whole slew of them stirred everything up and blocked the entrance to a scooter team, and our exit to pick up the primary, while we were finishing our deco.

I don't feel bad posting his photo because one of his buddies filmed us doing deco. Being a captive audience doesn't make me feel too happy, but I'm glad we were tucked into some crevices instead of hanging out in the open of the eye, because they crashed into everything and I don't want to get accidentally shoved to the surface with deco time still left.

Since doing another dive would have cut it too close to when I was flying out the next day, mpen suggested we go to the La Chua trail.

Looks like it's gonna be fun!

Naptime

We're guessing the old farmhouse

So now I'm back home. Unpacking, posting a dive report, and redrawing the Zs on the bottom of my fins after their encounter with the lips at Ginnie. It was a great trip!

 

[G83]

Had a lot of fun over the weekend, even if i almost did get frostbite from the constant wind on the boat between dives.
Don't have much to add, just a couple closer/differently angled shots of what you got.

Turns out the eel on the Benwood was just playing peek-a-boo, and yeah this guy was HUGE

And what dive isn't complete without your own personal stalker?

 

[sportxlh]

Great dive reports, thanks for sharing. As an FYI, I see scrawled file fish up in the water column in Jupiter frequently

 

[drrich2]

Nice assortment of shots and discussion showing some of the wide assortment of diving opportunities in Florida. There's an impressive range. Shallow reef, deeper reef, deep ledges (e.g.: Jupiter), deep wrecks, drift or non-drift, Blue Heron Bridge from what I hear is sort of its own thing, and then you move inland to freshwater springs, caves, a river, etc...

Richard.

 

[mselenaous]

Nice to catch up with you over dinner in KL. Glad you had a great time.

 

[HavanaDaydreamin]

Really enjoyed the story board!