Drift diving in the Keys

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Flotsam

Contributor
Messages
133
Reaction score
90
Location
Cave Country, Florida
# of dives
100 - 199
I'm headed for 3 days diving with Rainbow Reef at the beginning of October :yeahbaby:Some of the Spiegel trips were already full, but I have one Spiegel/Benwood dive, and 2 Duane dives scheduled. Another Spiegel dive is at the same time as drift dives on French & Molasses. I know the Spiegel is huge, and you really need multiple dives on it, but for this trip which dive should I do? Seems like the drift dives aren't offered very often... I'm from FL, and try to get down to the keys once a year, but I didn't have my AOW before and haven't done the wrecks yet.

Thanks!
 
Do the wrecks, just be prepared for shorter dives than you would have on a reef....
 
If you like wrecks, do them. Take a separate trip to West Palm Beach, Boynton or Jupiter in the future where all diving will be drift diving. But, if you really like reef dives, it's pretty fun to do them as drifts on the rare occasions they're conducted in the Keys. My favorite Keys drift site is Conch Wall, but I bet Molasses might be a nice drift site as well.
 
We dived Molasses reef and the 3 big wrecks in Key Largo (Grove, Duane, Bibb) about 3 days before Irma hit. The Eagle was too full of boats the day we were trying to get to it. Next time..

Some of the reefs were drift dives. I didn't find the reefs to be all that interesting, but the wrecks were fantastic. Full of fish life and just more exciting. The divers I was with all agreed, when we get back to the Keys again it's going to be all wreck diving if possible.

I have posted videos of the reefs and all the wreck dives on my FB page, Each on is only a few minutes long, having been edited from 20-40 minute dives and only keeping the best stuff. If you're interested in seeing them, shoot me a pm.

If you're going to do the wrecks, get Nitrox certified. Figure you'll get another 25-30% more dive time, plus shorter surface intervals.
 
Thanks! I drift dive Jupiter area, so alot of my diving is drift over reefs. I was hoping this was a bit more like wall dive, since I haven't done one. I'll probably check it out, but like you said, focus on wrecks the next time :)
 
When we schedule drift dives On Molasses we have no idea if there will be any current to drift with. Often as not it turns into a swim dive. Current on Molasses Reef is unpredictable.
 
Don't give up on diving the Spiegel Grove again. Often people reserve a trip and don't show up. Get on the wait list and you will probably get lucky :)
 
Don't give up on diving the Spiegel Grove again. Often people reserve a trip and don't show up. Get on the wait list and you will probably get lucky :)

By the time Rainbow Reef adjusted plans to give us the best options available due to currents & viz, I ended up with 4 dives on the Spiegel, 2 on the Benwood, 1 Duane, and still got a drift dive :) Wrecks and reefs look great after the storm (to me - only dived the keys one other time), and lots of life around. Bummed I missed the gorgeous blue water that I saw right after Irma, but was still great diving :callme: The residents are working hard to get their lives back, many working a full-time job then going home to another full-time job of cleaning/rebuilding. It's exhausting, but the businesses need to keep running. For tourists, everything we need is pretty much up and running from Key Largo to Islamorada, and probably part of Marathon, but I didn't make it that far. My main disappointment was not getting to do my planned death-match taste test between Midway Cafe and Blond Giraffes' Key Lime Pies because the latter was still closed....:wink:

Dive the Keys!
 
Don't give up on diving the Spiegel Grove again. Often people reserve a trip and don't show up. Get on the wait list and you will probably get lucky :)

Dive trip reservations are usually not refundable if the trip runs and the diver doesn't cancel prior to the last 24 hours. And dive trips ain't cheap. I don't imagine people often "no show- no cancel" for a trip.
 
Dive trip reservations are usually not refundable if the trip runs and the diver doesn't cancel prior to the last 24 hours.

Not true at Rainbow Reef.
 
https://xf2.scubaboard.com/community/forums/cave-diving.45/

Back
Top Bottom