I know I'm not a regular here, but I spent a good amount of time reading through trip reports here to help plan my trip...So I figured I'd report on what we did to maybe help some others who do the same. I also know this is really long, but I wanted to get some of the details in, while giving props to the operators who took us out! 
Our trip was a dive-centered family (and friends) reunion. In all there we 23 certified divers who made the trip plus 3 who are now 'in the process' thanks to the trip. It was big group so most of split off into smaller groups to dive the sites we wanted/were qualified for, although we all got together for 2 reef trips. This is only a report of my group's dives, a group of 7 who are all anywhere from AOW to Instructor.
We drove down from the DC area Thursday night with my truck and another loaded down with tanks and gear, we planned to take it easy on the trip down and made it to Orlando by Friday night to see some old friends (I'm a native FL boy, stuck up north). Hit the road early Saturday morning and made great time getting to south FL so we decided to do an impromptu beach dive since we had the time.
We hit the EroJacks in Dania Beach from Lloyd State park. Had a blast and got in 90 minutes of bottom time before heading down the road...Could have gone longer but we didn't want to get to Largo too late. Saw lots of various reef fish but the highlights were a big green moray, a sea turtle, and 2 nurse sharks...Vis was probably 25 feet. Really an awesome dive for being so accessible. With the first dive in the logbooks we dried off and loaded the trucks back up for Largo.
Sunday (7/28) we were scheduled to dive the Duane with Horizon divers @ 1PM. We got a call from them about 11:30 saying their boat had broken down, BUT they could put us on a Speigel Grove dive with Ocean Divers at the same time. Even though we had a SG trip booked thru Horizon the next day, we took them up on it. We got out to the site with pretty good weather, a light chop, very minimal current, and vis in the 80-100' range (could easily see the ship from the surface). We were moored the the crane on the port side near the well deck and basically did a big loop around the well deck and back to the line. We kept it simple because for 2 of our divers this was their first real deep-water wreck. We all dove 32% Nitrox. Everybody did great and we all enjoyed the dive, I have done the SG once before and that was on the same mooring so I saw a lot of the stuff I did last time...I'm looking forward to getting back and exploring the bow area. Highlights were a couple huge grouper cruising past while we were descending and a swim-thru that was loaded with silverside minnows. The 2nd dive was on French Reef. Highlights were the silverside minnows in the cavern areas...nothing spectacular, but a good solid reef dive with lots to see. Vis on French was about 40 feet.
Monday (7/29) was supposed to be a double in the AM on the SG with Horizon....But their boat was still broken so they shuffled us over to Ocean Divers again, who as luck would have it, were going out to the Duane! I was thrilled because I had never done this dive and was really looking forward to it the previous day. Great weather again, a little more chop to the water but nothing to be concerned about, and excellent vis...Probably 100+'. We did this dive on 30% Nitrox. I also carried an extra 30cu.ft. pony clipped to my rig just in case...Thinking that on the off chance someone burned a lot of air swimming into current it would better to hand it off so they wouldn't have to skip or shorten the safety stop. Nobody ended up needing it, but it's always good to practice carrying it. We were moored on the middle line and had very minimal current going down. About 5 minutes after descending the current picked up significantly. We were heading to the bow, and made it to mooring line up there before turning around to drift back toward midships. We drifted back and looped around the crows nest area before hugging the deck to sneak past the current back to the up-line. On the line up, we were all flapping like a flag in the breeze, but made it up without incident. I really enjoyed this dive, it was covered in fish including a few larger goliaths. But really it was just the ship and the dive itself that were fun...Hard to describe, but it was a blast. The 2nd dive of this trip was to Molasses Reef at the winch hole. Another good reef dive with all the standard reef fish plus 2 green morays. We went to the winch and then went back and forth thru a few of the sand channels. Vis on Molasses was in the 30-40' range.
Also on Monday, we were scheduled to do a double reef trip with the whole big group. By the time we got back from the Duane trip, Horizon had fixed their boat so it was game on! While we were eating lunch my uncle came up to us with information about the FL Keys Wreck Trek and had a few of the little passport books they have for it. Since we had 2 in the books and the Vandy planned, we only needed 2 additional wrecks on the list. We started scheming while eating burgers, as we boarded Horizon's boat we kindly asked Captain Steph if she could drop us on the Benwood for one of the dives. Well we didn't even finish the sentence before she said "Sure, as long as it doesn't suck when we get there!" Conditions were good when we pulled up to the Benwood so over the side we went. Vis was about 30 feet on the wreck. Some big tarpon, spadefish, and a school of permit were some of the highlights. The lowlight was losing my GoPro somewhere along the way (came off of the mount somehow, really strange). More bitter about losing the pics/vids than the camera though! The second dive of this trip was on French Reef again. Vis was better this time at about 50 feet. I experienced what I think was the coolest part of my whole trip on this dive. About 10 minutes into the dive I found a small cave/swim-thru beneath a coral head. It was fairly large, able to fit 4 people side by side comfortably. Anyway, I peeked in to check it out and saw a huge school of silversides and larger fish feeding on them. I waved in the 3 others following me and we all set down on the sandy bottom and just watched the show. After about a minute of us not moving, the fish all came back in and resumed chasing the minnows all over the place. We made sure to keep our hands in and to ourselves since the big snook, snappers, and groupers were literally brushing up against us as the fed on the silversides. It was a very cool show to watch, we stayed there for about 10 minutes before leaving and exploring the rest of the reef. On the way back I went check it out again, only this time I showed some others floating around where the action was and let them see the show themselves. Some of you guys familiar with French might know the cave, but it's the first time I've gone into it...Iv'e actually seen the exit area several times but never realized how large it is, it looks deceivingly small.
That ended our Key Largo portion of the trip...Just a few shout outs to two outstanding operations. Horizon Divers did an awesome job of shuffling us around to make sure we didn't lose a day of diving. Also, taking us to the Benwood when they had no reason to do so outside of us asking was awesome. Ocean Divers, who took us on from Horizon was also a top notch operation. Their crew was very knowledgeable and helpful...Just an all around great dive company.
We left Largo on Monday night and were southbound for Key West. Tuesday was a surface-interval day ...Duval Street, shopping, relaxing...
Wednesday (7/31) we did a double on the Vandenburg with Captains Corner. In addition to my 'group' we also had some other newer divers from the family hire a guide so they could see the wreck too. From what I saw and heard, the guides were very professional/knowledgeable and the divers had great, safe dives to see a lot of the wreck. My group did the dives on 30% Nitrox. We were moored to ball #4 which is near midships and the starboard dish. There was a decent chop and a slight wind current in the first 20 feet, but below that the current was minimal. Vis was around 60 feet. On the first dive, we did a loop around the stern. We did a lot of swim-thru's on the way around. I have done this wreck few times before and only saw the bow/bridge area so it was cool to the the other half of the ship. On the second dive we went forward to the big flag and looped back around to the up-line. We dropped down the second deck on the starboard side and made our way all the way up to the bridge via swim-thru's...We exited out the top of the bridge area and went to take some pics with the flag, then headed back on the port side. We saw a large stingray with a large chunk taken out of it's wing, looked like a bite or boat strike. We were also treated to a large school of baitfish being chased by jacks as we waited at our safety stop. When we got back on dry land, I started setting up wreck #5 for the next day.
Thursday (8/1) I got 7 of us onto a trip to the Adolphous Busch wreck with Looe Key Dive Center, who decided to take us out to the wreck even though it was not on their schedule. They took us out on what was basically a private trip, all I had to do was ask! We got out to the wreck and it was a little choppy with about 30' vis, although I'm told that's actually pretty good for this wreck. Current was light, just enough to notice. We got down to the wreck at the stern and started heading forward. Looked for the big goliath that supposedly lives in the wheelhouse, but he was not home today. We saw a large eagle ray fly over our heads just off the starboard side. I dropped down into the holds which were mostly open and swam up to the bow area. At the bow we saw a large (5 to 6 feet) nurse shark cruise past. The whole wreck had tons of fish. On the way back we did the big swim-thru at the bridge/pilot house area then hit the line to go back up. While hanging there we saw what I think was the same big eagle ray fly past underneath us. Despite the vis, I really enjoyed this dive. Not a big ship like the others, but fun to get to see the whole thing. The second dive on this trip was to Looe Key Reef at ball #16. Here we were treated to large snook, a goliath in the 200lb? range, green morays, and one huge lionfish which only survives because there's no spearing allowed (the Captain said he 'knew' the lion I was tlking about).
We hit the road back to Key West and after lunch at Hurricane Hole on Stock Island we drove right to Capt's Corner docks to catch our reef dives with the rest of the our big group. Our group completely booked the boat so it was a fun 'private' charter. We hit the East Dry Rocks first and saw the standard reef fare along with a small turtle. The next dive was on Rock Key Reef were it was a lot of the same reef stuff...But we did see a large (4 foot-ish shell diameter) turtle which was more brown and didn't look like the little green turtles we usually see. It was very cool, can't say I'm an expert on turtles so I don't know what kind it was. My father saw a 5 or 6 foot shark which we are unsure of the species...He got picture of it but it was still hard to tell. It was grey with a stocky body...to me it looks like a Bull, although I'm not that sure. It wasn't a lemon because it didn't have the tell-tale same size dorsal fins and it looked a lot 'thicker' than typical reef sharks. I wish I could have seen it, he said it was cool to see a large shark on the reefs...don't usually see them there.
As for the operators, Captains Corner was a great operation, the only thing I can say that's not absolutely positive is the boat layout...It has a center rack for the tanks so you can't just slide into your rigs like a typical cattle boat. It didn't bother me since I've seen a lot of different layouts, but some of the newer divers were definitely not used to this style. BUT, their crew went above and beyond to make sure no divers were inconvenienced. The really jumped into action and moved/swapped/wrangled tanks and gear for everyone. One of the DM's even remarked how he couldn't wait to get rid of the center rack so they obviously have plans to change it. Looe Key Dive Center was also great, they took us on the unscheduled wreck dive simply because I asked (obviously we met the minimum # of divers too, but they still took us). The Captain and DM on the boat were very knowledgeable and made it a really fun trip. We were fortunate to have very professional operations for all of our boat dives in the Keys! I would highly recommend any of these operators to anyone looking to plan a vacation.
That ended our dive adventures for the week and we hit the road back to the DC area on Friday afternoon, thoroughly exhausted.
Now for the Wreck Trek deal...Turns out were a little misinformed by the uncle who got us the info. You apparently need at least one wreck from all areas of the Keys, and we missed Marathon and Islamorada. We talked with the woman at Dive Key West who runs the program and she said she would talk about it with some others, but either way we had a blast. The wrecks were all awesome and we got 13 dives in 5 days of diving! No complaints here!
---------- Post added August 5th, 2013 at 07:45 PM ----------
Pictures coming soon, but since I lost my camera on Benwood I don't have a lot of them...and none of us are pro photographers (Although on the upsides, since they are other's pics...I'm actually in some)
---------- Post added August 5th, 2013 at 08:06 PM ----------
Pictures:
Speigel - Both are screen shots from video, first is a big grouper on the descent...Second is the swim thru with all the silversides.
Duane - First is me going down the line, second is a look back at my father and the crows nest.
Vandy - Various shots
Adolphous Busch - Various
Looe Key - Wildlife
Our trip was a dive-centered family (and friends) reunion. In all there we 23 certified divers who made the trip plus 3 who are now 'in the process' thanks to the trip. It was big group so most of split off into smaller groups to dive the sites we wanted/were qualified for, although we all got together for 2 reef trips. This is only a report of my group's dives, a group of 7 who are all anywhere from AOW to Instructor.
We drove down from the DC area Thursday night with my truck and another loaded down with tanks and gear, we planned to take it easy on the trip down and made it to Orlando by Friday night to see some old friends (I'm a native FL boy, stuck up north). Hit the road early Saturday morning and made great time getting to south FL so we decided to do an impromptu beach dive since we had the time.
We hit the EroJacks in Dania Beach from Lloyd State park. Had a blast and got in 90 minutes of bottom time before heading down the road...Could have gone longer but we didn't want to get to Largo too late. Saw lots of various reef fish but the highlights were a big green moray, a sea turtle, and 2 nurse sharks...Vis was probably 25 feet. Really an awesome dive for being so accessible. With the first dive in the logbooks we dried off and loaded the trucks back up for Largo.
Sunday (7/28) we were scheduled to dive the Duane with Horizon divers @ 1PM. We got a call from them about 11:30 saying their boat had broken down, BUT they could put us on a Speigel Grove dive with Ocean Divers at the same time. Even though we had a SG trip booked thru Horizon the next day, we took them up on it. We got out to the site with pretty good weather, a light chop, very minimal current, and vis in the 80-100' range (could easily see the ship from the surface). We were moored the the crane on the port side near the well deck and basically did a big loop around the well deck and back to the line. We kept it simple because for 2 of our divers this was their first real deep-water wreck. We all dove 32% Nitrox. Everybody did great and we all enjoyed the dive, I have done the SG once before and that was on the same mooring so I saw a lot of the stuff I did last time...I'm looking forward to getting back and exploring the bow area. Highlights were a couple huge grouper cruising past while we were descending and a swim-thru that was loaded with silverside minnows. The 2nd dive was on French Reef. Highlights were the silverside minnows in the cavern areas...nothing spectacular, but a good solid reef dive with lots to see. Vis on French was about 40 feet.
Monday (7/29) was supposed to be a double in the AM on the SG with Horizon....But their boat was still broken so they shuffled us over to Ocean Divers again, who as luck would have it, were going out to the Duane! I was thrilled because I had never done this dive and was really looking forward to it the previous day. Great weather again, a little more chop to the water but nothing to be concerned about, and excellent vis...Probably 100+'. We did this dive on 30% Nitrox. I also carried an extra 30cu.ft. pony clipped to my rig just in case...Thinking that on the off chance someone burned a lot of air swimming into current it would better to hand it off so they wouldn't have to skip or shorten the safety stop. Nobody ended up needing it, but it's always good to practice carrying it
. We were moored on the middle line and had very minimal current going down. About 5 minutes after descending the current picked up significantly. We were heading to the bow, and made it to mooring line up there before turning around to drift back toward midships. We drifted back and looped around the crows nest area before hugging the deck to sneak past the current back to the up-line. On the line up, we were all flapping like a flag in the breeze, but made it up without incident. I really enjoyed this dive, it was covered in fish including a few larger goliaths. But really it was just the ship and the dive itself that were fun...Hard to describe, but it was a blast. The 2nd dive of this trip was to Molasses Reef at the winch hole. Another good reef dive with all the standard reef fish plus 2 green morays. We went to the winch and then went back and forth thru a few of the sand channels. Vis on Molasses was in the 30-40' range. Also on Monday, we were scheduled to do a double reef trip with the whole big group. By the time we got back from the Duane trip, Horizon had fixed their boat so it was game on! While we were eating lunch my uncle came up to us with information about the FL Keys Wreck Trek and had a few of the little passport books they have for it. Since we had 2 in the books and the Vandy planned, we only needed 2 additional wrecks on the list. We started scheming while eating burgers, as we boarded Horizon's boat we kindly asked Captain Steph if she could drop us on the Benwood for one of the dives. Well we didn't even finish the sentence before she said "Sure, as long as it doesn't suck when we get there!" Conditions were good when we pulled up to the Benwood so over the side we went. Vis was about 30 feet on the wreck. Some big tarpon, spadefish, and a school of permit were some of the highlights. The lowlight was losing my GoPro somewhere along the way (came off of the mount somehow, really strange). More bitter about losing the pics/vids than the camera though! The second dive of this trip was on French Reef again. Vis was better this time at about 50 feet. I experienced what I think was the coolest part of my whole trip on this dive. About 10 minutes into the dive I found a small cave/swim-thru beneath a coral head. It was fairly large, able to fit 4 people side by side comfortably. Anyway, I peeked in to check it out and saw a huge school of silversides and larger fish feeding on them. I waved in the 3 others following me and we all set down on the sandy bottom and just watched the show. After about a minute of us not moving, the fish all came back in and resumed chasing the minnows all over the place. We made sure to keep our hands in and to ourselves since the big snook, snappers, and groupers were literally brushing up against us as the fed on the silversides. It was a very cool show to watch, we stayed there for about 10 minutes before leaving and exploring the rest of the reef. On the way back I went check it out again, only this time I showed some others floating around where the action was and let them see the show themselves. Some of you guys familiar with French might know the cave, but it's the first time I've gone into it...Iv'e actually seen the exit area several times but never realized how large it is, it looks deceivingly small.
That ended our Key Largo portion of the trip...Just a few shout outs to two outstanding operations. Horizon Divers did an awesome job of shuffling us around to make sure we didn't lose a day of diving. Also, taking us to the Benwood when they had no reason to do so outside of us asking was awesome. Ocean Divers, who took us on from Horizon was also a top notch operation. Their crew was very knowledgeable and helpful...Just an all around great dive company.
We left Largo on Monday night and were southbound for Key West. Tuesday was a surface-interval day
...Duval Street, shopping, relaxing...Wednesday (7/31) we did a double on the Vandenburg with Captains Corner. In addition to my 'group' we also had some other newer divers from the family hire a guide so they could see the wreck too. From what I saw and heard, the guides were very professional/knowledgeable and the divers had great, safe dives to see a lot of the wreck. My group did the dives on 30% Nitrox. We were moored to ball #4 which is near midships and the starboard dish. There was a decent chop and a slight wind current in the first 20 feet, but below that the current was minimal. Vis was around 60 feet. On the first dive, we did a loop around the stern. We did a lot of swim-thru's on the way around. I have done this wreck few times before and only saw the bow/bridge area so it was cool to the the other half of the ship. On the second dive we went forward to the big flag and looped back around to the up-line. We dropped down the second deck on the starboard side and made our way all the way up to the bridge via swim-thru's...We exited out the top of the bridge area and went to take some pics with the flag, then headed back on the port side. We saw a large stingray with a large chunk taken out of it's wing, looked like a bite or boat strike. We were also treated to a large school of baitfish being chased by jacks as we waited at our safety stop. When we got back on dry land, I started setting up wreck #5 for the next day.
Thursday (8/1) I got 7 of us onto a trip to the Adolphous Busch wreck with Looe Key Dive Center, who decided to take us out to the wreck even though it was not on their schedule. They took us out on what was basically a private trip, all I had to do was ask! We got out to the wreck and it was a little choppy with about 30' vis, although I'm told that's actually pretty good for this wreck. Current was light, just enough to notice. We got down to the wreck at the stern and started heading forward. Looked for the big goliath that supposedly lives in the wheelhouse, but he was not home today. We saw a large eagle ray fly over our heads just off the starboard side. I dropped down into the holds which were mostly open and swam up to the bow area. At the bow we saw a large (5 to 6 feet) nurse shark cruise past. The whole wreck had tons of fish. On the way back we did the big swim-thru at the bridge/pilot house area then hit the line to go back up. While hanging there we saw what I think was the same big eagle ray fly past underneath us. Despite the vis, I really enjoyed this dive. Not a big ship like the others, but fun to get to see the whole thing. The second dive on this trip was to Looe Key Reef at ball #16. Here we were treated to large snook, a goliath in the 200lb? range, green morays, and one huge lionfish which only survives because there's no spearing allowed (the Captain said he 'knew' the lion I was tlking about).
We hit the road back to Key West and after lunch at Hurricane Hole on Stock Island we drove right to Capt's Corner docks to catch our reef dives with the rest of the our big group. Our group completely booked the boat so it was a fun 'private' charter. We hit the East Dry Rocks first and saw the standard reef fare along with a small turtle. The next dive was on Rock Key Reef were it was a lot of the same reef stuff...But we did see a large (4 foot-ish shell diameter) turtle which was more brown and didn't look like the little green turtles we usually see. It was very cool, can't say I'm an expert on turtles so I don't know what kind it was. My father saw a 5 or 6 foot shark which we are unsure of the species...He got picture of it but it was still hard to tell. It was grey with a stocky body...to me it looks like a Bull, although I'm not that sure. It wasn't a lemon because it didn't have the tell-tale same size dorsal fins and it looked a lot 'thicker' than typical reef sharks. I wish I could have seen it, he said it was cool to see a large shark on the reefs...don't usually see them there.
As for the operators, Captains Corner was a great operation, the only thing I can say that's not absolutely positive is the boat layout...It has a center rack for the tanks so you can't just slide into your rigs like a typical cattle boat. It didn't bother me since I've seen a lot of different layouts, but some of the newer divers were definitely not used to this style. BUT, their crew went above and beyond to make sure no divers were inconvenienced. The really jumped into action and moved/swapped/wrangled tanks and gear for everyone. One of the DM's even remarked how he couldn't wait to get rid of the center rack so they obviously have plans to change it. Looe Key Dive Center was also great, they took us on the unscheduled wreck dive simply because I asked (obviously we met the minimum # of divers too, but they still took us). The Captain and DM on the boat were very knowledgeable and made it a really fun trip. We were fortunate to have very professional operations for all of our boat dives in the Keys! I would highly recommend any of these operators to anyone looking to plan a vacation.
That ended our dive adventures for the week and we hit the road back to the DC area on Friday afternoon, thoroughly exhausted.
Now for the Wreck Trek deal...Turns out were a little misinformed by the uncle who got us the info
. You apparently need at least one wreck from all areas of the Keys, and we missed Marathon and Islamorada. We talked with the woman at Dive Key West who runs the program and she said she would talk about it with some others, but either way we had a blast. The wrecks were all awesome and we got 13 dives in 5 days of diving! No complaints here!---------- Post added August 5th, 2013 at 07:45 PM ----------
Pictures coming soon, but since I lost my camera on Benwood I don't have a lot of them...and none of us are pro photographers (Although on the upsides, since they are other's pics...I'm actually in some
)---------- Post added August 5th, 2013 at 08:06 PM ----------
Pictures:
Speigel - Both are screen shots from video, first is a big grouper on the descent...Second is the swim thru with all the silversides.
Duane - First is me going down the line, second is a look back at my father and the crows nest.
Vandy - Various shots
Adolphous Busch - Various
Looe Key - Wildlife
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