Info Florida Trip from Miami to Key West - January 2025

[Jake 10]

@Jake 10 Looking forward to hearing about your trip!

I don't head down to the Keys much even though Key Largo is as close to me as Jupiter. I typically dive Jupiter/Palm Beach monthly. I should head down to Key Largo more. These various threads on the Keys helped me pull the trigger and I just finished booking a 4-day trip for June to Key Largo. Booked 10 dives over 4 days with Horizon. Looking forward to it!

The next time my wife and I head down to Key West I'll have to carve out a day to dive the Vandenberg.

Dive with Diver's Paradise out of Key Biscayne, Florida the entire weekend, Friday thru Sunday. Great shop, nice friendly people, extremely helpful.

We enjoyed the wreck dives that are full of encrusted corals (soft and hard), critters, and fish including, groupers, grunts, angels, wrasse, and sharks. We dived; Orion Wreck, Proteus Wreck, DEMA Trader Wreck, Paradiso Wreck.

We scheduled to dive Tacoma Wreck on Saturday at 0900 but the shop cancelled due to lack of divers. They emailed us and texted us Friday evening to let us know that four (4) of the seven (7) registered cancelled and they could not go out with just three (3) divers. They accommodate us on the shallow dive at 1000 for the same day. The shallow coral reef dives (20' - 30') were not impressive IMHO. We dived Rainbow Reef and Cannon Reef. They lack fish but are full of gorgonians and fans.

The shop also cancelled the Monday dive at 1300 due to "weather". I wonder if it was due to lack of divers, but will never know.

 

[Jake 10]

 

[Jake 10]

 

[Jake 10]

 

[SloopCamotop]

I have been diving with Horizon last 4 days, 1 reef and 3 Speigel Grove. Headed down to Captain’s Corner tomorrow for Vandenberg, and back up here Friday/Saturday/Sunday for more SG. Great conditions so far, but getting chilly topside! (In a relative sense to my summertime experiences down here ) I have had my hands full diving so no shark pictures or Snoopy shots, just my bundled up mug.

 

[SloopCamotop]

Vandenberg was excellent. Zero current - very good vis. Cold and windy topside, outstanding conditions below. Left Largo at 0530 to make the dive and I am glad I did. Outstanding.

Spiegel Grove this afternoon with Horizon if anyone is around.

 

[SloopCamotop]

 

[SloopCamotop]

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

Thanks for the trip reports!

Walter used to be very active in the Florida Forums. Don't know if he even dives anymore.. anyways, he was always a stickler for grammatical errors/omissions, etc.. When somebody said Largo, he would say that is on the west coast, south of Tampa.. If you want to dive in the keys, its Key Largo.
Thanks for the memories @SloopCamotop Glad you had some good dives

 

[SloopCamotop]

Doh! I believe accuracy matters and I love to learn . We have a Largo, MD up here near me and perhaps many more around the country/world, but I figured given the context within a Miami to Key West thread my meaning would be clear. Given this is specifically the Florida sub-forum I will be more precise going forward!

It was a fantastic 2 weeks with Horizon - 25 dives, met lots of great people and had many fantastic meals. Took a Solo course with Jeff Knapp and learned enough about what I don't know to keep me busy for awhile. (The odd missing tank was a thumbed 2nd dive on Duane - more current than interesting things to see by my calculation so I stayed up. Glad I did too - looked like real party for group getting back aboard and one only narrowly dodged a Portuguese man 'o war in the fun)

This is dive 1 on Duane - I realize I came in like a bit of a bull in a china shop and would have been better served if I had curbed my enthusiasm just a bit .