Sirto
Contributor
I sure picked the wrong time for my first Fla dive trip. I was originally scheduled to fly to Fort Lauderdale on Sept 5th but, since the airport was closed due to hurricane Frances, we delayed the trip by two days.
We were only planning for three days of diving in Key Largo. As it turned out we got in two days of diving before being forced to evacuate the keys because of Ivan.
A brief trip report follows:
We stayed at the Hungry Pelican which was a fine inexpensive hotel. The room with a single queen bed , AC, TV and fridge was $70. It was clean but a little on the small side. The third night we had to move to another room because the one we were in was booked. The second room had two double beds, a small table and chairs and added a microwave. That room was $80 and was nicer than the first due to the extra room. There's a small beach (bay side) with a swimming area but there's a lot of sea grass. It's nice to float around in though. They also have kyacks and canoes for guest use.
We dove with Silent World (3 trips for $145 incl weights and tanks). They had a nice boat and we had a max of 6 divers.
I thought they were a fine operation overall.
I was rather disappointed in the diving we did over the 2 days. We did all our dives on various portions of Elbow reef since that's where the visibility was best. We dove Mike's Wreck, City of Washington, Middle Reef and South South Ledges. The captain said that visibility in Largo was very good (30 ft or more ). I was very surprised by that as I thought it would be considerably better than that. Perhaps I was spoiled by the 100+ ft visibility we had in Coz last year.
On our dives 30ft was about the best we saw. On some dives it was more like 20 ft max. The coral wasn't i very good condition . There were lots of fans and some spomges but most of the hard corals were all white.
The fish were pretty plentiful however. Saw about 6 nurse sharks on CoW wreck. Saw several barracuda, grouper, some very large lobsters and turtles.
Current was near zero on CoW but on one of the other dives was very strong. I actually had to wait for the boat to come get me on one of the dives.
The other thing I learned is that I really like the lack of waves in Cozumel. I got seasick several times even while using the patch and bonine. We only had 2 - 4 ft seas so I can imagine how tough it would be for me in heavy seas.
I don't want to start any flame wars by saying that the diving was less than I thought it would be ; I just am reporting what I saw this last week. Perhaps the visibility was due to Frances and the Capt's comments weren't accurate and perhaps the coral on other sections of the reef are in better condition. I look forward to hearing what others have to say about diving in Largo.
Two restaurants we liked were Hobo's(bayside around MM 102) and the Cracked Conch (oceanside around MM104 or so)
We were only planning for three days of diving in Key Largo. As it turned out we got in two days of diving before being forced to evacuate the keys because of Ivan.
A brief trip report follows:
We stayed at the Hungry Pelican which was a fine inexpensive hotel. The room with a single queen bed , AC, TV and fridge was $70. It was clean but a little on the small side. The third night we had to move to another room because the one we were in was booked. The second room had two double beds, a small table and chairs and added a microwave. That room was $80 and was nicer than the first due to the extra room. There's a small beach (bay side) with a swimming area but there's a lot of sea grass. It's nice to float around in though. They also have kyacks and canoes for guest use.
We dove with Silent World (3 trips for $145 incl weights and tanks). They had a nice boat and we had a max of 6 divers.
I thought they were a fine operation overall.
I was rather disappointed in the diving we did over the 2 days. We did all our dives on various portions of Elbow reef since that's where the visibility was best. We dove Mike's Wreck, City of Washington, Middle Reef and South South Ledges. The captain said that visibility in Largo was very good (30 ft or more ). I was very surprised by that as I thought it would be considerably better than that. Perhaps I was spoiled by the 100+ ft visibility we had in Coz last year.
On our dives 30ft was about the best we saw. On some dives it was more like 20 ft max. The coral wasn't i very good condition . There were lots of fans and some spomges but most of the hard corals were all white.
The fish were pretty plentiful however. Saw about 6 nurse sharks on CoW wreck. Saw several barracuda, grouper, some very large lobsters and turtles.
Current was near zero on CoW but on one of the other dives was very strong. I actually had to wait for the boat to come get me on one of the dives.
The other thing I learned is that I really like the lack of waves in Cozumel. I got seasick several times even while using the patch and bonine. We only had 2 - 4 ft seas so I can imagine how tough it would be for me in heavy seas.
I don't want to start any flame wars by saying that the diving was less than I thought it would be ; I just am reporting what I saw this last week. Perhaps the visibility was due to Frances and the Capt's comments weren't accurate and perhaps the coral on other sections of the reef are in better condition. I look forward to hearing what others have to say about diving in Largo.
Two restaurants we liked were Hobo's(bayside around MM 102) and the Cracked Conch (oceanside around MM104 or so)
