Jana - it was well worth the trip - we had a terrific time on all our dives. We set it up to do a kind of "sampler" of a few different operators & locations. We based our first week out of a timeshare in Surfside (just north of Miami) - a great little building right on the beach called Solara Surfside. During the week we booked 2 days with H2O Scuba (in Sunny Isles) and did the wreck of the Ando (107'), South Canyon (62'), Tenneco Towers (102'), and North Canyon (59'). We booked another 2 days with Coral Island Charters (in West Palm Beach) and dove the South Flowers Gardens (49'), the Fish Bowl (50'), the Brakers 4th Window (61') and, due to some technical difficulties, the last dive was on the sandy flats between the inner reef and shore (57'). Coral Island was a bit of drive, but we got a great deal on two classes along with the dives. Both operators had great boats and great crews. Our 7th day we checked out and drove down to Tavernier Key and dove that afternoon with Divers City. Did the Aquarium (32') and Davis Reef (25') - again great crew and nice boat. Checked in later that day into Ocean Pointe Suites in Key Largo. Next day we drove down to Marathon to dive with Captain Banny - since Alan really wanted to check out Sombrero Reef. He has a fairly small boat so he only takes a max of 4 divers. As with much of the keys diving - the dives were very shallow (max 24') but got great bottom time. All in all we had a terrific trip - a bunch of great dives - and plan to go back when we can ..... I'd use any of the ops we dove with again - no problem.
If you go, have a great time - and let me know how things turned out when you get back!!
