Key West Snorkeling

Top tower on the vandenburg

The vandenberg is a large ship which was sank off of Key West a couple weeks ago. It actually is very visible from the surface when conditions are good and conditions have been great the past couple weeks. Calm seas, clear warm water and very light currents. Visibility has been pretty much over 40 feet and sometimes over 80 feet.

Probably not too many snorkel boats going out there though.  You would have to catch a ride on a scuba boat or a private charter. The wreck actually sits in 150 feet of water but due to its huge size, the upper towers come up to around 40 feet from the surface.

Also around right now on many of the popular Key West snorkeling spots are the summer tarpon. These huge fish might surprise you at first. Not only are they big they tend to be in groups. They are pretty amazing fish to swim with and will let you get pretty close to them without spooking.

Tarpon

The water is kind of green out there right now, green water tends to have less horizontal visibility then blue water.  But the conditions are not bad, the water is warm, and seas are flat.

Here are some photos

Well the water is very clear and warm. There has been 40-80 feet of visibility and calm seas. You really don’t get conditions much better then that.

Couple pics, a sea turtle

some sort of old anchor

and a nurse shark, totally harmless. Nurse sharks actualy have sand paper for teeth and are very docile. They are very common on the reef.

Some other pics from yesterday

Vis is back to around 30-35 feet

no photos

Well bad to us is like 20 feet. You can see fine, if you are in shallow water like 10 feet deep, but its no where near as good as it can be. Will see if the water clears up by this weekend.

Between Rock Key and Sand Key there is an artificial reef structure which apparently is some sort of tribute to ancient mariners. Its in 20 feet of water and is now a home to dozens of mangrove snapper, large angelfish and a large jewfish.

Its a good depth for snorkeling and is surrounded by white sand which creates a great contrast between the bottom and the stucture.

Well Conditions have drastically improved over the last couple weeks here in Key West. There is awesome visibility out on reef, at 60 or 70 feet on the reef edge at places such as Sand Key and Western Dry rocks. The tricky thing is that that’s at high tide , its at about half that at low tide so plan your trip accordingly. We saw all the usually reef denizens such as hog snapper

and red grouper

We saw ton of see life and even had a pod of dolphins swim in to check us out, unfortunately the underwater camera was in the boat at the time.

We also rescued a sea turtle that was caught on a crab trap line while we where coming home.

There is 40-60 feet of visibility yesterday on outer edge of the reef.

One tip, during high tide the visibility is often better then it is at low tide. So when you plan your trip you should consult a tide chart to see when high tide is. The  try to be out in the water on the high tide.

Here is a tide chart for Sand Key, one of the most popular snorkeling spots in Key West

Sand Key Tide Chart

as of this past Monday the visibility was pretty bad in front of Key West , like 10 feet of vis.

But the gulfstream is close and the winds of March have finally stopped so we will see what this weekend brings.

Well the waters in front of Key West are bit chalky but the visibility is ok for snorkeling. The water is blue but it just isn’t got the crystal clear quality we had the past couple weeks. You can see fine down but horizontally not as much.

Saw some new animals last time we were out

Some type scorpion fish

Baby Black Grouper

Spider Crab

Ray