Key West Snorkeling

Well cold weather has become the norm in Key West, time to break out the wetsuits. The water never gets too cold to dive and snorkel here but it does get cold enough where a wetsuit will make you a lot more comfortable if you plan on staying in the water. With the light winds the past couple weeks we have been going out to the reef’s edge and even snorkeling over top some of the wrecks in front of Key West.

Some interesting things we have seen the past couple weeks;  hogfish and  gag grouper, both seen at the 9 foot stake. A giant antique anchor and other sea life. Water clarity has ranged from 30 feet to over a hundred.

When the water is clear, there are a few wrecks you can see from the surface close to Key West. These would include Joe’s tug, Cayman Salvager and the Vandenberg. On a clear day you can see most if not all of Joes Tug.  The Cayman and Vandenberg are larger and in deeper water so not much chance of being able to see the “whole” ship.  The normal snorkeling boats will not take you to those wrecks, you will have to take either a private charter or jump on a dive boat to see them. You can learn more about wrecks of Key West here.

When the winds are blowing hard, especially out of a southern direction, the water on the reef can be very rough. On days like that, there are other options to snorkel in Key West.

Cottrell Key Key is north of Key West on the gulf side, and there is a lot of rocky structure and many large coral heads. There is also wreckage from possibly a ship of some sort. Although on average the water is not as clear here as the snorkeling spots that are offshore closer the gulf stream, the water can be reasonably clear with around 20 feet of visibility.

Much of the structure is in less the 15 feet of water and in some places closer to 8 feet deep. You will see a variety of snapper and tropical fish here.  We also saw a jewfish, nurse shark and a school of small cero mackerel. There were also schools of small minnows in some areas.

The Alexander wreck is located on the gulf side west of Key West and is broken into two pieces. The wreck sits in 20-30 feet of water and is home to a large variety of sea life. The visibility can be very variable on this wreck. When we snorkeled it there was close to 20 feet of visibility which is considered good for this area.

The wreck was filled with lane snappers and although we looked inside we did not see any grouper or jewfish. Perhaps they are all the on the other piece of the wreck, we only explored one piece. It is rumored there is a 600 pound jewfish that lives in and around that wreck but we didn’t see him. There were huge schools of bait hovering over the wreck and spade fish, blue runners, parrot fish and cero mackerel swimming on and around it.

Recently the Atlantic waters south of Key West have been green and not very clear, but for a change the water on the gulf side has been pretty clear.  There was has been about 20 feet of visibility on the gulf side the past couple days.

The gulf tends to congergate fish, due to large areas of it being a virtual desert, we saw a large variety of fish on one little patch reef.

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

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Vis is back to around 30-35 feet

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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.

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