Key West Snorkeling

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.

[View with PicLens]

 

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

Here is a little video of snorkeling in the shallow inshore waters of Key West, it was all taped in water less then 12 feet deep and within a half mile of shore.

The past couple weeks have been very windy, and although there was very clear water on the outer edge of the reef , then wind and waves made it difficult to get to and rather uncomfortable once you get there.

We went out a couple times to some inshore spots. Inshore to me generally would mean, within a mile or so of land. The big key west snorkeling spots such as Sand Key are around 6 miles from shore. Fortunately in Key West we are blessed with some coral and rock formations that are very close to shore but are teaming with life. Even though large fish are few close to shore we did see a large barracuda and a baby Goliath grouper.

So when the wind is howling there is still some pretty interesting stuff to see while snorkeling in Key West, even in the shallow inshore waters.