posted by admin on Dec 20
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.
posted by admin on Aug 3
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.
posted by admin on Jul 6
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.
posted by admin on May 25
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
posted by admin on May 15
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
posted by admin on Apr 23
Vis is back to around 30-35 feet
no photos
posted by admin on Apr 13
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.
posted by admin on Apr 6
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.
posted by admin on Apr 1
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.
posted by admin on Mar 18
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
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.
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.
