A Little Calm Before the Storm in Key Largo

[CajunDiva]

Labor Day weekend provided a great last minute opportunity to run down to Key Largo to get in a few more dives before heading out to Roatan in a few weeks.

When our friend invited us to join him in his reservation at Rainbow Reef Dive Center for a few days of diving, we had no idea what was in store for us. But after dealing with the effects of Hurricane Harvey, we were ready for an escape! We had no idea...

On Saturday and Sunday, we enjoyed 4 glorious dives each day. The weather was great, the seas were calm, the vis was good and the water was WARM! On Monday and Tuesday we slowed down a bit and enjoyed leisurely dives in the morning only. Even though I was trying to take a break from the camera, I did give in and lug my GoPro on the last day. Little did we know that Irma was brewing...

As it happens, we were aboard Rainbow Reef's Tropical Odyssey on the last day of operations before shutting down and shuttering up for Irma. We have enjoyed hundreds of wonderful dives and too many great times to count with Rainbow Reef, and with Irma brewing in the Caribbean as a Category 5 hurricane headed straight for Key Largo, I was SO AFRAID this might be the last. I can't even begin to describe the emotions we felt driving away from Key Largo for what could have been the last time.

While I wouldn't wish that monster storm on anyone, I am so happy to say that although Key Largo suffered the effects of Irma, it did not bear the full brunt. All 5 of Rainbow Reef Dive Center's boats are still safely afloat at the marina, and from the photos I saw, the fence and exterior changing rooms are the only things that suffered minimal damage.

Key Largo is already hard at work recovering from the storm and life will be back to normal in no time. There's no better way to show your support for the dive community in Key Largo than to go down and dive with them. They'll be ready for you soon! (Thank GOD!)

 

[Nick Steele]

Will be interesting to see how the reefs/wrecks stacked up against Irma. Never dove in the keys yet but just got certified and have freedived down there in a few spots between 10-40'

Plan to make a trip down there in a month or so hopefully!

 

[CajunDiva]

This was posted on Rainbow Reef Dive Center's Facebook page this morning:

Rainbow Reef Dive Center added 7 new photos.
13 hrs ·
To all of our friends, families and customers:

First we would like to say that our hearts and thoughts go out to everyone between Marathon and Key West as they basically took a direct hit, so we hope they can recover and rebuild soon.

As for us, we had some serious wind and rain, and even though we were 80 miles from the eye of the storm, we still had winds over 100mph lash us pretty good for 18 hours. We are happy to say that all of the boats made it, all of the dive center buildings made it and we only sustained minor damage to our dock and changing rooms, basically a few bumps and bruises. The pictures make it look a little bad with all the tree limbs down, but overall we couldn't have asked to come out of this much better than we did. Most of us in the upper keys dodged a bullet but we do have at least one crew member who lost their house and a few with damage they will need to deal with.

The keys are closed until Tuesday morning at 7:00am, at which time they will open up to allow residents in that live in Key Largo and Islamorada. We still have no electricity, no water, no fuel, and spotty cell service, so we hope that changes soon. We will get the phones up and running and the email answered as soon as we can, and with any luck we can have the dive center put back together by the end of the week and get trips out this weekend.

So, we have some work to do, but we will be ready to take you out diving again as soon as we possibly can. We hope you will join us.