Decided on The keys

[Life-Is-Good-Diver]

My wife and I have decided we want to go to the keys for our 5th ann. We just got certifed a few weeks ago. Does anyone have any good experiences with locations in the keys to stay. We'r looking to stay for about a week and were thinking of like a condo or villa. Somthing close to good dive locations. My wife is comfortable with about 20' to 30' of depth but shes never been to a reef before and i think if she starts seeing the fish and all the coral shes not even going to notice the depth so even reefs 40' to 50' would be ok. If anyone has good ideas of locations to stay and certian reefs that are good for newbies Please let me know. Also if the location to stay is in kinda of a romatic setting with other stuff to do like bike riding and stuff that would be great. Its got to be a good trip we both need one bad. Thankyou for any info anyone has. p.s. Links to web pages would help for any ideas .

Try looking up Ocean point Suites , in the upper Key's, they have condo's on the water , ocean view. You can also hook up with Gary and Brenda with Conch Republic Diver's , They run a first class operation, and dive all the site's your looking to dive.

My wife also is comfortable in the 20' - 40' range, Molassass Reef and french reef are both right next to each other, and range from 25' to 40', and the back of both reef's drift down slowley beyond 80' + They have hugh formation's over 15' tall, with swim though's, ton's of fish, and also make great night dive's !!! Good luck, pm me if you want to, i take my boat down there all the time, and know most of the dive spot's !

 

[RonFrank]

My wife and I have our 5th anniversary coming up. We want to go to either West palm or the keys. My wife is leary about going deeper then 20' but i think if she ever actualy gets around a reef and tropical fish shes not even going to notice how deep she is. Im wondering if anyone knows a good location that may have a reef that will start out at 20' but will slope down to 40' feet or so just to give her a taste of going a little deeper without thinking about it. Any ideas?

It's actually more difficult to control buoyancy at 20'. The upper Keys have Reefs that are actually difficult to dive because they are so shallow. N Dry Rocks and NN Dry Rocks are examples where the coral heads are only about 8 feet from the surface at places.

IMO don't worry about the depth in the Upper Keys. Get out and dive, and your wife will be hitting depths of between 20-40fsw on most dives. French and Molassas Reefs both have parts that are below 40fsw. The Benwood is a fun wreck, and I hit about 40fsw on that dive.

As you suggest depth is surprisingly easy to achieve, so the key is to be aware of one's depth at all times, plan the dive, dive the plan, and make sure that if the plan calls for a safety stop, do it. In the upper keys safety stops are generally not needed for most reef dives as many never get much below 25fsw.

The Keys is a lovely spot to dive, and a VERY good place for those who are looking for confidence dives as they are beautiful, fun, shallow, and reletively safe.

One word of caution, depth is something to be respected, but currents are as much or more so. Don't scare you wife, but current is definately something that one can run into even on shallow dives. It was all we could do on one of our dives at Molassas to just make headway against the current. The boat captain will have some idea of what you are facing before the dive, but in our case the current picked up a LOT without him hearing reports of that.

 

[RonFrank]

We've stayed at a few places. This last trip we did Ocean Pointe which is a bit south of Largo. If you are looking for Condo ammenities like a full kitchen, washer/dryer, living room, breakfast bar, seperate bedroom, jacuzzi tub in room, then I'd highly recommend them. They also have a dock/peer, launch, tennis, pool, and private beach which is OK, but typical Keys beach (not impressive). They are a bit more expensive vs. a standard hotel room ($160 per night).

There are a LOT of reviews on this board of various hotels/motels/condo's in the Keys. I'd do a search because it's going to be the fastest way to pick up info. Once you narrow it down to a few places, maybe then post with specific questions.