Mike
Contributor
Just returned from 10 days in the Florida Keys.
Started off in Key West for 3 days, stayed at the Southern Most Beach Resort with an ocean front room. Hotel lives up to its reputation, very beautiful, perfect location for staying in Key West at the very south end of Duval Street, million dollar views. Staff is professional and attentive, accommodations are beautiful, grounds are beautiful. Pools were too cold for my liking, but that's the only small bad thing I could say about the place. Rented bicycles for the 3 days and rode around anyplace we wanted to go, was easy and fun.Tried many nice restaurants in Key West, including the Hotels own on the beach restaurant, as well as Louies Back yard, La Tee Da, Roof Top Cafe and Lattitude out on Tank island, they have a free boat launch that runs back and forth every half hour. All restaurants we tried were very good, with great views, wine and food.
The plan was to dive Looe Key one day while in Key West with Inner Space Dive Center. Placed the call to make the reservation and they said their boat was down so they weren't going out. They recommended we call Strike Zone Charters, who we didn't call, sorry but those reviews on TripAdvisor scared the crap out of me. Didn't want to dive with Looe Key Dive Center either so that left us with UnderSea Inc, which unfortunately didn't return our contact through their website contact form, nor the voice mail we left. Kind of sucked, was looking forward to diving Looe Key, but it didn't work out. We spent more time doing the tourist stuff in Key West instead, did the Danger Charters sunset sail boat wine cruise which was a great choice, had a ball, great crew, fantastic fellow guests, there is no stinginess on the wines and food and the sunset was perfect. Toured the aquarium, and the Wreckers museum, and caught the Cat Man show, which was bizarre in the fact that I don't think he actually did much of anything with the cats for the 30 minutes we watched him. Somebody said the Weston now pays him a salary to perform outside their location so maybe he's living off that instead of tips now, he didn't seem to care at all if he got a dime from the crowd. Also toured the Mell Fisher museum, pretty good museum, was very surprised.
Moved up to Islamorada for the next 7 days, stayed at the Chesapeake Beach Resort, Cheeca Lodge had no vacancies when I booked so this was 2nd choice. The hotel is interesting, the best way I could describe itis I think the Chesapeake Resort is looking for an identity. They've renovated the rooms somewhat; we did a beach front room which is basically a 1 bedroom condo type unit, with some upgrades but other stuff that just made you scratch your head. Flat screen TVs, new high end furniture and beds and dirty grout and crumbling tile in the 1970s bathroom??? Not a very consistent renovation. I don't think they quite have figured out who their target market is yet. Grounds are nice but this pales in comparison to the place we stayed in Key West, but it was still nice enough and we could easily make the best of it.
We dived with Conch Republic divers for 4 days doing 8 total dives. Conch Republic is a professional outfit, safety minded and I'd dive with them again. We are not fans of wrecks but I knew we were in the wreck capital and even with doing our best to avoid them we ended up diving the Duane, the Eagle, the Ben Ford (twice) and the Spiegel Grove. We much preferred the reefs and the Ben Ford which is basically a metal flat reef now and very fishy and full of life. We dove French Reef and Crocker Reef and must have been one other I can't recall. The wreck dives were all that wreck divers love about them, they were big, lots of structure, some swim thrus to do and such and all that exciting wreck stuff that wreck divers love. Overall very nice diving experience. Saw multiple big green morays free swimming, big nurse sharks here and there and tons of all the normal reefy fish and enjoyed ourselves diving. Vis was 50-60 ft pretty much on all dives, pretty minimal currents at dive depths on all sites we did.
After 3 days of dives with Conch Republic we contacted Silent World farther up north in hopes of seeing some different underwater real estate, went to their shop to see if we could do some dives with them, they were going out the Spiegel again in the afternoon the next day, which we weren't about to do again, (I know he acted like I was from Mars when I told him no thanks to the Spiegel) but they had no divers for the reef dives in the morning so we ended up back doing 2 more dives with Conch Republic. The counter guy at Silent world said he'd make some calls, call us either way by 5:00 pm that day, but never did. Carol at Conch Republic answered the phone at 5:45 and put us on their boat for the morning,very nice outfit, very accommodating and easy to work with.
Dined out at Braza Lena, Morada Beach Cafe for sunsets and too much wine 3 times, Tower of Pizza, Mrs Mac's Kitchen and others, all were excellent.
Drove up one day to the alligator farm and spent a few hours there, it's just big enough to give you a taste of the alligator farm experience with a air boat ride thrown in, a snake show and an alligator wrangle / science show. You can do it all in less than 3 hours easily and feel you've seen it all.
Sunday was our last day before heading back on Monday to Colorado and we booked a shark fishing trip with Paul of Strip Strike Charters. Paul was a lot of fun, he knows his stuff, on light tackle we hooked up with 12 sharks and landed 9, the last being the biggest and most fun so it worked out perfectly. Most of the sharks were lemons, black tips and black noses and some nurse sharks that Paul kept chasing away as they were more nuisences than anything else. All sharks were from 3 ft to 6 ft and put up a hell of a fight and are deceptively strong animals for their size. The biggest was the last at just over 6 feet and geometrically vastly stronger. We were just off shore of all the multi-million dollar water front homes on Marathon, I'd think the homeowners there would poop their pants if they knew how many sharks swim around in front of their homes!
All in all a very fun trip to the Keys, saw and did a lot, would have like to have dived Looe Key as the only regret, but that gives us something to do next time.
Started off in Key West for 3 days, stayed at the Southern Most Beach Resort with an ocean front room. Hotel lives up to its reputation, very beautiful, perfect location for staying in Key West at the very south end of Duval Street, million dollar views. Staff is professional and attentive, accommodations are beautiful, grounds are beautiful. Pools were too cold for my liking, but that's the only small bad thing I could say about the place. Rented bicycles for the 3 days and rode around anyplace we wanted to go, was easy and fun.Tried many nice restaurants in Key West, including the Hotels own on the beach restaurant, as well as Louies Back yard, La Tee Da, Roof Top Cafe and Lattitude out on Tank island, they have a free boat launch that runs back and forth every half hour. All restaurants we tried were very good, with great views, wine and food.
The plan was to dive Looe Key one day while in Key West with Inner Space Dive Center. Placed the call to make the reservation and they said their boat was down so they weren't going out. They recommended we call Strike Zone Charters, who we didn't call, sorry but those reviews on TripAdvisor scared the crap out of me. Didn't want to dive with Looe Key Dive Center either so that left us with UnderSea Inc, which unfortunately didn't return our contact through their website contact form, nor the voice mail we left. Kind of sucked, was looking forward to diving Looe Key, but it didn't work out. We spent more time doing the tourist stuff in Key West instead, did the Danger Charters sunset sail boat wine cruise which was a great choice, had a ball, great crew, fantastic fellow guests, there is no stinginess on the wines and food and the sunset was perfect. Toured the aquarium, and the Wreckers museum, and caught the Cat Man show, which was bizarre in the fact that I don't think he actually did much of anything with the cats for the 30 minutes we watched him. Somebody said the Weston now pays him a salary to perform outside their location so maybe he's living off that instead of tips now, he didn't seem to care at all if he got a dime from the crowd. Also toured the Mell Fisher museum, pretty good museum, was very surprised.
Moved up to Islamorada for the next 7 days, stayed at the Chesapeake Beach Resort, Cheeca Lodge had no vacancies when I booked so this was 2nd choice. The hotel is interesting, the best way I could describe itis I think the Chesapeake Resort is looking for an identity. They've renovated the rooms somewhat; we did a beach front room which is basically a 1 bedroom condo type unit, with some upgrades but other stuff that just made you scratch your head. Flat screen TVs, new high end furniture and beds and dirty grout and crumbling tile in the 1970s bathroom??? Not a very consistent renovation. I don't think they quite have figured out who their target market is yet. Grounds are nice but this pales in comparison to the place we stayed in Key West, but it was still nice enough and we could easily make the best of it.
We dived with Conch Republic divers for 4 days doing 8 total dives. Conch Republic is a professional outfit, safety minded and I'd dive with them again. We are not fans of wrecks but I knew we were in the wreck capital and even with doing our best to avoid them we ended up diving the Duane, the Eagle, the Ben Ford (twice) and the Spiegel Grove. We much preferred the reefs and the Ben Ford which is basically a metal flat reef now and very fishy and full of life. We dove French Reef and Crocker Reef and must have been one other I can't recall. The wreck dives were all that wreck divers love about them, they were big, lots of structure, some swim thrus to do and such and all that exciting wreck stuff that wreck divers love. Overall very nice diving experience. Saw multiple big green morays free swimming, big nurse sharks here and there and tons of all the normal reefy fish and enjoyed ourselves diving. Vis was 50-60 ft pretty much on all dives, pretty minimal currents at dive depths on all sites we did.
After 3 days of dives with Conch Republic we contacted Silent World farther up north in hopes of seeing some different underwater real estate, went to their shop to see if we could do some dives with them, they were going out the Spiegel again in the afternoon the next day, which we weren't about to do again, (I know he acted like I was from Mars when I told him no thanks to the Spiegel) but they had no divers for the reef dives in the morning so we ended up back doing 2 more dives with Conch Republic. The counter guy at Silent world said he'd make some calls, call us either way by 5:00 pm that day, but never did. Carol at Conch Republic answered the phone at 5:45 and put us on their boat for the morning,very nice outfit, very accommodating and easy to work with.
Dined out at Braza Lena, Morada Beach Cafe for sunsets and too much wine 3 times, Tower of Pizza, Mrs Mac's Kitchen and others, all were excellent.
Drove up one day to the alligator farm and spent a few hours there, it's just big enough to give you a taste of the alligator farm experience with a air boat ride thrown in, a snake show and an alligator wrangle / science show. You can do it all in less than 3 hours easily and feel you've seen it all.
Sunday was our last day before heading back on Monday to Colorado and we booked a shark fishing trip with Paul of Strip Strike Charters. Paul was a lot of fun, he knows his stuff, on light tackle we hooked up with 12 sharks and landed 9, the last being the biggest and most fun so it worked out perfectly. Most of the sharks were lemons, black tips and black noses and some nurse sharks that Paul kept chasing away as they were more nuisences than anything else. All sharks were from 3 ft to 6 ft and put up a hell of a fight and are deceptively strong animals for their size. The biggest was the last at just over 6 feet and geometrically vastly stronger. We were just off shore of all the multi-million dollar water front homes on Marathon, I'd think the homeowners there would poop their pants if they knew how many sharks swim around in front of their homes!
All in all a very fun trip to the Keys, saw and did a lot, would have like to have dived Looe Key as the only regret, but that gives us something to do next time.
i tried snorkeling for bugs in florida bay on saturday -- freezing even with a 3 mil water temp was like 66. Bugs were tiny all that i saw and would fit on my palm 
