FL Keys Trip Report 2011 04 22-24

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Jax

Deplorable American
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Flash visit to the keys - an Rx for Burn-out

In a more-or-less per whim, my husband Steve and I decided to take a nice vacation . . . which almost immediately was reduced to only three days! :crying: Still, just three days left us enormously refreshed and relaxed.

First, we flew into Miami. We were using airline miles and unfortunately Miami worked best. However, the airport sucks, and the rental cars are astronomical. If you can find some way to rent somewhere away from the airport, do so -- the three-day rental cost as much as an airfare.

We rented from a place that came up on 'CarRentals.com', 247miamicars.com Rent A Car at Miami Airport. The car was rather abused for having only 44k miles on it. Frankly, we didn't care as the intermediate size was $100 less than the major brands' sub compact! You take the Rental Car Center shuttle to Center, where the rep picked us up in the car we were to keep - load the luggage once! Also, the car had the SunPass sticker, included in the price, so that was a bonus. When we returned, the rep drove us to the hotel and dropped us - I liked that.

Just prior to leaving, United changed my flight to a 6:46 one, so we changed our plans a bit. We decided to drive down to Key West, stay & dive two days, come up to Key Largo, stay & dive one day, and then drive up to the hotel at the airport.

For lodging in Key West, we stayed at the Key West Naval Air Station lodging at Trumbell Point. If you have any kind of military affiliation (DoD civilian included), you can stay in lodging. There are several places; some have been recently renovated and some are in the process. The room in the Trumbell Point lodging was small and older but for $55 a night, 1/4 mi from downtown, you can't beat it. There are several lodging places, if you want to walk to downtown, make sure you are on Trumbell Point. You need just a rental agreement and a mil ID to get through the gate.

Friday
The original plan was to get up early and explore Key West, but did not happen as desired. I was recovering from food poisoning (Thanks, Montezuma!) and Steve was jetlagged from Kuwait. I let him sleep in until 9:30 so we could do a leisurely brunch and check-in with Dive Key West, Inc. We did do the obligatory stop at Mile 0 for pics. Pics left as URLs do to page-jam sizing.

Shout out to WOOKIE for the recommendation to dive with "Dive Key West" - :grouphug:
This was a super operation, nice shop, very nice and super knowledgeable staff, and for Bob, :worship: for bringing my wetsuit to the boat when I stupidly left it at the shop. :doh:

For this weekend, Dive KW was doing the Vandy in the morning and reef dives in the afternoon. We opted for the reef for our first day. Dive KW has great organization, as they set the name-labeled tanks and weights outside to make sure everyone's gear was accounted for. We could also set up our gear on the tanks and they would carry all in their truck to the boat.

The boat was at the Key West Harbor Yacht Club, quite a nice arrangement with plenty of parking. The crew got everything / everyone on board, did roll call, and also called out each person's starting tank pressure. They did this before the second dive, too. We had some snorkelers with us, as we were informed up front when we booked. We headed out to the reefs. Note - they have DIN valves available only on their Nitrox tanks, so plan accordingly.

The Keys are still under their Spring winds - running late this year, the constant breeze kept the waves up and the vis down. It was very surgey, and the poor snorklers were really tested. I will have to list the sites later, as I don't have my log book with me at this time. The vis was okay, about 40 fuzzy feet, since the coral just went through a spawn. They have the biggest parrotfish I've ever seen, and the lobsters are ginormous!

The max depth was 23fsw, the temp was ~84F, and I wore my 7mm. Steve was in his 5mm. :)

The second dive wasn't as surgey, but still sucked for photos. Or, I should say, I sucked at photagraphy in that situation. Best of all, I spewed only once! :yeahbaby: I am now a huge fan of scopolamine. I freaked out the crew, because the first thing I did after feeding the fish was eat a banana. I hate dry heaves. Also, instead of Sergeant Majors coming round, those pretty silver and yellow striped things were feeding. Yellow finned snapper? :idk: Anyway, I felt great after the dive and was ready to explore.

The max depth was around 30, temp still ~84F.
 
Whoot! :dance3:

The dive center required you to follow a dive guide, and to have a snorkel :w-t-f: It took a while, but I finally found mine shoved in a side pocket of my bag.

We parked on the stern mooring ball. The vis was about 40' to 60', still fuzzy. I so wanted a pic of Steve in the dish, but he was too into "follow the guide". I will have to post the underwater pics later. We went down the mooring line, I caught a few pics of our guide Erin and Steve above the dish. we then headed down to the deck on the starboard side where Erin pointed out 4' Jewfish under an overhang; Erin later said it was the smaller of the three that hang around there. Erin was a wealth of information on the ship, and explained she'd been diving it since it went down. She loved seeing it grow more and more encrusted through the years, and seeing the critters move in. We had about 20 minutes, not near enough, and the reason I'm taking the AN/DP.

The last dive with Dive Key West was a nice little site I'm thinking was called Haystacks or something. We just hung around, gently swaying in the surge, and poking in holes to find something to photograph. Did I mention the lobsters are ginormous?!?!!? I found a blenny and tried to catch a picture; the surge would take me forward, and he ducked, then backward, and he came out. We danced like that for a while -- I haven't seen if I got lucky in my photos, or not. :rolleyes:

A very nice perk of diving Dive Key West is they are parked at Key West Harbor Yacht Club. You get a guest pass to enjoy the facilities - nice locker rooms! - and if you have non-divers, they can hang at the pool while you dive. Lastly, to "maintain the yacht club environment", the crew loads everything you want into their truck to take it to the shop where you can clean and rinse it. You don't have to get your vehicle wet with sea water. This worked great for us, as we cleaned the gear, the went back for a shower & lunch while it dried. They also kept it overnight Friday for us. No lugging gear up to the room, or leaving it to stink the car. Then we were northbound for Tavenier / Key Largo!

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We got into Tavenier around 4pm; I was texting mselaneous to finalize arrangements to meet for dinner.

For lodging this time we were at the Ocean Pointe Suites. Honestly, it was too much accommodation for one night. The place is five buildings of condos, and rents out condos on behalf of the owners. We had a master suite with king, and spare bedroom with two twins, kitchen and living room for $270. Now, if four people went in on it and stayed for a week, it might be okay. For us, it was a place to sleep. The Holiday Inn we were at for ITK 2010 was just as good. A quick clean-up, and we were off to dinner!

We met mselaneous, mselaneous' sis, and NetDoc for dinner at Marker 88 -- a sunset dinner! What a perfectly lovely way to end the day . . . So peaceful and beautiful. Steve got his "red meat" fix while I had perfectly done fish. They make the greatest Pina Coladas there, too; rich and coconutty.

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Have to admit, though, it sure was tough getting up to that alarm the next day, Easter Sunday . . . The dive boat awaits! We met at Key Largo Dive Center (formally Garden Cove) to sign the formalities - Key Largo Dive Center runs a special on Tuesdays and Sundays: a three-tank dive for the price of a two-tank dive. :cool3: After some small confusion in driving to the boat (Steve needs to listen to his navigator :blinking: ), we found or way after miselaneous was kind enough to stand in the turn-in. :giggle:

They have a nice large boat for a six-pack, very well laid-out. Capt Dean is just the nicest fellow you'll run into. Now, the water temp "up here" was only 81*, amazingly, I got chilled. :cold: Dive one was on the Benwood, a natural wreck blown up by the Coast Guard since it was a nav hazard. This means there were lots of pieces and parts to peer under and about. The vis was much better here, I'll call it 80' and not as much fuzz. There seemed "a little" current . . . until I went around one end. I was finning my tail off, and going nowhere!!! I admit it, I had to pull out the 'special fins' to make way. :blush: Around the corner and no problem if you stayed low. Steve found some nice lobsters - one was as big around as the palm of my hand! I just have to get him to stop playing with the antennae so I can get a better picture. We hit time and went up. I was pretty chilled in my 7mm -- I just don't know how mselaneous handled it in a 3mm!. :cold:

The second dive was on French Reef Coral Caves. There were so many overhangs and peer-throughs, I thought for sure we'd see a nurse shark. But no, not this time. I lasted only about 35 minutes, and began shivering. Still great vis, gentle surge, a bit more silty. I thumbed due to cold, and up we came.

The third dive was on Molasses. I did get a nice shot fish I'll need someone to ID. The coral grew with great overhangs and ledges, you wondered how they stayed upright. My pictures weren't so great - again, no talent photographer in surge. In spite of "running in place" and various other shenanigans, I chilled quickly again and thumbed the dive after about 30 minutes. That 7mm isn't all it's cracked up to be. For those of you following the saga, my drysuit neck seal leaked the last three dives of last weekend's Mexico trip, and until I figure out why, I wasn't wanting sea-saturated undies on this trip. :)

There were a couple of guys having a nice weekend dive with us on the boat, and had a strange encounter with the wildlife. It seems a remora fish attached itself first to the diver's leg, then to his fin . . . just a little confused, I think! I saw a remora attached to a parrotfish, the fish was so big!

Steve and I had a WONDERFUL time with NetDoc and mselaneous -- they really made our day and Steve was happily surprised to know that there were "real people" on Scubaboard . . . :rofl3: PS - Steve doesn't do SB or any other forum.

We enjoyed a nice lunch with mselaneous and NetDoc, then headed up to the MIA hotel. Steve was wore out -- jet lag was catching up again so no dinner with the rest of the Florida Conch Divers. :( I was up early the next morning with an early flight, and I took the two dive bags; Steve is off for other trip and I got to clean all the dive gear. :hm: How's that keep happening?

Thanks again, Wookie, Dive KW, mselaneous, and NetDoc for making Steve's first trip to the Florida Keys so memorable! :grouphug:
 
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Nice reports and photos. Even without tags I think I picked out who was who at dinner. Thanks for sharing.
 
I enjoy reading well told stories with happy endings. thanks for sharing.
 
Great report! And, on two of my favorite dives (Molasses / Benwood, which always seems to turn into a semi-drift).

The sunset shot blew me away... picture postcard...
 
Going to upload this way to see if they are smaller.

I have pictures of only the second dive . . . my dive buddy took off before I could get my camera, so I had to follow. :whatever:
 

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Some pics from our second day.

Finger in pic for perspective on size. If the hermit crab hadn't moved, I'd never had seen the itty bitty critter!

Did I mention there was NO current on the Vandy? :yeahbaby:
 

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  • Key West - Vandenberg (37) Sat am Our Guide, Erin.jpg
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  • Key West - Vandenberg (38)Sat am Steve in Dish.jpg
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  • Key West - Vandenberg (10) Jewfish.jpg
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Glad you had such a great trip to our favorite playground. You need to come down and join us there next time!
 
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