Key Largo Florida 2002
What we did and what we recommend you do when you visit
SCUBA Diving - We dove with H.M.S. Minnow dive shop. It was recommended by our local dive shop Gypsy Divers. Our captain was Jeff. He runs a small operation. He has a smallish boat that holds max 6 divers which is nice and had decent rental gear. One day he even let me use his stuff which had a air integrated computer on it. Really cool. The Price was very reasonable at $55 for the afternoon (2 dives).
The best dive site was Conch reef,
we saw tons of marine life here. Green
moray eel, many spotted moray eels, stingray, sea cucumber, lots of lobster,
tons of fish including tarpon. The
second best site was minnow caves. What
makes this unique are the thousands of 3in long minnows that live in the small
coral swim throughs. As you swim through the fish
part in front of you and close up behind you.
They are so thick you can’t see all the way through the passageway. Very cool. As your swimming
through you could very well run into a 40lbs grouper hiding among the minnows. This
is a not to be missed dive site. I was
very disappointed with the Christ’s statue site, skip it. The water was around 83 degrees, calm, and
had good visibility. The reefs looked
healthy and in good overall shape.
Overall definitely a good place to go diving.
Interesting Facts – Don’t expect any big open sandy
beaches in the keys. Most of the islands
shores are limestone. The keys have some
of the best underwater scenery in the country, great for scuba divers and snorkelers
alike. Overall key
largo is not that pretty of an island but it has the best diving in the
keys. It falls far short of a “tropical
paradise”, if scenery is what your looking for head to
key west
Restaurants – Lots of seafood restaurants here. Lots of good ones too! We never had a bad meal while there, come to think of it nobody we talked to had a bad meal there. Some of the best places are the fish house (inland), Snappers (Oceanview), sundowners (oceanview). The specialties of the area are yellowtail snapper, mahi mahi, grouper, and of course key lime pie! Best pie was at The Fish House! Make sure to ask to feed the tarpon off snappers dock. The have “pet” tarpon that you can feed off their dock!
Lodging – We stayed at the Westin Key Largo Resort. It is a nice hotel and one of the only ones with a beach. The beach is small but they do have jet skis, snorkeling, and parasailing for rent there. They have 2 pools, an adult and kids. Nice to have them split up if your trying to get away from it all. They also have a very HOT Jacuzzi. The pools have a bar and a waterfall. The rooms are very big and the ones on the ocean side have great views. The restaurants at the hotel leave a lot to be desired, best to venture out for food. It is located a little out of town, actually it’s in rock harbor, but we didn’t find this to be too much of an inconvenience.
Another nice hotel is the Marriott.
Shopping
– Tourist shops are everywhere. Water world was a good dive shop. Shell World was a good tourist shop.
Other
cool stuff to do and places to visit – We were there for the fourth of july
so we took a fourth of july cruise to see the
fireworks. A definite must. We docked at sundowners
restaurant which just happened to be right in front of the barge they blew the
fireworks off from. The fireworks lasted
about 40 minutes and were awesome.
The snorkeling in
Swimming with the
dolphins looks great but it is expensive, we didn’t try it.
Air boat trips on
the everglades look great but it is expensive, we didn’t try this either. Guess that just means we have a reason to go
back now.
Transportation Tips - We
flew into Miami key west Miami
Have Fun!
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Last
updated: July 9, 2002