We departed Key West Wednesday August 6th at 0930 imagining ourselves going treasure hunting after watching Fool’s Gold last night while still docked in the marina. Where’s Matthew McConaughey when you need him?
We steamed for Looe Key Marine Sanctuary which is about 18 nm from Key West. With a slight 6kt head wind it took a little more than three hours to motor there. Looe Key is a Marine Sanctuary where fishing is not allowed. There are about 20 mooring balls for tying up to with your boat all along the reef plus you can anchor in the sand if necessary. We were on one of the first balls that we came to at the western end of the reef. There were about six other boats there as well.
The girls ate some lunch. Kerrie got on her wet suit and snorkel gear, including the underwater electric scooter and followed Elizabeth and I on our dive. The water was gin clear with probably 100’ of visibility so Kerri could watch us (and we her) as we dove at a depth of about 26 feet. I didn’t bring the camera, big mistake.
There was a good sized Barracuda right under the boat. In just a few minutes Kerri pointed out a 5’ nurse grey shark just resting on the bottom. Then Elizabeth and I came across a larger darker one and several goliath grouper. All in like 5 minutes!
As we swam further, Kerri still following us, a good sized sand shark swam by us. I looked up a Kerri to point it out to her but she was hi-tailing it out of there with the scooter in high gear and kicking like crazy. Evidently she saw it too…Elizabeth and I continued the dive for about 10 more minutes and then went back to the boat. Kerri was fine.
We cleaned up and hung out for a while. We decided to move up the reef and get on another mooring ball. Elizabeth and I did another dive but the water was not a clear in this area and we did not see as much larger marine life. That is quite normal even here though we probably only moved about 100 yards down the reef.
We stayed a while longer and then steamed for Bahia Honda which is 9 nm miles to the NW. We pulled into the harbor through the opening in the old rail road bridge. I would have to say that it was the fulfillment of a dream of mine. Many years before we went to Bahia Honda State Park and sat on the beach. There was a sloop at anchor in the bay and the people on board swam to shore. I thought, “That looks cool, I’d like to do that...” I did. Well, at least the anchoring part, Elizabeth and Kerri rowed the dingy ashore to scout the area and take pictures.
Getting up on Thursday morning there is absolutely no wind and deathly hot. We were going to spend the day on the beach and use the wind surfer but Looe Key is calling again and besides, there’s no wind. So we motor back out to Looe Key. It’s flatter than the day before and, if possible, the water is clearer. We take a mooring ball at the far eastern end this time and cook burgers on the grill for lunch. It’s that calm.
We decide to just snorkel and free dive. It’s about 28’ deep but with weights on I can easily reach the bottom and stay down for about a minute. In this area is the old steel tower that was destroyed in a storm many years about on the bottom. There are also several underwater swim through’s, openings in the coral where you can swim in one end and come of the other with coral overhead. I must be getting old because I didn’t go through any of them. One was quite long.
We just lounged there for several hours, snorkeling off and on and the girls jumping off of the bow pulpit. The girls also did some male species observation work with the binoculars. On one of my snorkel swims a sea turtle swam past me at high speed and a nurse shark and sand shark swimming together went by.
I mentioned this to the fellow in the next boat that was in the water so that he could see them and he yelled to his kids that were behind his boat, “Kid’s get in the boat. Now!” He sounded like Marling in Finding Nemo which we had watched the night before. They left not a few minutes later…Opps, my bad.
As they day went on we changed balls again and tried to get a better males species observation position. At around 1600 there were only six boats on the reef, all sailboats. Several of them were commercial, taking out kids for trips and some where private, like us. There were probably 20 snorkelers in the water.
At 1700 we cooked pork roast on the grill and had a nice dinner on the reef. Just about everyone one had left. We had the place to ourselves. We contemplated staying on the ball and doing a night dive but decided not to. We left the reef at 1900 with just enough time to get back to Bahia Honda before darkness.
It’s commercial lobster season here now. There are like 5 million lobster pots in the water. We have to constantly be on the look out and adjust course to avoid them. Some of the lobster pots have lines to the traps that are too long, on those part of the line floats on the water in between the buoy and the trap. I swerved to avoid one of these and got it caught in my propeller.
It’s happened before so I immediately took the engine out of gear. Elizabeth lowered the anchor. We were in about 30’ of water. It was getting dark so we needed to get cleared as soon as possible to continue on with some daylight to see the other pots. I jumped in with just my weight belt, mask, snorkel and fins to take a look. Kerri got me a steak knife for cutting the line. It was wrapped up pretty good so I couldn’t cut it free by holding my breath. It’s hard work cutting underwater holding your breath!
Elizabeth gave me one of the new pony scuba tanks that we bought. They are really nice. They are a little smaller than a loaf of bread and have a regulator attached to the top of the tank and a carry bag with snap shackles for attaching it to your scuba equipment. I tried it out and I could easily hold it in my mouth with the tank hanging down and work with both of my hands. In just a few minutes I hand line cleared and we were on our way. The sunset just a few minutes later and we arrived at Bahia Honda in twilight. Very cool!
So now it’s Friday morning. We need to head back to Key West. We might do some lobstering along the way or even head back via Looe Key again. We’ll see.
to get the provisioning started that I brought down in the car from Peachtree City. Finally got all that stowed away last night. Then had a nice dockside dinner with my live aboard neighbors going away party. They are heading back to Canada for the summer. There are probably around 10 -15 live aboard couples here at Oceanside Marina.
Hey, we’re finally back on board Devante’s Dream. For this trip we have Eric Sr. Elizabeth and her friend Kerri. We arrived Monday afternoon August 4th after spending the day in Key Largo snorkeling Grecian Rocks and French Reef.
