Ultimate Guide to Key Largo SCUBA Diving

The ultimate guide to key largo scuba diving helping you find the best places to SCUBA dive in Key Largo.

Key Largo is widely known as the diving capital of the world due to its amazing reefs and sunken shipwrecks. There is diving suitable for all levels of divers in Key Largo and is a great location for groups of mixed abilities and enough variety to go to a different dive site every day for a week. There are shallow reefs and wrecks and some deeper wrecks that are on the edge of recreational dive limits.

The shallow reefs are ideal for families with teenagers to all dive together and enjoy the magic of the underwater world together.

There are many options for Key Largo SCUBA Diving from the beautiful reefs and shallow wrecks to the deep ship wrecks sunk purposely for SCUBA Divers.

We are often asked what are the best places to SCUBA dive and the answer is always the same. Really depends on what you want to see or do and what the conditions are on the day!

Not a great answer we know! But SCUBA divers have many different needs and wants. There are also nearly as many weather and conditions variables.

We hope this short article will give you an insight as to what’s available to dive in Key Largo.

Types of diving in Key Largo

Reef Dives

The key largo reef is beautiful and has a great deal of wild life and its not deep and generally has good visibility. We often sit right under the boat and just watch the wildlife going about their daily business. You will always see something different on every dive even if its to the same place, believe us we go to a lot of the same place and dive a lot and are always amazed at the variety of wildlife we see.

Some days we will see lots of turtles other days maybe none but we will see some friendly sharks cruising around the reef.

During May to September we will often see Eagle rays cruising through, often in groups of 4 or more. There are also always plenty of reef fish to be seen, parrot fish (all types), Blue Tangs, sergeant majors and yellow tail snapper are always abundant.

The main reefs are all about 5 miles off shore and run parallel to the shore. The reef has breaks in places to it is not one continuous reef but a number of separate reefs.

There are reefs closer to shore at the 3 mile point but these tend to be very shallow at around the 10 feet mark and not suitable for scuba diving but good for snorkeling. These closer reefs can also suffer from poor visibility when the weather is not optimal.

Even at the 5 mile point the reefs can be very shallow and some of the reefs will emerge from the water at low tides so unless boats know the island waters they must have a GPS to avoid running over the reefs and causing damage to the reef.

The shallow nature of these reefs is one of the main reasons there are so many ship wrecks in Key Largo, ancient and modern. Each year we see vessels stranded on top of our reefs waiting for the high tide so they can get off, there are large fines by FWC for damage to the reefs.

There is plenty of evidence of of shipwrecks on the reefs in Key Largo as we have a number of cannons located near reefs which is where the sailors of old had thrown the heaviest thing off the front of the boat to reflect their vessel.

One of the most dived spots on Molasses reef is the winch hole where a giant 150 year old winch lies. In the past he practice for sailing boats who got stranded on the reef was to row a large anchor and line out on a smaller boat seaward side of the reef in the direction the came and plant the anchor the attach the line to the winch and winch themselves off at high tide. On this occasion rather than winching the vessel off the reef it appears to have pulled the winch off the vessel and there it now sits in a clearing in 25 feet of water making a great place for photos.

Many of these old shipwrecks happened before there were any navigation aids on the reefs like light houses. In the 1850s an estimated 500 vessels were wrecked on the Keys reefs. The oldest lighthouse in Key Largo marks Carrysfort reef and was built in 1848. Prior to lighthouses large letters were placed on poles on some of the reefs, the remains of these can still be seen under the water!

Shallow Wreck Dives

Then there are the shallow wreck dives, City of Washington, Hannah M Bell and the Benwood all in less than 50 feet of water. These are all natural shipwrecks and are always amazing dives as the are covered in wildlife. If you know where to look on these wrecks you can usually find Turtles sleeping and Moray Elles in their holes. The Hanna M Bell still remains the only place I have seen and octopus out in the open during the day!

Deep Wreck Dives

The deeper wrecks of The Spiegel Grove, Duane and Bibb are all in around 140 feet of water and are for advanced certified divers who what to go deeper. they are all guaranteed to thrill. these wrecks are all artificial reefs that were cleaned and sunk on purpose. They offer relatively deep diving with plenty of wildlife to see. If its sharks you are look to see then these are the wreck where we seethe most. The Spiegelgrove has large carribean reef sharks patrolling the rear of the 510 foot vessel, early morning is the best time to see these beauties. The Duane we often see Bull sharks patrolling and they can have a habit of following divers around.

Dive against Debris Dives

You can join in helping to keep the reef clear of marine debris by taking part in one of our dive against debris dives, a way for divers to give back to the environment for all the pleasure its given them. Most dive shops offer these bespoke trips. We also have a yearly trash derby prior to the summer season.

Coral Planting Dives

In association with Coral Restoration Foundation we run regular trips to clean and plant coral. These are specialist dives and can be booked in advance. This is an all day event where you visit CRF in the morning and learn about their work and how to plant coral. In the afternoon its a trip to the nursery where you get to do a scuba tour of the nursery then to a reef to help plant coral.

Lion Fish removal dives

We run special Lion fish removal dives to help the reef stay healthy and keep the numbers of these predators low as possible. These are specialist dives. We only do full boat charters for these types of dives as the boat cannot enter the Sanctuary Preservation Area.

Lobster Hunting

We run Lobster hunting dives during season for those who want to do these dives. These are specialist dives. We only offer full boat charters for these dives as the boat cannot enter the Sanctuary Protection Area with lobster hunting equipment on board.

Key Largo dive shops

There are around 20 dive shops operating in key largo all offering similar services in their own way.

Boats can get to the key largo reef from North creek, South creek, port Largo or the Pilot House. All these take a similar time to get to the reef but will take different times to get to the far reaches North or South depending where they originate from. Garden Cove in the North and Pilot House in the south are the at each end of the Key Largo reef line. Any shops operating past these to the south are unlikely to visit the sites listed here as the time to travel up can be long even in great conditions and the will have the reefs and wrecks nearer them to go to.

Then there is the weather to work with!

All of these dives are subject to the prevailing weather conditions. The weather in Key Largo has a large influence over which dive sites we visit. The weather, tides and currents also have a huge influence on the sites we visit. We cant always go to every dive site on every day .

Whilst we have a fairly good idea of what the weather is going to be like throughout the year we always take one day at a time.

The conditions are reviewed each morning at 7am and a decision on where will be best to go for the first trip. This is based on what it was like the day before and our experience of being on the reef. This decision is constantly updated through the day as we encounter conditions.

Want to know how to get an amazing scuba trip in Key Largo?

Head over to our SCUBA diving page to book your personal adventure today!