North Dry Rocks Key Largo

Location

This reef is located just to the north of Key Largo Dry Rocks and has 3 mooring balls available for tie up.

The site is a large area of patch coral with a number of coral channels running east west.

Features

Caves

There is an area called minnow caves that used to have a great number of minnows and tomahawk fish congregating for safety and to try and avoid being eaten! just outside of the cave hang some large grouper keeping an eye on their dinner.

school of minnows at minnow caves key largo
Shows a school of thousands of minnows at minnow caves Key Largo

We have a video on our youtube channel where you will be able to watch the spectacle.

Unfortunately the caves collapsed during hurricane IRMA in 2017 so whilst its not so spectacular now there are still a good deal of fish present in the area.

Coral

Another spectacular part of this reef is the staghorn coral out plants.  The Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF) have spent a number of years planting coral on this reef and its quite a sight to see now.

If you are SCUBA diving this area please do not be tempted to touch anything even if it looks out of place.  CRF are still actively working on this site and sometimes leave transit tapes on the reef during their work.

There are also a number of slabs and tubes connected with this work.

You will also see other types of out planted coral often with numbers nailed to the rock to identify them.  These are often boulder coral

Wildlife on the reef

Lots of small carribean reef fish, Grouper and the occasional nurse shark cruising by.