Florida Keys snorkeling locations

[sam.basye]

This is a great thread. I have been stalking it for a while. My husband and I live up in North Central Florida and for his big 30 we are going to the Conch Republic NEXT WEEK!!!! We have a site on Bahia Honda for a week. We got our SW licenses and have read regulations as fast as we can read! I am confident in my identification. We were concerned we wouldn't be able to get out to the wrecks being only on kayaks. Your map you posted early in the thread was great! I thought I would ask you if you knew or had experience about the protocol within the park. I hope to collect a few little things and keep a live-well, I know I can only have the catch of the max of two days worth for each person with a license in possession, but if don't catch in the park and I keep it at my site, I have this feeling I am going to have an issue. What are your feelings on this? Is there a way to accomplish what I am trying to do and still stay in the park?

Being that you're staying in the park, you legally can't collect in the park, and you can't prove you legally collected elsewhere; I don't think they will let you.

I'm pretty sure it will be frowned upon, but it's worth giving someone in charge of the park a call to confirm though.


Fun story - a few years ago my family went to the Bahia Honda park and on the way back to the car from a day at the beach there was an Asian woman cutting off the leaves of an aloe plant to take with her. Needless to say, the rangers were NOT happy. She didn't seem to understand and one of the rangers referenced the signs that say you can't take anything and would she like it if he went to her house and started taking her stuff. Lol


Enjoy your husband's birthday meal at the Conch Republic!

 

[Ron Reefman]

Dogshowgrl, I wish I could help you, but that is a very tough set of circumstances to navigate. I once asked a park ranger if I could collect and they obviously said 'no'. Then I asked about people being allowed to fish. They are not only collecting, they kill the things they collect. The reply was 'that's different.' I asked if I could collect any live fish and was told, 'no.'

Personally, I understand the 'no collecting' in the state park rules. But then why allow people to fish in the park? And with a boat, I could put in at a boat ramp just down at the next island, move into the protected waters of the state park, collect my legal limit, and go back to the boat ramp outside the state park and even FWC rangers would not question the fact that I was under the limit of legal collection (unless they saw me collecting in state park waters... and they do have rangers in the water with boats and jet skis). But the line needs to be drawn somewhere.

Your situation is different. You could put in somewhere outside the park, collect outside the park, bring your collection back into the park by car and then get in trouble when you try to leave. Although I've never heard of anybody being stopped when leaving the park, it could happen and the fines are STEEP!!!

If I were in your situation, I'd call Bahia Honda and explain your goals, if things look bad I see 3 options, 1) Enjoy camping at Bahia Honda and don't collect. 2) Drop camping at Bahia Honda and camp someplace other than a state park or a motel. 3) Stay at Bahia Honda and find some other place to 'stash' your collection. We always pick #2. Blackfin Resort is inexpensive for a Keys motel and it's pretty clean. They have a tiny beach where we can do water changes every day for the health of our collection. They have electricity so we can run bubblers, heaters (rooms at 70 degrees cool the water quickly when you use a bubbler) and run a small pump for more water movement. They even have outside outlets by the room we stay in so the 32 quart cooler that holds our collection can stay outside (we still use a heater as cool night air and a bubbler will still cool the water too much, too quickly).

I hope you guys have a wonderful time. Happy 30th to your husband. Even if you don't collect, you can have a blast just investigating under rocks and looking around in general. I hope you have the best of weather and good visibility. And plan ahead, if the weather is bad, have a few places you'd like to visit on land, like the History of Diving Museum or the Aquarium Adventure. Please take some photos and post them here! They don't have to be underwater shots, we see plenty of those already. And tell us a little about your adventure. We all learn when we hear stories of how things go for others.

 

[G_Sanab922]

I agree with both Sam and Ron. I wouldn't risk it, plus they have employees going around making sure everything is ok. If by chance they see it and inspect they can make a fuss about it.

It's funny how ron mentioned that you can fish but can't collect marine aquarium species. I asked FWC once for a list of prohibited collection of species in state parks. The list was detailed and very long lol.

http://myfwc.com/media/3812053/Quickchart.pdf
Basically anything not on this list is prohibited from collection in state parks.

Maybe when you leave you can stop somewhere and collect.

Bahia Honda is still great for just looking around. I took my wife for the first time the other day and it was great. I actually need to upload the video I got from my gopro. Found a nice big rock yards off the beach and full of life.

 

[Dogshowgrl]

We are enjoying our stay. Will post pics when we get home. We have only been around the park. We have been out little monie key but got stormed out without much luck of snorkeling. Any suggestions? (reading over this thread again) we are in kayaks so things close to land is a perk. We are not collecting until we are on the drive home. Thanks for the list of things for collection, I have a close relationship with the FWC website. We even stopped by FWC offices a couple times for clarification, which was a huge help! Definitely recommend doing that to us newbies.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Even when the conditions are not good, the Horseshoe can be worth visiting. It's the northeast end of Spanish Harbor Key which is just over the bridge south west from Bahia Honda. It's quite protected and you don't need the kayak. If you can free dive, the vertical walls inside the quarry about 12' down we found both white and red flame scallops and coral banded shrimp. Out near the opening of the quarry there are a lot of rocks on the sloping bottom and there can be a lot to see under them. The arms of the quarry make for fairly calm water. If the conditions are good, the other side of the road from the Horseshoe has some interesting spots as well. If you are in the Park, the little island a short 1/4 mile off the beach has some cool stuff on the side away from the channel.

If the weather is really bad, we have friends down there now and they said no snorkeling out at the main reef due to 4' seas. Consider the History of Diving Museum on Islamorada. Here is a link:
http://www.divingmuseum.org/

I really look forward to reading and seeing what you have to say when you get home.

 

[G_Sanab922]

We are enjoying our stay. Will post pics when we get home. We have only been around the park. We have been out little monie key but got stormed out without much luck of snorkeling. Any suggestions? (reading over this thread again) we are in kayaks so things close to land is a perk. We are not collecting until we are on the drive home. Thanks for the list of things for collection, I have a close relationship with the FWC website. We even stopped by FWC offices a couple times for clarification, which was a huge help! Definitely recommend doing that to us newbies.

Thank you for doing your due diligence. It's appreciated. FWC also appreciates people who take the time to become familiar with laws and wildlife.

 

[Dogshowgrl]

Thank you for doing your due diligence. It's appreciated. FWC also appreciates people who take the time to become familiar with laws and wildlife.

I find that part of it fun. I have friends and family that are FWC that urge me to be familiar.

 

[AWD]

I feel a little guilty passing on things that I haven't done but I've heard paddle boarding in key west is great. Sharks and rays are normal and for some reason standing up gives a more direct visibility into the water.


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[Ron Reefman]

Me (and a couple of friends) are pulling together a snorkel & Camping trip to the Dry Tortugas and Ft Jefferson next April 26th & 27th, 2017. The date is fixed for a variety of reasons. Obviously this is a public charter and state park, so anybody is welcome to join the adventure. Want more details? I started a new thread here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2591649

 

[matt888]

Great pics! It doesn't get much better than snorkeling down there in the Keys! I'm a freediving spearfishing enthusiast and enjoy the shallow snorkeling down there as much as the deep fishing myself.

Keep an eye out for Mythrax crabs... There are the green ones with red joints down there on the Atlantic side and Ruby red ones all over the Gulf side.

Over the past few yrs I've found alot of zoa variety, but for sure, those green ones are the most common. My wife and I have collected them for yrs and they all do quite well in the home aquariums. Better than some of the expensive store bought stuff at that! They have all multiplied for us. We are fortunate to have a place down there on Big Pine Key, so we get alot of opportunities to scout for stuff for the aquarium.

A few have brought up the concern of camping in state parks and how to handle livestock and follow the rules, etc. Staying in a hotel with "buckets" could be a little inconvenient and problematic with staff also. If you want to avoid all of that nonsense and collect your legal livestock, feel free to PM me about my 3/2 home on 50' of canal. Short boat ride to Looe Key or the backcountry. You would be surprised to see how inexpensive it is to rent a full house split between 2 or 3 couples!

Here's a few pics of zoas we have from down there and we also have Ricordia. The Rics are out deeper though in 30-45'.

 

[E.litvin]

Amazing thread this is everything I've ever looked for when it comes to a keys snorkeling guide. Great pictures thank you for sharing! Did you ever come across any rock flower anemones, i feel like those would be cool to see in the wild.

 

[matt888]

Amazing thread this is everything I've ever looked for when it comes to a keys snorkeling guide. Great pictures thank you for sharing! Did you ever come across any rock flower anemones, i feel like those would be cool to see in the wild.

All you had to do was ask.

They are everywhere down there once you know the right habitat and depths. The hard part is removing them. They typically have their foot in cracks or holes on rock, making them difficult to retrieve. I try to find the sandy areas where they are less commonly found because they are much easier to get a flat blade under the foot for removal (before they shrink down into the center of the earth).

 

[Ron Reefman]

Amazing thread this is everything I've ever looked for when it comes to a keys snorkeling guide. Great pictures thank you for sharing! Did you ever come across any rock flower anemones, i feel like those would be cool to see in the wild.

The really colorful ones tend to be in deeper water in my experience. A friend of mine in Miami finds the colorful ones on a reef that is 40 feet down and he claims they never see any other boats in the area when they dive there. But he won't tell me where it is. The ones we find snorkeling in the shallows near shore tend to be shades of black, white, gray with some green or tan thrown in. They have some very cool patterns, but not the crazy fluorescent colors found in the ones down 30 or 40 feet.

I know one very small island that is 1/4 mile off shore on the Florida Bay side that has a 1' to 2' vertical drop into the water and that wall is literally wallpapered with rock flower anemones. Nobody goes there because the water is only 2' deep for a 100 yards or more in every direction and the sea grass is really thick once you get 10' away from the island. So not many boaters are interested in going there.

 

[bhbell]

That would be a phenomenal picture.

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[Ron Reefman]

Next time we go to that little island we'll work on getting one. I just looked and all the pics we have from there are close ups of rock flowers rather than a long shot. But part of the problem is the visibility in the water there is always shaky at best. It's shallow so waves stir it up and the bottom is sandy and the grasses near by hold a lot of muck that gets stirred up as well.

 

[Ron Reefman]

We are planning to go to the Keys the first week of October, but the weather is looking REALLY bad. Winds in the 30mph for 2 days! My wife is trying to move her vacation back a week.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Sure glad we were able to reschedule our vacation. My best wishes and good luck to everybody on the East Coast of Florida. Mathew is a wild one and even this morning they are changing the track showing Mathew could even loop back at Florida a second time!

 

[Speedfreak241]

It shouldn't be to bad as not a dirrect strike but all of our local buy sell pages are blowing up with generators and chillers for sale. I'm still in Orlando waiting for them to cancel school so I can drive down and take care of my fish tanks. I have frozen water bottles stored and I have a tiny generator that is going to be in charge of keeping my three saltwater tanks pumps and fans running. Only problem is the only gas station in my town has been out of gas for a couple days now.

 

[sam.basye]

Sure glad we were able to reschedule our vacation. My best wishes and good luck to everybody on the East Coast of Florida. Mathew is a wild one and even this morning they are changing the track showing Mathew could even loop back at Florida a second time!

You plan on doing some beach collecting instead after the storm passes, Ron??



My trip to SC got cancelled this week and I was thinking about how much sea life was going to wash up from the hurricane.


It's always neat finding cool stuff that washes up!

 

[ClownMan727]

I really want to go and collect some zoas. Legally of course. Ron, where should I go for my first trip down. I have lived in Florida for most of my life and have never been to the Keys. Any advise on where to stay over night on the cheap would be good to know also. I do have a kayak so I could travel out a bit from the beach. Thank you for this thread. I have been wanting to go for a while but never knew were to start. I would most likely go in December.