Florida Keys snorkeling locations

[Ron Reefman]

It shouldn't be to bad as not a direct 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.

Just the gas situation makes me glad I'm not over there right now. We'll go in November instead.

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!

Yes! Algiers Beach on Sanibel Island or Venice Beach are both good. My problem is I think Saturday morning will be the best time, but our local aquarium club is holding our annual Reef Conference on Saturday. I buy $100 worth on raffle tickets and every year for the past 3 years I've come home with more than $300 worth of stuff. And it's all stuff I wanted. I just can't pass that up!

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 overnight 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 where to start. I would most likely go in December.

Let me start with the fact that December is not the best time to go. If you are lucky the water is just very cool. We did December a few years ago and it was cold! Heavy wetsuits and cold after an hour. Also, it's not a good time to find wildlife. They don't like the cold water or the short days so critters hide and zoas don't open as much.

For fun and great underwater sightseeing, go to Bahia Honda State park... but you can't collect there. For collecting, go 1 island further south, Spanish Harbor Key. At the very NE end of the island, as soon as you get off the bridge there is a turnoff to the north and a small parking lot. That side of the island has the Horseshoe (an old quarry in the water that is easy to spot on Google Earth). Just over the road on the other side of the island there is a lot of the same kind of environment as there is at Bahia Honda.

With the kayak you can get out to Little Money Key or Money Key (both near the SW end of the Seven Mile Bridge) There is a boat ramp right at the end of the Bridge. You may have to look around some for zoas, but we find them in the extreme shallows near the dock on the side away from the bridge. They seem to like growing in sponges there and that makes them easy to collect.
And be very aware of the collecting limits as we have been checked several times by FWC officers (both while in the water and at the boat ramp). Fines for illegal collection are crazy high!

We stay in Marathon at a mom & pop motel called Blackfin (they have a website). It's not CHEAP but it's pretty reasonable for the Keys (cheaper than the Holiday Inn Express). Two others that are very similar are Kingsail and Sea Dell. They are all within about 2 miles of each other. There are a few other motels that may be a bit cheaper, but we like Blackfin so we've never tried them. BTW, Blackfin has a small coral head island about 100 yards off shore just out from their little marina. It's not much, but we see lobsters, juvenile tropical fish, feather dusters and other stuff. We swim/snorkel out there just to get in the water the day we arrive and figure out which wetsuit or dive skin we want to use the next day.

Now the deal is, after my sharing all this with you, when you get back you have to post about how things went, good or bad.:beer:

 

[ClownMan727]

Thanks a lot Ron. I get a 3 week vacation in December so that's the best time for me to go. I'll take some pictures and post here when I come back.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Well, at least the weather is almost always sunny and no afternoon thunder storms or hurricanes in December. If you have any specific questions, ask here or PM me. Especially if you plan to collect. You'll want some specific equipment to keep stuff alive when collected and for the trip home.

 

[matt888]

We left Miami Wed around 3pm and drove straight for our place on Big Pine Key. There was no gas available anywhere and we couldn't even take our truck (it was on empty). We loaded up our Landcruiser, which just happened to have a full tank and just got the hell out of town. It was chaos there... emergency supplies were essentially non-existent and I made the decision to take my family to the lower Keys where the house is 12' above ground and the forecast stated minimal impact to the lower keys. It was the right call. We ran into gas availability from Key Largo west and supplies were plentiful. The weather has been actually quite nice (20mph winds) and we're even planning on doing some snorkeling tomorrow in Big Pine Channel. The visibility looks fairly decent!

On a side note, I saw some awesome purple zoas at Harry Harrison's park in Tavernier last weekend right next to shore, but forgot to take pictures.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Matt, thanks for the update and happy to read that everything went well for you guys.

Here on the southwest coast all we've has is a consistent 20ish mph wind that has shifted from the north to the west. Almost no rain at all. I hope to get out to Sanibel Island today and do a beach walk and some collecting of stuff washed up on the beach.

I think the northeast coast of Florida is getting hammered.

 

[sam.basye]

I hope to get out to Sanibel Island today and do a beach walk and some collecting of stuff washed up on the beach.

I hope you made it out there today. I'm looking forward to seeing what washed up! I live vicariously through your collecting. Lol

 

[Ron Reefman]

Sam, it was a seriously disappointing day! There was very little washed up on the beach... except for lots and lots of dead fish due to a recent red tide. It was further north, but I think the north wind and gulf stream current moved it down here as well. I saw on the news that Naples had the same issue.

Now we are looking forward to the 2nd week in November and a few days in the Keys!

BTW, we did a beach walk at Lovers Key State Park (just south of Ft Myers Beach) earlier in the week. It was mostly just a beach walk and picture taking trip. But I did manage a nice red macro algae for my new display refugium. It's the one second from the back on the right side.



The two algae at the back left and right and the gorgonian at the front I just bought at our Reef Conference from Gulf Coast Ecosystems. Russ specializes in algae and gorgonians. The two deep red ones more in the middle I've had for a long time in my old tank.

 

[sam.basye]

Sam, it was a seriously disappointing day! There was very little washed up on the beach... except for lots and lots of dead fish due to a recent red tide. It was further north, but I think the north wind and gulf stream current moved it down here as well. I saw on the news that Naples had the same issue.

Now we are looking forward to the 2nd week in November and a few days in the Keys!

BTW, we did a beach walk at Lovers Key State Park (just south of Ft Myers Beach) earlier in the week. It was mostly just a beach walk and picture taking trip. But I did manage a nice red macro algae for my new display refugium. It's the one second from the back on the right side.



The two algae at the back left and right and the gorgonian at the front I just bought at our Reef Conference from Gulf Coast Ecosystems. Russ specializes in algae and gorgonians. The two deep red ones more in the middle I've had for a long time in my old tank.

That's too bad.. I guess the hurricane stayed off the other coast and didn't really affect the gulf to much with washed up things.

Now I have to wait till November...
Hope you have some nice weather!
Is the water still pretty warm then or is it getting on the slightly cooler side?

Nice looking macros!

 

[Ron Reefman]

That's too bad.. I guess the hurricane stayed off the other coast and didn't really affect the gulf to much with washed up things.

Now I have to wait till November...
Hope you have some nice weather!
Is the water still pretty warm then or is it getting on the slightly cooler side?

Nice looking macros!

Matthew wasn't much of an event here, but I thought the 20-25mph north and west winds would be enough... I guess I was wrong.

Right now the water is still pretty warm. Daytime highs have been in the upper 80's almost every day. But this is when things start cooling off quickly. Our daily highs are starting to drop with some still in the upper 80's, but every week there are more and more in the low 80's and upper 70's will start pretty soon. Early November will have us wearing light weight wet suits rather than a simple dive skin. We did December one year and we ended up wearing heavy wet suits, so it changes pretty quickly with the drop in air temps and shorter days of sun shine trying to warm the water.

I like the macros as well. For now they are just in the tank so everybody has room to grow. I have some more stuff I want to get for the refugium and then I do a real layout.

 

[Speedfreak241]

Quick question I went to the beach last Saturday after the storm and found a small angler in the sargasm patches that washed in. Well I also got about 10 pink nerite snails(5 for me and 5 for my gf). Well when I acclimated the angler to my quarentine all was fine I then dropped the snails in and went to sleep. The next morning I wake up to find the water extremely cloudy white and the angler is dead.
What would cause this? Could the snails have released something to do this?

 

[sam.basye]

Quick question I went to the beach last Saturday after the storm and found a small angler in the sargasm patches that washed in. Well I also got about 10 pink nerite snails(5 for me and 5 for my gf). Well when I acclimated the angler to my quarentine all was fine I then dropped the snails in and went to sleep. The next morning I wake up to find the water extremely cloudy white and the angler is dead.
What would cause this? Could the snails have released something to do this?

My guess would be the angler died and the water clouded as a result. Most likely stress related. I don't think the snails had anything to do with it.

Have any pictures of it when you found it?? Curious to see what it looked like.

 

[Ron Reefman]

It's hard to say with any certainty. Was the fish caught in the sargassum, as in, tangled up in it? How did you catch it (hook, net, or simply picked it up by hand)? If it was, that could have induced stress or even caused the fish physical issues like inability to flow water through the gills properly and done longer term damage than you realized.

Do you guys have any red tide going on? The entire west coast from north of Tampa to Naples is having serious fish die off due to red tide, both before and after Matthew.

Beyond that, I have no other suggestions.

 

[Speedfreak241]

When we were looking through it we saw him floating underneath and I put a bottle under him and scooped him up that way. I know that anglers are never supposed to be exposed to air and he was small only about the size of a dime or penny. As far as red tide no we don't.

 

[sam.basye]

When we were looking through it we saw him floating underneath and I put a bottle under him and scooped him up that way. I know that anglers are never supposed to be exposed to air and he was small only about the size of a dime or penny. As far as red tide no we don't.

That's pretty neat. To bad you lost it.

I'm going to retract my previous theory on the water clouding after it died. Just too small to cloud the water like you described.

It was probably half dead when you found it and then the stress must've gotten to it.

 

[Ron Reefman]

We are looking to do a few days of snorkeling in the Keys, but the wind just doesn't seem to want to let up at all! Very frustrating.

And I have the same issue with TBS, due to small craft warning on the west coast of Florida they can't get out to harvest any live rock.

The summer thunderstorms have gone away, but 15+mph winds have been blowing for a few weeks now!!!

 

[Ron Reefman]

Arrived in the Keys today. It's very windy (20-25 knots) with some misty showers and a lot of overcast. This may be our first visit to the Keys where we turned off the A/C in our motel room!

Tuesday weather looks pretty bleak as well, but I am surprised that when we went out to look at the water conditions more closely, visibility looks pretty good! I suspect Tuesday will be a bust and we'll go to the Aquarium Encounter in Marathon for something to do. Wednesday looks considerably better, but then we all know how well weather forecasts work if they are more than 24 hour into the future.

More to follow.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Well, it's Wednesday and we tried snorkeling this morning. The water was cold, 77F, and visibility was all of 12 to 18 inches. We called it quits pretty quickly. No need to snorkel when you can see where you are going! Oh well, we'll try again in the spring!

So Tuesday we went to the Aquarium Encounter in Marathon and today we are going to check out the Turtle Hospital. I'll review both and post some pics on Friday when we get home.

 

[thoms_here]

Thank so much for posting this thread!

I used to snorkel off Marathon when my sister lived on the water there in the early to mid seventies. I always wanted to move down there but life took over and never had the opportunity. I still would love to some day though.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Thank so much for posting this thread!

I used to snorkel off Marathon when my sister lived on the water there in the early to mid seventies. I always wanted to move down there but life took over and never had the opportunity. I still would love to some day though.

Tom, happy to do it.

I just want people to know they can get to see very cool stuff right off the beach in the Keys. It isn't the big stony coral heads like 5 miles offshore. But I honestly have much more fun playing in shallow water right off the beach where I can handle the corals, sponges, and all the other critters. Out on the big reef you can't touch anything and most of it is 10 to 20 feet down. Off the beach we are in water that is mostly 2 feet to 6 feet deep. Heck, at Little Money Key there are a couple of acres of water that is less than 2 feet deep and absolutely covered in small stony coral and all kinds of sponges. My wife and I played with a good size octopus for about 5 or 10 minutes one day.

If anybody has any questions about the Keys, snorkeling, snorkeling locations right off the beach or collecting rules, feel free to ask. I just want to share the fun we have with everybody and to help those who get to the Keys to have a good experience.

 

[Mr06evo]

We left Miami Wed around 3pm and drove straight for our place on Big Pine Key. There was no gas available anywhere and we couldn't even take our truck (it was on empty). We loaded up our Landcruiser, which just happened to have a full tank and just got the hell out of town. It was chaos there... emergency supplies were essentially non-existent and I made the decision to take my family to the lower Keys where the house is 12' above ground and the forecast stated minimal impact to the lower keys. It was the right call. We ran into gas availability from Key Largo west and supplies were plentiful. The weather has been actually quite nice (20mph winds) and we're even planning on doing some snorkeling tomorrow in Big Pine Channel. The visibility looks fairly decent!

On a side note, I saw some awesome purple zoas at Harry Harrison's park in Tavernier last weekend right next to shore, but forgot to take pictures.

Hi Matt, just wanted to ask you about the zoas you saw at harrry Harris. I go fishing out of there often and didn't know there were corals right there. Is it legal to harvest there? Did you see the zoas on the beach area or on the other side of the boat ramp? Thank you!