USA Diving Report

Well I've been over the big pond for a while now, so I thought perhaps I should write and tell you all about the great diving over here. Mid September, my dive gear arrived, still damp from the Farne Isles trip. I hastily arranged a beach dive for the 28th to check everything was still working.

"Parking could be iffy, they don't like divers up here
- they think we steal their lobsters"

The day arrived and I drove the 35 miles or so to a beach in Gloucester, Cape Anne called Folly Cove. A local dive club were just completing their days diving as we arrived around lunch time and watched bemused as Jack and I unloaded the car. Kiting up on a beach of fist sized granite boulders is quite a balancing act and should be avoided wherever possible.

A quick buddy check and we stomp down to the waterline. A larger boulder as the water reaches knee high made a handy seat to don our fins. Whoo-Hoo, were snorkeling in the North Atlantic, towing a surface marker flag (a legal requirement in Massachusetts). The water, warmed by the late summer sun, was quite pleasant as we swam away from the granite shore and over a shoal of Striped Bass.

Folly Cove is U-shaped with cliffs along the sides and the beach at the right-hand side of the U; our plan was to investigate the left-hand wall swimming out and back along the rock-face. Lumps of granite from fist size, to that of a Mini herald the start of the cliff (I wonder how often pieces fall?). The water was clear and we easily picked our way along the rocks investigating the nooks and crannies. Starfish, Crabs and Lobsters were the main sights. Soon enough we reached the cold currents of the exposed bay opening and headed back looking for anything we missed.

"Warmer water and a car park too!"

The next Sunday we did much the same thing in the warmer waters off West Cove, Conanicut Island and saw the small coral colonies that grow along the Rhode Island coastline. Being a couple of hours away, we brought two tanks each and after an hours surface time we took a look at the adjacent cove. This was shallower and had a more silty bottom, but there were lots of rays between the sparse patches of eel grass.

Comfortable as dive buddies now, and both having vacation time to burn before the end of the year, we hung up our fins and plan a week-long trip to Florida; New England was starting to be a bit cold for diving.

"Whither Florida?"

Now, the last time Jack and I attempted to get to Florida we had a few problems. Firstly, we tried to drive from Boston (not a short distance) and seized the engine of the car; and secondly, a tropical storm hit Florida preventing any diving during our allotted time, and silting up the whole of the Atlantic Coast and Gulf of Mexico. Well this time we were going to fly, and would go at the end of the hurricane season. What would go wrong this time? - We spent an anxious month watching weather reports for the Florida area.

The weather in New England deteriorated over October, becoming cold and rainy (just like staying at home). But soon the designated Saturday in November arrived. and I managed join a rather worried Jack in the departure lounge 20 minutes before takeoff (a major crash had brought Boston to a standstill). Three hours later, arriving at Miami we collected our hire car and headed for Key Largo. After a slight detour (oh all right, we got a bit lost while looking for a place to eat), we arrived to find that despite being off-season, all the major motels were full or rates were doubled (a powerboat race in the Keys that weekend), so we spent the night driving from seedy motel to seedier motel looking for a room we could afford. Eventually we located one which despite looking awful and having sticky window blinds, did have clean sheets and a vacancy.

"Well it's nothing like the film."

Sunday dawned and we were off to "Diver's Outlet" - one of the cheapest dive shops I've ever seen. We picked up the 3mm suits we would need for the week (plus rather a lot of other bits and pieces) and headed to the John Penencamp National Park to find out about dive charters for the next day, planning to find a better motel in the afternoon. The gods smiled upon us though and we were talked into doing a dive that afternoon and met up with one of the Park's Dive Masters who had a guest apartment tacked onto the back of his house he could let us have cheap for a couple of nights. Relieved the accommodation problem was resolved we had a couple of great dives that afternoon.

The Benwood is fantastic wreck teeming with thousands of tropical reef and other fish (watch out for the Barracuda), . The 340' long, English built, metal-hulled freighter was built in 1910 and sunk in 1942. It's quite shallow (about 14m), partially salvaged and quite broken up, but still recognizably man made. Viz. 20m, Water Temperature 24 centigrade. (Our favorite dive of the trip!)

French Reef is a very nice reef located in the Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary. It features undercut ledges and swim-throughs. There is an undercut ledge called "Hourglass Cave" that you should check out. Here, you can meet "Frenchy" a very tame green moray who will come to visit. If caves are a little scary for you, French Reef also offers some long, coral ridges with swim-through tunnels. Max. Depth is again about 14m with viz. and temperature as the earlier dive.

So impressed were we with the days diving, we rushed out to "Diver's City USA" (another low-cost dive shop) to buy underwater cameras and to book dives for the next day. A morning dive on the "Duane" followed by another visit to French Reef.

The Duane is the shallower of two 327' Coast guard Cutters sunk as artificial reefs in 1987 (the other being the Bibb). Where they rest, the bottom is over 30m, but the ships have been prepared for divers, and represent a relatively safe entry into wreck diving for those willing to deal with the depth. There are some great swim-throughs and overheads, but diving PADI tables, we didn't get much time to investigate. Viz. and temperature remained as the previous day, even at 30m.

A second dive at a French Reef and time to play with our cameras. A great surprise as we scooted around, a 1.5m Nurse Shark swam into view, but disappeared before we could take more than a couple of frames apiece. It wasn't hard to use 36 shots though!

Day 3, and we're up early to head down to Key West. We stop at Marathon Key to try to book a Shark Dive for later in the week (Skin Diver having just done an article on a Nurse Shark nursery at Samantha's Reef) but only manage to get the number of a Captain who might take us out later in the week if we ring him. Our encounter the previous day leaves us keen to get closer to these Muppet faced beasts. Slightly down-hearted, but hopeful, we set off again and arrive in Key West just in time to book an afternoons dives and find a motel before we have to be at the marina.

"You can see why Hemmingway drank"

The Cayman Salvage-Master was a 180' steel hulled buoy tender sunk in 1985 as an artificial reef. Surface structures have been cleared, leaving a flat deck. Openings allowed us to peer inside to see the engines and interior, but our DM banned penetration, so we had to stick to photographing the relatively few fish we encountered.

"9 Foot Stake" is an area of shallow reef near to the Salvager, named after a wooden stake that marks it (although it is only about 3 foot long these days). At 9m, we got lots of bottom time, but viz. was down to 10m and there was less fish, and less variety of fish than in Key Largo.

Climbing the ladder the swell was about a metre, so hearing it was expected to double overnight on the more exposed (i.e. not shallow reef) sites we decided to take a day off and explore Key West. What we found was that there are a lot of places to drink, and that unlike Massachusetts, Florida state law permits drinking of alcohol in public places (at least from plastic containers).

In between drinking and buying tee-shirts, we had booked onto a "wreck & reef" charter heading to "Joe's Tug" for the Thursday, but on meeting the boat at the marina, we learn the swell is too great and that the trip is a "wreck & wreck" to the infrequently visited "Alexander's Wreck" which is, unusually, on the calmer Gulf side.

Alexander's Wreck is an old 200' destroyer escort, purchased from the US Navy, after having been used for target practice, and sunk by commercial salvor Chet Alexander. It lies in two sections and was cable dragged, spreading debris of the upper structures around the main wreck parts.

• The aft half lies in 10m of water. When we dived, viz. was 5-8m, but we were told it is normally much better. Plenty of fish and nooks and crannies to check out. A large Southern Stingray was quite a shock to bumble into.

• The fore section lies at 8m and is only about ½m below the surface. Viz. was slightly less than the aft section, but this was more than made up for by the number and variety of swim-throughs and simple penetrations.

"Back to reality"

After rinsing off our gear we loaded up the car and headed back to Miami, a few phone calls and dive shop visits along the way made it clear there was no diving to be done in the Keys on Friday because of the increasing winds. Our shark dive was a no-no, but hey, at least we'd seen a couple. We arrived late in Miami found a motel and drew up a list of dive shops from the yellow pages. The next morning, it's raining and the story is the same "too choppy/too windy"; we resign ourselves to the fact our diving is over. We find a nicer motel by the beach and check in. A quick trip to the cinema (there is nothing to do in Miami in the rain) and it's time to eat then hit the bars. Saturday we lay in the 80 degree sun on the beach, work on our tans and have an early night. A 5am wake-up call and we're off to the airport for our flight back - mid-morning our feet are in Boston, our heads still in Florida, and there's snow on the ground.

In the course of a week we had seen several species of Angelfish, Blue Tangs, Great Barracuda, too many types of Grunt, Snapper and Wrasse to tell apart, numerous Parrotfish (including the beautiful Stoplight Parrotfish), Squirrelfish by the dozen, hundreds of Goby and Blenny, Trumpetfish, Glassy Sweeper, Yellow Goatfish, Porcupinefish, Green Moray, Southern Stingray and Nurse Shark. Then there were the 16 types of hard coral and then the soft corals, sponges, worms and lobster. And that's just what I remember seeing!

I would advise anyone who likes warm water diving to give the Keys a try. The boats are well equipped, the dive masters will do everything but do the dive for you (remember they need the tips) and the marine life is rich and varied. If diving is your main pleasure, Key Largo boasts much better sites, viz. and denser fish populations, but little other than dive resorts, dive shops, and motels. Key West offers slightly less in quality of dive sites, but has endless bars, night-life, and there are things to do other than dive (you know, museums, shops and stuff).