Everglades National Park

Everglades National Park is important not because you can go scuba diving here, but because it is an important part of the coral reef ecosystem. Everglades National Park provides protection for the nursery of the coral reefs. That is, the Everglades are where many of the fish on the main reef begin their lives. Baby fish and invertebrates thrive here because there’s a constant flow of water which is necessary to sea grass. Sea Grass in Florida Bay is where fish grow up before they head out to the Atlantic and the coral reef.

If you’re in the Upper Keys, Everglades National Park is a wonderful day trip if you take a break for a day from scuba. You can drive up to Homestead, FL and enter the Park through the entrances near Homestead. There are trails, birds everywhere especially in winter, and alligators everywhere! There are flats fishing trips out of Everglades National Park, too. Visitor Centers are throughout the park as well.

Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary

The Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary protects a lot of the areas the Pennekamp was originally meant to cover. Pennekamp State Park can only protect so much, so the Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary covers lots of the popular dive spots in the area, which were left unprotected by a Supreme Court ruling in 1974. It extends out to the 300-foot depths, providing a buffer zone for the coral reef.

Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary provides patrols, reef reports, mooring buoys, underwater photo contests, videos, research, monitoring, and educational programs.

Biscayne National Park is not really in the Florida Keys, but it is part of the same chain of coral reef that goes to through the Keys. It’s just north of Key Largo and has excellent coral. Dive boats go out of Biscayne National Park and take you to bank reefs, wrecks, and patch reefs. Card Sound is located within Biscayne National Park.

Biscayne National Park is made of 45 small islands or keys. Each is surrounded by thick walls of mangroves, which provide habitat and feeding grounds for millions of baby fish. After they are grown, these fish wind up on the main reef. There are over 200 species of fish in Biscayne National park. The park also offers Glass Bottom Boat tours for your non-diving friends and family. You can get to Biscayne National Park through the town of Homestead, last on the map before the Florida Keys. Entrance to the park is free.

Pennekamp Park

MM 102.5 Oceanside

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park was created in 1960 through efforts of its namesake during the 1950s. The park stretches from the Ocean Reef area in upper Key Largo, to Rodriquez Key, just south of Key Largo. From shore, it goes out six miles to the reef and of course includes the main reef within its boundaries.

Key Largo has an extensive network of flats areas around the island, and shallow water makes for easy underwater viewing. Key Largo is also closer to the Gulf Stream than other parts of the Florida Keys, so the water is clearer more of the time. Key Largo is also one of the larger keys in the chain of islands, and therefore provides more protection for flats, coral and marine life in general.

The Park has a dive center, but there are also private dive boats that take divers out to the coral reef in Key Largo. The marina inside John Pennekamp State Park has regular trips out to the reef, morning or afternoon to the most popular spots. These include:

• Christ of the Abyss
• French Reef
• Molasses Reef
• The Benwood

All the above dives are less than sixty feet in depth. If you haven’t gone scuba diving in the last three years, you will have to take a refresher course.

Molasses Reef

Molasses Reef is considered by some to be the most beautiful dive spot in the Florida Keys, if not the entire state of Florida. Molasses Reef isn’t just one reef, it’s an entire ecosystem of reef networks marked by hard and soft corals, dropoffs to 100 feet, hard bottom, sponges, caves, and almost every type of reef formation you can think of. The northern end of Molasses Reef is as shallow as 15 feet, and excellent for snorkelers. The other end will be where most scuba divers go, to explore formations such as caves, spur and groove formation corals, walls, ledges – so many are famous that they have names.

There’s a wreck at Molasses Reef called the Slobodna. It ran aground on Molasses on March 15, 1887 and its remnants are still visible here and there. This wreckage is mistakenly thought to be from a barge thought to be carrying barrels of molasses, hence the name of the reef system. However, it’s really the Slobodna, and Austrian ship 170 feet long and 35 feet beam. It was actually carrying cotton from New Orleans- 4500 bales of it! She ran aground and a wrecking ship City of Key West, was unable to pull her off so they salvaged the cargo instead. About half the cotton bales ended up in Key West and the rest was wet and ruined. They removed the fittings, and left the Slobodna high and dry. She eventually broke apart and sunk.

She’s now in 22 feet of water near the south side of Molasses Reef Tower. Some people call it the “Mast Wreck”, and it lies on a sandy bottom. It’s rigging and some pieces of iron and a metal mast, hence the name. There are other bits and pieces as well, scattered about. Much of the wreckage is buried in sand.