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:
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.
Florida Keys Diving
Scuba diving in the Florida Keys brings all kinds of wonders and excitement, like shipwrecks, the coral reef, caves, and endless varieties of tropical fish. The Keys are one of the top diving destinations in the world, and no wonder: the year-round sunny warm weather, the 200 miles of coral reef, the clear water, especially in Key Largo, and all the dive companies ready to take you out to see the Silent World. Hundreds and hundreds of divers from all over the world visit the Florida Keys every year, just for scuba diving alone. From one-day resort courses to advanced dive trips to the deeper wrecks, the Florida Keys has it all for your diving vacation.
In the Florida Keys you’ll also find ever-present signs of conservation and preservation of the precious coral reef. There are numerous Marine Parks which seek to protect the reef and also to allow divers to enjoy it at the same time. With the increase in tourism and diving in the past fifty years, marine parks have become an essential part of life in the Keys. Long gone are the days when people used dynamite to blow up parts of the reef to gather pieces of coral to sell to tourists! Now it’s forbidden to take any coral, there are limits on fishing, and there are no-take zones called Sanctuary Preservation Areas (SPAs) up and down the Florida Keys.
John Pennekamp was a leader in the 1950 coral reef conservation movement, and it’s through his efforts that the first marine park was created. John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is one of the top visited dive centers in the Florida Keys today.
Learn about the other marine parks by clicking below. They range from Key Largo out to the Dry Tortugas, so no matter where you go in the Florida Keys, there’s one to visit.
Marquesas Keys
Marquis de Cadierata, who might be famous for having commanded a fleet of ships in the 1600s that included the Atocha, gave his name to the Marquesas Keys. Several wrecks occurred at that time, in the 1620s, under his command. Mel Fisher discovered the Atocha in 1985 with much fanfare and many many years of searching.
The Marquesas are a circle of mangrove islands set in shallow water flats that are great for fishing. They are located 25 miles west of Key West and accessible through the ocean side or through the Lakes Passage, a more protected route through shallow water in between mangrove keys. They are not on the reef line, but six miles north of the reef. Divers are mostly interested in diving the Marquesas Reef line, which has nice structure and marine life but strong currents. This is considered an intermediate dive.