In February 2003 we spent a week in Key Largo and Islamorada, FL where we dove three different wrecks, numerous reefs and even saw an underwater wedding!  We dove most of our dives with Ocean Divers in Key Largo -- our favorite Florida dive outfit!  The water was consistently in the low 70s and the air temp ranged from low 70s to high 80s -- not bad for February!

The wreck diving was truly amazing.  We had been on the USS Spiegel Grove this past summer (July 2002) a month and a half after they sunk it, a few weeks after they opened it to recreational divers. She rests on her side and is some 510 feet long -- she was sunk by several different agencies in an effort to create an artificial reef.  There is far more growth and transient sea life this time (amazing what a difference 6 months can make).  We dove the Spiegs (our name for it) 5 times during the week and saw the whole thing end to end.  We even dropped to the ocean floor (135 ft) to get a view of her from the bottom.  Click on the Spiegel Grove link below to see a few pictures.

We also dove the United States Coast Guard Cutter Duane for the first time on this trip and fell in love with it.  We were on her 3 times during the week and have seen most of it.  A smaller vessel, the Duane is some 327 ft long and sits upright.  This particular dive is a little deeper than the Spiegs.  You hit the deck at about 108 ft (the Spiegs, because she's on her side, is as shallow as 60 ft.)  But, because she was sunk more than 15 years ago, she has far more coral and resident animals.  Rumor has it there are two bull sharks living there but unfortunately we didn't see any (we did see the local turtle). 

And, we dove the Eagle, originally the conventional-hull freighter Raila Dan, which was built in in Werf-Gorinchem, Holland in 1962. She is 269 feet long, with a 40-foot beam. Sunk in the late 80s, the ship was split in two by Hurricane Georges in 1998 making her a unique wreck dive. 

On Valentine's Day we went on a shark feed dive at the City of Washington and witnessed a wedding at the Christ of the Abyss statue.  We had done the shark dive in the summer along with about 80 other people. As February is the off season, there were only 20 people there to witness Captain Slate feed the sharks, morays and barracuda.  Sara got a lot of quality time with the sharks -- holding them and rubbing their bellies.  Scott spent most of his time capturing it all on film and flirting with the moray and barracudas.  After the shark dive, we went over to the Christ statue where two of the people on our boat (Lory and Alex) were getting married.  The dive site itself is shallow (8-20 ft) and it happened to be pretty rough that day, so the visibility was low (not Chesapeake Bay low, but low nonetheless).  It was still neat to witness an underwater wedding.  Plus, just before the wedding, we were swimming around waiting for the festivities to begin and found our first artifact!!!  It was a beautiful 1988 U.S. Quarter!  All-in-all, it was a very, very exciting day:)!

The rest of the dives that week were on area reefs -- Molasses, Pickles, French, the Garden, Hens & Chickens, the Benwood Wreck and the Elbow.  Each reef was unique and exciting -- at Molasses  we saw an eagle ray; the garden was full of fish and brightly colored coral; and at the Benwood Wreck, Scott had his fingers nibbled on by guppy yellow fish (you may see it on the next episode of "fish gone bad").  Pictures of all of the dives can be seen by clicking the links below.  Enjoy!