Grand Bahama
Cay Sal Bank
Dolphin Encounters
Shark Adventures
Dry Tortugas
Florida Keys
Exumas
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The Gulf Stream Eagle
will be running Florida Key trips based from
the
Atlantis Dive Center in Key Largo.
These affordable, three day, trips will
include Marathon and Islamoralda featuring
world-famous wrecks and some of the finest
reefs in U.S. We will also offer 2 to 7 day
trips to Key West and the Dry Tortugas.
No Bahamian taxes, no fuel surcharges, as
well as the convenience of accommodations,
all meals, one time gear set-up, and more
diving than using a shore-based operation,
make this the best way to dive the Florida
Keys.
Bahamas trips will resume the middle of
April, 2008 and will be based from
Riviera Beach,
FL.
 Key
Largo, Tavernier and Islamorada
Key Largo, the largest island in the chain,
claims to be the "Dive Capital of the
World," and it's home to some of the most
famous reefs in the United States—Elbow,
Molasses, Carysfort and French reefs. The
combination of proximity to the cleansing
waters of the Gulf Stream and the mass of
this island serve to obstruct the
pass-through of the turbid waters of Florida
Bay and ensure consistently stellar water
clarity.
The Coast Guard Cutters Duane and Bibb, sunk
off Key Largo in the late 1980s, also make
Key Largo and neighboring Tavernier a
premier wreck diving destination. The Upper
Keys became an even greater wreck diving
destination with the addition of the
510-foot Spiegel Grove—one of the largest
U.S. artificial reefs ever sunk solely for
divers.
Plantation, Windley and the Matecumbe Keys
are collectively called Islamorada, but are
better known as the "Sportfishing Capital of
the World." For the same reason anglers
(mostly catch-and-release these days) revere
Islamorada, sport divers do too—fish. Lots
of fish. There's plenty of great diving on
Alligator, Crocker and Davis reefs as well
as the wreck of the Eagle freighter.
Islamorada is also one of the best places to
be for lobstering during the season, which
runs from August to March.
Marathon
The reefs here are exposed to more of the
nutrient-rich water that flows from the Gulf
of Mexico, and the visibility may suffer a
little at times. But at high tide you can
count on 50 to 60 feet of visibility. You
can also explore fingers of coral on Delta
Shoals and Coffins Patch, interact with
friendly nurse sharks at Samantha's Reef,
and experience the ever-popular Thunderbolt
shipwreck. The Sanctuary Preservation Areas
throughout the Florida Keys offer some of
the best marine life in this hemisphere, and
off Marathon both Coffins Patch and Sombrero
Reef are SPAs. If you haven't dove these
reefs in a few years, you'll be amazed at
not only the sheer quantity of fish, but
also how friendly they've become now that
they are no longer in jeopardy from
spearfishing or hook-and-line angling.
Looe Key to Key
West
This protected five-square-mile reef is a
series of well-defined coral grooves stocked
with life from crabs to free-swimming morays
to nurse sharks. Shipwreck enthusiasts will
love the Adolphus Busch, Sr., a retired
freighter that rests perfectly upright in
just 100 feet of water. In the few years the
Busch has been on the bottom, she has
transformed from a derelict freighter to a
virtual fish magnet, with massive schools of
tomtate grunts, horse-eye jacks and
barracuda. But the stars of this undersea
circus are the three resident jewfish
commonly sighted.
And finally, there is legendary Key
West—where diving is almost as popular as
any and all forms of sun-drenched hedonism.
Key West has its own spur-and-groove reefs
with abundant coral and plentiful marine
life at sites like Nine-Foot Stake, Lost
Reef, Western Dry Rocks and the Sambos
(Eastern, Western and Middle). There are two
prime shipwrecks in Key West: the Cayman
Salvage Master, a 187-foot Coast Guard buoy
tender sunk in April of 1985; and the
75-foot vessel dubbed Joe's Tug. Coming soon
will be the Vandenberg, a 520-foot behemoth
of a ship that will make a stunning
artificial reef, eclipsing even Key Largo's
massive Spiegel Grove by 10 feet.
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