Underwater Photo Location: Wrecks, Key Largo

Pickles: The wreck was carrying pickle barrels
full of cement when she went down. The barrels have all rotted away, but the
concrete "barrels" are still there. This place is "sea fan
city;" they're everywhere. I spotted a school of eight Midnight
Parrotfish, but couldn't get close enough for a picture. Lots of juvenile
barracuda hovered over the reef watching for some fish to limp. If you wave
your hand in the water, the Barries are curious enough to swim over to you for
a closer look. Other divers reported finding a couple of nurse sharks under
the ledges near the wreck and one big green moray.

Duane: a Coast Guard cutter that was put down as an artificial reef in
the 80's. She's upright on the sand at 125 feet with the main deck at 100
feet. We had great conditions, no current and good visibility. I was the first
diver in the water, as I wanted to be first on the wreck with my camera. One
of the dive masters went in with his, gasp, film camera! There were many, many
big barracuda stationed above the wreck; a school of jacks breezed through,
scattering the smaller fish. I looked down on the sand off the port side of
the wreck and spied a six-foot bull shark cruising towards the stern. It was
too far away for me to get close, but I could see the dive master had gone
down to try and get a picture, but the shark wasn't having anything to do with
him. I took some wide-angle shots of the wreck itself and some of the other
divers in our group. With no current, I was able to do a blue water safety
stop just below the boat. I thoroughly enjoyed this most excellent wreck dive.

Wreck of the Benwood: a WWII British freighter that collided with
another boat running without lights and was run aground in shallow water where
she sank. She was used as target practice by the Navy and is pretty busted up,
but is still a very nice wreck with lots of fish, Nassau groupers, black
groupers, schools of grunts, schools of Goatfish, a few angels, Parrotfish,
juvenile fish of all kinds, et al. This must be a really nice dive in good
visibility.

Spiegel Grove: The Spiegel Grove was sunk as a huge artificial reef
and is very popular dive spot. The wreck is over 500 feet long and lies on its
port side in one hundred thirty five feet of water to the sand. To complicate
what is a deep dive, the current is usually strong here. The tanks supplied
for this dive were overfilled to 3500 PSI. The dive boat used a "granny
line" to the mooring line on the wreck and asked divers to go no deeper
than 100 feet and to return to the mooring line after no more than twenty
minutes on the wreck. We were moored amid ships and were able to see the
anti-aircraft guns and look into the open hatches on the deck. A few large
Jacks cruised the wreck and a school of Baitfish exploded past us, getting out
of the way of some unseen predator.

Facts about Wrecks, Key Largo