Overview

For Becca’s birthday, we headed south from our home in Atlanta, to the Florida Keys for a few days of diving with Amoray Dive Resort, on Key Largo. We started our trip with a stay in Rivera Beach, Florida to check out Phil Foster Park and the Blue Heron Bridge. This is a world-famous muck-diving site with tons of unique critters to see. We got dinner for Becca’s birthday at Planta in West Palm Beach. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out and we missed our chance to dive at the bridge. You can only dive at high-slack tide

Dive Sites & Conditions

  1. Monday:
    • Winch Hole, Molasses Reef
    • Aquarium, Molasses Reef
  2. Tuesday:
    • SS Benwood wreck, French Reef
    • Turtle Ledge, French Reef
  3. Wednesday:
    • Christ of the Abyss, Dry Rocks
    • Horseshoe Reef
  4. Thursday:
    • Banana Patch, Grecian Rocks
    • Grecian Rocks Reef

Dive Operator

Amoray Dive Resort is the only true dive resort in the United States. I know it seems crazy to read that, but it’s true! There are resorts, and there are dive centers/shops, but Amoray is the only dedicated dive resort. Considering how successful dive resorts are in the rest of the world, I really don’t understand why there aren’t more. Amoray has a very nice catamaran boat that they use to take divers out to the various reefs around Key Largo in the Florida Keys. We booked their “Dive and Stay” package which only includes a single morning two-tank trip which is two dives. This is probably the only thing I found to be lacking at Amoray. It would be much better if they could manage to include two trips like other resorts do. If we wanted to do the afternoon trip too, it would have been an extra $100/trip per person. The accommodations at Amoray are awesome! We stayed in what I would describe as a condo, it had a living room and kitchen, downstairs bedroom and bathroom, and an upstairs loft that had a bed and separate bathroom. The unit was recently renovated and everything was new. It was great being able to have a place like home where we could make our own meals (Key Largo isn’t the most vegan-friendly place to eat out) and have space to spread out.

Diving with Amoray is very self-serve. Unless you pay for one, you don’t get a guide, though there was one in the water on each of our dives (leading other divers). For this trip Becca and I could dive our own profiles, and go where we wanted. The only limit was that the bottom time was set for 60 minutes. This was a great experience for me, for two reasons: one: it let Becca and I explore on our own and take the time we wanted to look at what we wanted, two: it gave me some great practice with my underwater navigation skills. By the end of the trip I felt very comfortable navigating us around the reefs and getting us back to the boat. It was a great confidence booster for me and made me a better diver.

Dive Log

Monday — Day 1

We started our diving at a site called winch hole. When done, we motored a short distance to Aquarium. These sites were both located on the patch of reef called Molasses Reef. The diving itself was uneventful, but the trip out on the boat sure was.
This was my first dive without a guide. Being a bit nervous and distracted thinking through my navigation training, I didn’t bungee my tank well and it fell over with the rocking of the boat in the waves. It effectively flipped over, and landed on my regulator, dislodging it and fully breaking the seal. The valve got all frosty the air was coming out so fast. Another diver helped me and we closed off the air and got the tank back up. Amazingly, the regulator wasn’t damaged and I moved my gear to a new tank and the regulator had a good seal, so I kept using it. I did lose my Tusa Freedom HD mask when the tank and BCD fell, though, so I had to use a loaner snorkel mask they had on the boat. I brought a spare mask, but left it at the resort. Lessons were learned for sure.

Tuesday — Day 2

We had a really nice dive swimming the entire way around the SS Benwood. This is a fairly destroyed wreck that has been flattened by storms over the years. There were a lot of fish, and we say a beautiful green turtle towards the end of the dive. On the second dive we went to Turtle Ledge. Despite its name, we didn’t see any turtles on this dive. We did see a large group of midnight parrot fish though, and that was really special.

Wednesday — Day 3

On our third day we went out to a famous site called Christ of the Abyss. On this site there is a large statue of Christ set in a bowl of the reef. Honestly I found the statue unremarkable, but the reef around it was really nice. On our second dive at Horseshoe reef, Becca spotted a really cool nudibranch and a hairy frog fish. It was the first time I’d ever seen either of these critters in the wild. There was also a cluster of healthy elk-horn corals at this site.

Thursday — Day 4

Our final two dives were nice, if not remarkable for any particular encounters. There was a current at the second site, Grecian Rocks that started out mild but got pretty strong by the end of our dive. It was strong enough that we cut the dive a little short since we were getting tired and burning through air fairly quickly.

Photos and videos

Here is a collection of photos from our trip. A video will be coming soon.