Keylargotrip

I recently had the opportunity to join a group of divers from the Cedar Rapids ~ Iowa City area on a dive trip to Key Largo. Seatasea Watersports of Cedar Rapids http://www.seatasea.com/ was the organizing dive shop with Jim Kelsey being the lead DiveMaster on the trip. We all had a great time. We dove with Ocean Divers http://www.oceandivers.com/ in Key Largo for most of our trips and with Dual Porpoise http://www.dualporpoise.net/ for some of the more unique dives. We made multiple dives on the Spiegel Grove getting to know about one hundredth of what she has to offer. That is one huge wreck (510 feet in length)! The second dive of each trip was on French reef where we were in search of a group of Black-tip and Caribbean reef sharks. We did find them on two occasions even gathering some video tape as proof. The highlight dive, for some of us, was a night dive to the wreck of the Duane. The Duane was a Coast Guard cutter that was sunk about 20 years ago for diving. She is a good sized wreck around 200 feet in length and is sitting upright with the deck around 105 feet. An interesting fact is that the Duane would fit inside the weld deck of the Spiegel Grove. During our dive the current was giving us a little bit of a challenge but once we got to the wreck… WOW! It was covered with blaze orange cup corals. It was awesome, one of the best night dives I’ve been on over the last 20 years. As we ended the dive a friendly sea turtle came to visit just as we made our way up the mooring line. You could not ask for anything nicer than that. I would caution everyone about this dive as it is a deep night dive and is not for the untrained. But with proper training this is one heck of a dive. As you can see we had a wonderful time and I personally would go back in a heartbeat. .... Cory