For Key Largo resident and boat captain Rob Mitchell, like several Florida Keys “transplants,” winters up north and winter sports didn’t hold an appeal anymore. A Canadian native, the former filmmaker and fashion photographer quite literally sailed himself into a new career as a professional dive instructor after yearning for more sunshine, sea air and saltwater.
“I had a studio in Toronto and had worked as a fashion photographer for many years,” said Rob. “I lived for the summer months where I’d spend most of my free time diving, teaching sailing and working on Toronto Harbor tour boats.”
Rob relishes the diving tourism business, making it his mission to share ways divers can help protect the oceans for generations to come.
After his parents moved to South Florida, Rob spent vacation time there. Finally he closed his Toronto business, sold nearly everything, packed his few remaining belongings into a 27-foot sailboat and sailed to Fort Lauderdale.
During a photo assignment back north in Vermont, Rob met his now-wife Lynn. Later the couple relocated further south to Miami to embark together on a 43-foot sailboat and a life of charters, yacht deliveries and sailing vacations.
“We always loved sailing to Key Largo for long weekends. We’d anchor off the Caribbean Club and spend the days exploring the waterways by dinghy,” Rob recounted. “Key Largo just seemed like the place we were happiest — island living, yet close to mainland necessities.”
The couple’s two big German Shepherds also loved the Keys, so the family moved again.
In 2008 Rob, a certified scuba diver since 1973 and a captain since 1990, paired his skills with Lynn’s accounting focus. Together they found Keys Diver (then a simple snorkel business) and discovered it was for sale.
“It offered us everything we wanted,” Rob said.
Within a year he moved Keys Diver into the dive business, bought a second boat and — after earning his instructor rating — even taught his wife, who was perfectly content as a snorkeler, how to dive.
“She’s now an avid advanced diver, diving nearly every weekend,” said Rob proudly. “Her first wreck dive was the Vandenberg in Key West shortly after it was sunk.
“The Keys are a great introduction to wreck diving,” he added.
Rob admits it’s hard to determine where his business stops and sport and recreation begin. He and Lynn bought a 27-foot World Cat intended for their own pleasure, but soon began running it for “six-pack” dive and snorkel trips for families.
Rob shot this photo of wife Lynn, now an avid wreck diver herself, at the Duane off Key Largo.
Today, the 65-year-old Rob relishes the diving tourism business and the island lifestyle. He also takes protecting the Florida Keys personally — making it his mission to share ways divers can help protect the oceans for generations to come.
Perhaps most important to him is serving on the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary’s Advisory Council and working with Key Largo’s Coral Restoration Foundation.
“Working so closely with (CRF founder) Ken Nedimyer, in both groups, has taught me so much about our reefs, restoration and protecting our ecosystem,” Rob explained.
Keys Diver was one of the first dive shops in the island chain to become a member of Blue Star, an elite group of dive and snorkel charter operators who partner with the sanctuary to help educate and reduce the impact of divers and snorkelers on the Keys’ coral reef system.
“We’re proud to teach all of our crew and staff about our fragile reefs and have them pass that on to our snorkelers and divers,” Rob said. “People that come here see how passionate we are about our reefs, and leave much more fulfilled if they can learn something.”
Rob personally drives a boat for Keys Diver, regularly taking coral restoration dive volunteers out to work in CRF’s nursery and transplant corals to the reefs.
“The adventure stays with them forever and they have a hands-on part in helping our reefs,” he advised. “It’s a great feeling to see this. They have become better informed and are proud to carry this appreciation of nature over into their own world.”
