Dive Pros Offer Tips for Memorable Dive Experiences

The Florida Keys island chain welcomes as many as 800,000 divers each year to discover the wonder and beauty to be found in the surrounding waters of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. 

Here, some of the area’s top dive pros offer tips for safe, successful and memorable dive experiences and suggestions on giving back to the Keys’ marine environment. 

According to dive pros throughout the Keys, the best tip to ensure having a successful and enjoyable dive experience is to make sure you’re physically fit and in good health. Any health issues could be amplified underwater. Regular exercise and health checkups are important for divers to avoid experiencing a health emergency underwater. 

Safety and Awareness are Key to Successful Dives

Dan Dawson, co-owner of Horizon Divers in Key Largo, advised that regardless of the temptation to indulge in tasty tropical drinks upon arrival in the Keys, “All divers should limit consumption of alcoholic drinks the day and night before their dive day. 

“Alcohol is dehydrating, and divers need to stay hydrated during travels to the Keys and during their stay until after the dive,” Dawson said.   

From a safety standpoint, Dawson stressed, “Make sure your dive gear is serviced before your travel to ensure you can enjoy every dive on your vacation.” 

He added that for beginners who have never been diving in the Keys — even those who have previously earned the open-water certification — it’s a good idea to hire a local guide. 

“An experienced Keys dive guide will help familiarize you with the area and the style of diving required here,” he said. 

For example, a guide can offer tips that include never standing on or touching fragile coral, or accidentally bumping into coral with your fins. 

Be an Ocean Conservation Warrior

Eric Billips, owner and master instructor at Islamorada Dive Center, part of the Scuba Town USA partnership at Three Waters Resort and Marina in Islamorada, encouraged visiting divers to get involved in conservation dive opportunities to benefit the marine environment. 

Coral reefs are made up of colonies of living creatures and the iconic reefs in the Keys, and coral reefs worldwide, have suffered degradation due to disease and the effects of rising ocean temperatures. 

“On your next Florida Keys dive vacation, take part in one of the many rewarding Keys conservation dive opportunities,” Billips said. 

“You can plant corals raised in land-based and ocean coral nurseries to help repopulate reefs, do a marine debris cleanup dive, experience a shark awareness dive, or partake in a derelict lobster trap cleanup dive — taking your dive vacation to another level to become an ocean conservation warrior,” said Billips. 

Familiarity Breeds Appreciation

Longtime Florida Keys resident Stephen Frink, publisher of Alert Diver magazine and accomplished underwater photographer, advised visitors not to worry about diving on reef tracts that they have explored before.

“The thing about underwater is that it is fluid — the topography of the reef changes from year to year, even month to month for those observant enough to discern the small changes in encrustation or coral recruitment.  

“But the big changes are in the marine life, and that changes moment by moment,” he said. 

“Despite the fact that I’ve already photographed a queen angelfish on Molasses Reef, for example,” Frink explained, “the next time it may not be the same fish, same background, same posture or the same tolerance of approach — which makes each marine encounter different.

“It’s what keeps even a familiar dive location perpetually fresh and exciting,” he added. 

For more information about diving the Florida Keys, visit fla-keys.com/diving/.