Florida Keys‘ clear, warm waters attract almost 800,000 scuba and snorkel aficionados annually, and there is no better destination to learn how to get “up close and personal” with the undersea environment.

The Keys’ combination of vivid coral reefs teeming with exotic sea creatures and a wealth of professional snorkel/dive operators offers a ready-made vacation paradise for those who can’t wait to get into the water and start exploring, even as first-timers.

Dive the Best Sites

The waters off Marathon are home to the wreck of the Thunderbolt, a 188-foot cable layer that later served as a research vessel to explore the electrical energy in lightning strikes. The local dive community purchased the Thunderbolt, originally named Randolph, and sunk it intentionally as a dive attraction on March 3, 1986, in approximately 120 feet of water, 6.5 miles south of Duck Key Channel in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

She is referred to as the queen of the Marathon wreck fleet.

An easily navigable wreck, the Thunderbolt is accessed by following the lines of two submerged mooring balls that are positioned at the bow and stern. The top of the observation deck is at 75 feet. What is unique about this wreck is the opportunity for divers to see it in its entirety during one dive, and reportedly great visibility on any given day.

She sits perfectly upright with large angelfish patrolling its decks and notable giant cable spool at the bow; barracuda stand watch in the wheelhouse, an easy and intriguing swim-through. The aft end of the wreck has been cut away to expose the engine room and the interior of the hull.

Thunderbolt’s superstructure is coated with colorful sponges, corals, and hydroids, providing refuge and sustenance to large angelfish, jacks, cobia, tarpon and a variety of deep-water pelagic creatures.

Perhaps the most popular residents are the three Goliath grouper that hang around the engine room, one nearly 800 pounds.  Schools of amberjack, plentiful hogfish, black grouper and the occasional reef shark reside near the rudder and propellers, left on the ship to complement the stern section of the hull to appeal to divers.

Other undersea favorites include the wreck of the Ivory Coast, the obscure remains of a sunken slave ship run aground in 1853,  and Sombrero Reef, marked by a large, lighted tower. A notable historic dive site is an artificial reef created from the center span of the old Seven Mile Bridge, built by Florida pioneer Henry Flagler for his Overseas Railroad.

Dive With the Pros

You’ll want to dive with the best of the best, and Hall’s Diving Center & International Career Institute is just the ticket, for any kind of diving -  beginner, advanced or technical. You can learn every skill there is underwater, become a better diver and even learn underwater videography and photography. A wealth of specialty classes are available too, from advanced to wreck and night diving. You may even get some personal tips on spearfishing from the staff.

Photos courtesy of Hall's Dive Center & International Career Institute, Marathon

Settled into their new location at 5050 Overseas Highway, Hall’s is not only a dive shop but a vocational school – the only one of its kind in the state of Florida – that teaches and trains students to become dive instructors, enabling them find careers in scuba diving and work in the field.

Hall’s graduates can be found at resorts in the Caribbean, onboard cruise ships, dive liveaboards, the islands of Hawaii as well as among staff in many dive shops in the Florida Keys.

Why leave paradise to find work, right?

The Morada Bay Arts & Cultural District features regularly scheduled casual gatherings for residents and visitors to discover, enjoy and accrue stimulating, one-of-a-kind fine art. A monthly Art Walk held the third Thursday of each month is from 5-9 p.m., featuring receptions with national and Keys-based artists showcased in galleries at Morada Way between mile marker 81 and 82, formerly named Industrial Drive.

An Artsy Place You Don’t Want to Miss

Creating its own cultural buzz nearby is the newly opened Gallery 84, an energetic art establishment at mile marker 84.7 oceanside, on Windley Key. Open daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., the bustling gallery specializes in affordable fine artwork, photography and other original creations by emerging and veteran artists.

Collectors can find the electrifying tropical representations of gallery owner Liz Queeny’s colored pencil artwork, with lively sunflowers, reef fish and island suns that set the gallery’s mood, creating a feel-good, fun art buying experience.

Jerry Bachman adds a unique depth to his marine life scenes, primarily using airbrush techniques; sea turtles are the most popular.

Queeny said she is very enthusiastic about the collection of artists in the gallery now, finding self-taught individuals such as Jerry Bachman, a breakout artist whose flora, fauna and marine life scenes exude a uniquely dimensional depth.

Gallery 84 offers ongoing art classes and workshops for kids and adults, and starting in May, each weekend the gallery is to feature the artists’ originals, prints and giclées during an outdoor art fête champêtre. Contact the gallery for details at 305-735-4596.

June 1 is the start of the 2011 hurricane season. What does that mean if you are traveling to the Florida Keys?  Here are some helpful, frequently asked questions to offset any worries as you plan for travel to the Keys between June 1 and Nov. 30, the end of the season.

Example of a hurricane graphic from 2004.

What is a Hurricane?

The terms “hurricane” and “typhoon” are region-specific names for a strong tropical cyclone. A tropical cyclone is the generic term for a low-pressure weather system formed over tropical or subtropical waters with thunderstorm activity and surface wind circulation. Tropical cyclones with maximum sustained surface winds of less than 39 mph are called tropical depressions. Once a tropical cyclone reaches winds of at least 39 mph it is typically called a tropical storm and assigned a name. In the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, once the winds reach 74 mph, the system is called a hurricane. There are five categories of hurricane, with Category 1 considered minimal and 5 the most severe.

When Is Hurricane Season?

Between June 1 and Nov. 30. Historically, the chances of hurricane activity are greater between August 15 and October 1. During the past 100 years, the historical average frequency of a hurricane impacting somewhere in the state of Florida is once every two years. In the Keys, the historical 100-year average frequency of a hurricane of any category impacting is one in every 4.5 years.

Can I Travel to the Florida Keys During Hurricane Season?

Absolutely. The Keys are very popular with vacationers in the summer and fall months. In fact, most visitors from the United Kingdom and Europe visit during that period. Many great events are scheduled in the Keys during that time, and late summer, early fall typically offer the best vacation values, because school is back in session and family vacationing is at a lull. Historically, the chances are excellent that your Keys vacation will not be interrupted by a hurricane.

What Do I Do If I Am in the Florida Keys and a Hurricane Threatens the Region?

Throughout the summer and fall, Keys emergency management officials keep in constant touch with the National Hurricane Center, based in Miami. And the Keys tourism council has a formal communications program, in cooperation with emergency officials, to let visitors know of any need to evacuate. Local media reports and official information sent to lodging facilities provide updates and details about possible evacuation orders. If you hear of a storm threat, check with the registration office, visit the Florida Keys Web site at www.fla-keys.com or, while in the Keys, call the visitor assistance line at 1-800-771-KEYS. Should a storm threaten, for safety reasons, visitors are always asked to leave the Keys first. Although emergency officials will err on the side of caution, evacuation orders are only given if there is a significant storm threat.

For more information, visit www.fla-keys.com/hurricaneseason.cfm#faq

Throughout the Keys, beachside fun for families coincides with spectacular fireworks shows, and here are some of my favorite picks:

Blackwater Sound provides a mirror-like surface designed to make the annual fireworks display seem like a 3-D viewing experience from either land or sea. The show is to take place bayfront in Key Largo at 9 p.m. Monday, July 4. The best seating is at Sundowners on the Bay and Señor Frijoles restaurants, the Caribbean Club and Marriott Key Largo Bay Resort, all located around mile marker (MM) 104 bayside. Reservations are suggested because seating fills up early. For more information, visit www.keylargofireworks.com.

Founders Park, MM 87 on Plantation Key, is the site of  “Spirit of Islamorada,” an old-fashioned annual July 4 celebration hosted by the Village of Islamorada and the Upper Keys Rotary Club. Entertainment and activities for kids, teens, parents and dogs highlight the event from 6 to 9:30 p.m., with a fireworks show to follow. Planned activities include contests for best apple pie and potato salad, a “Nathans” hot dog eating contest and other food, refreshments and beer. Event proceeds benefit local scholarship funds, Boy Scouts and athletic programs.

All Islamorada residents and visitors are welcome to attend. Guests staying at participating resorts are to receive wristbands for free admission to the event at 6 p.m.  A $10 admission fee applies for nonresidents not staying at a participating hotel. For more information, visit Spirit of Islamorada on Facebook.

In Marathon, a patriotic parade is slated to start at 10:30 a.m. at Marathon High School on Sombrero Beach Road (MM 50 oceanside) and proceed to Sombrero Beach where a picnic and celebration featuring food and drink, kids’ crafts and entertainment lead into the night’s fireworks display. Marathon is known as the Boating Destination of the Keys, and hundreds of boaters typically line up for front-row seats at the beach for the festivities and fireworks.

Pigeon Key is nestled beneath the historic Old Seven Mile Bridge, which runs parallel to the new Seven Mile Bridge, an icon of Marathon.

Designed to offer hands-on daily programs, Pigeon Key Marine Science Camp includes workshops on marine mammals, reef fish, coral reef systems and invertebrates as well as hard and soft corals found in Florida and Caribbean waters. In addition, campers can take workshops on underwater photography and the gathering of specimens.

Participants also can get scuba certification during a camp session or take a refresher course if already certified.

The fun is as extensive as the marine education. Underwater obstacle courses, volleyball, snorkeling and day excursions are all part of the camp sessions.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, five-acre Pigeon Key housed laborers building the Oversea Railway that debuted in January 1912, connecting the Florida Keys with the mainland and each other for the first time.

Today the island features restored cottages and a museum spotlighting the railroad’s history. It recently starred as the final destination for contestants of the CBS television show “The Amazing Race.”

Since its inception more than 15 years ago, Pigeon Key Marine Science Camp has provided private, customized programs to more than 30,000 participants from more than 1,000 schools throughout the United States.

Cost for day camp begins at $300 per child, with the overnight session priced at $950.

Thursday, May 5, a massive stranding response team of skilled veterinarians, and volunteers – more than 500 strong — joined forces with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) and Marine Mammal Conservancy (MMC) staff to save survivors of a pod of weakened pilot whales stranded in treacherously shallow Gulf of Mexico waters among mangroves near Cudjoe Key.

The nation’s eyes were trained on the scores of people working feverishly to save survivors, who, despite shifting sand bars, coral heads and changing tides, faced tenuous futures.

By Friday morning, seven live whales were safely corralled in a sea pen, a containment area functioning as a triage site.  A makeshift tent camp bustled with wetsuit-clad men and women, charting vital signs, fielding calls from search and recovery boats (sadly, 14 whales perished), stockpiling food, water, trucks, transportation vehicles, boats, personnel and equipment.

Soon, there was a mobile veterinary laboratory.

During the flurry of activity, the whales remained calm.

Volunteers worked tirelessly in four-hour shifts, day and night, buoying the whales at the surface to breathe, keeping them wet and covered from the sun, hydrated and tube-fed with Pedialyte and a liquid chum.

Saturday, after collecting and analyzing blood and tissue samples, morphometrics (body measurements) and tagging dorsal fins with tracking devices, veterinarians deemed two male pilot whales viable to be released.

All hands on deck!

Watching the crane-laden barge gingerly hoist each of the two whales into slings was a breathtaking, nerve-wracking blip in time. Slowly settling the whales on the deck, careful not to crush their heart and lungs beneath their own weight, teams kept them wet and covered in zinc to prevent blistering in the hot afternoon sun.

Zooming my camera within inches of the first-loaded whale, my breath caught — his giant doe eye rolled up at me, looked into me. I was awash in guilt over the strange situation he was in, amazed and blessed I could be so close.

“It’s going to be okay, buddy. Hang in there,” I said quietly.

Under way, volunteers sponged water over the whales’ delicate skin, while veterinarians monitored vital signs and respiration. The survival of these mammals was paramount.

Finally, we reached 523 feet, nine miles offshore.

Videographer Bob Care and I scurried within safe distance of the barge, as eight people grabbed the sling’s straps, maneuvering the whales forward to easily slip off the edge of the foam padding into the blue.

The first whale dived down, surfaced and popped his blowhole like a snorkel, pausing, almost beckoning to the second, “Are you ready? Let’s go.”

Immediately, the second whale entered the water. The pair dove deep and disappeared. It was magical. The group of us left watching at the surface waited a moment, then whooped and hollered. They’d made it!

Exhausted and exhilarated, volunteers returned to the pen area, greeted by the remaining five whales’ squeals and squeaky chatter  — a reminder they are not out of the woods yet.

Early Tuesday, May 10, experts successfully transported these five to a rehabilitation center 82 miles away in Key Largo, in a temperature-controlled Publix Super Markets’ semi-trailer.

Rehabilitation times could take months, but perhaps Blair Mase, NOAA southeast stranding coordinator, best summed up the combined efforts to safely move the animals.

“It takes a village to save some whales.”

Note: Since being transported to Key Largo, one of the five survivors at the Marine Mammal Conservancy was euthanized due to severe illness. Four pilot whales remain at the center, convalescing, and are reportedly responding to medical treatments.

Capturing lionfish is a way for divers who enjoy the Florida Keys reefs, and to help protect them and in a hands-on way. They also happen to taste great.

Rapidly growing populations in Atlantic waters of the non-native Indo-Pacific red lionfish are out-competing native fish for food and territory due to lack of predators and prolific, year-round reproduction.

It is believed that the popular aquarium fish was first released in Florida waters during the 1980s and is considered an invasive species with no natural reef predators, except man. Lionfish prey on invertebrates and juvenile fish such as grunts and hamlets, but their voracity has burgled both space and food resources from domestic species like grouper and snapper.

Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF), whose mission is to conserve marine ecosystems for their recreational, commercial, and intrinsic value, seeks to educate, enlist, and enable divers and other marine enthusiasts to become active stewards and citizen scientists.

Catch and Eat

REEF has published The Lionfish Cookbook, designed to encourage the removal and consumption of the invasive Indo-Pacific red lionfish through 45 delicious recipes to prepare the delicate, mild white meat of the lionfish, considered a delicacy. Its white meat is likened to snapper, grouper, and hogfish.

Authored by personal chef Tricia Ferguson and REEF’s Director of Special Projects, Lad Akins, with photos by David M. Stone, the cookbook offers great recipes, background information about the lionfish biology and ecology, and how to effectively collect and handle lionfish.  To learn more or to purchase a cookbook, visit www.REEF.org.

Diver Derbies

For the second year, REEF has partnered with the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary to create fishing derbies for the dive community to capture and remove non-native lionfish from Keys waters.

Upcoming derby dates are Aug. 20 at Coconuts Restaurant, located at mile marker 100 in Key Largo and Nov. 5 at the Hurricane Hole Marina in Key West.

Derby divers who remove lionfish from sanctuary waters are eligible for cash and prizes — more than $3,000 per derby — in addition to helping preserve Florida Keys habitats and eco-systems.

At the close of each derby, banquets awarding divers for the most, biggest, and smallest lionfish, as well as an open-to-the-public tasting to sample lionfish ceviche and fried fish bites, follows.

Divers can participate in a derby from their own private vessel or join a local dive operator’s charter. For complete information and team registration, visit www.reef.org/lionfish/derbies or call 305-852-0030.

Actually Kate was Lucas Czajkowski (pronounced Cha-cow-ski), who impersonated the duchess by wearing a replica of the royal bride’s blue engagement dress and waving regally to crowds as a quartet of brawny men with British flags painted on their bare chests and backs propelled the bed up the street.

Prince William, however, was nowhere to be found.

Billed as “the most fun you can have in bed with your clothes on,” the Saturday afternoon race featured 15 decorated beds, each piloted up Duval by four runners while a fifth person rode on the bed.

In addition to the royal ensemble, standout entries included beds decorated to resemble a giant chile pepper, a bull, a “Super Mario” castle and a super-sized cheeseburger.

The bed race was a highlight of the annual Conch Republic Independence Celebration. The 10-day festival, that ends Sunday, commemorates the 1982 day when the Florida Keys staged a secession from the United States following the installation of a U.S. Border Patrol blockade at the head of the island chain.

Certified divers can explore the destination’s most appealing feature — a string of sunken vessels and artificial reefs — and be awarded for logging back-to-back wreck dives or dives on subsequent visits.

Divers taking up the challenge receive an “Official Florida Keys Wreck Trek” logbook upon reserving dive trips with more than 30 participating dive shops.

The dive passport highlights nine shipwrecks from Key Largo to Key West including Spiegel Grove, Duane, Bibb, Eagle, Thunderbolt, Adolphus Busch Sr., Cayman Salvager, Joe’s Tug and Vandenberg, the Shipwreck Trail’s southernmost addition.

After one wreck dive in each region of the Keys is accomplished, divers receive a personalized collage of Keys wrecks suitable for framing. Upon completing all nine wreck dives, qualifying divers are entered into a drawing for one of several grand prizes including dive equipment and dive-and-stay lodging packages, awarded after Jan. 1, 2012.

It is recommended that divers be current with their diving. Each wreck varies in skill level, and divers are encouraged to contact participating dive operators for information about the wrecks.

Local dive shops may ask divers to present a logbook or dive computer to be reviewed for air management skills and depth profiles from previous dives. Refresher courses are offered, and the Shipwreck Trail offers a unique opportunity for advanced and wreck diving certification classes.

In March a team of treasure divers made a remarkable discovery — a centuries-old 40-inch gold chain, bearing an enameled gold cross and two-sided engraved religious medallion. The rosary was recovered from the sea floor during the search for a sunken 17th-century Spanish galleon.

The piece is believed to be from the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, which sank approximately 35 miles west of Key West during a 1622 hurricane. It was discovered by Bill Burt, a diver for Mel Fisher’s Treasures, as he was seeking the Atocha’s sterncastle.

“It has a cross on it with black enamel and a gold medallion, and lots of lettering on the medallion and the cross,” said Andy Matroci, captain of the search vessel J.B. Magruder. “When you enter the water, you never know what you’re going to find.”

Tentatively valued at about $250,000, the rosary contains 55 links resembling cotterpins. Its cross measures 2 inches by 1.25 inches and its oval medallion features an engraved Virgin Mary and chalice. The chain also contains a black bead and two halves of a gold floweret.

Treasure hunter and dive pioneer Mel Fisher and his crew recovered more than $450 million in gold, silver and artifacts from the Atocha shipwreck in 1985, but the sterncastle has eluded discovery.

Sean Fisher, grandson of the late Mel Fisher, said the rosary’s discovery is an important pointer in their search.
“We’re in a really hot area right now, and this type of artifact is the right sort of material for the sterncastle,” he said.

In the weeks following the recovery of the chain, the crew found more than 30 silver coins, a remarkably intact ceramic “olive jar” and a 2.1-pound gold bar — additional indicators that the trail is heating up.

Certified recreational divers can work alongside the Fisher team excavating the Atocha wreck site during weeklong Atocha Dive Adventure packages offered through August 2011.  The itinerary includes check-out dives, training in professional salvage techniques, behind-the-scenes tours of Key West’s Mel Fisher Maritime Museum and laboratories, where Atocha artifacts are conserved, and two full days of diving with the crew seeking the galleon’s bounty. For more information, visit www.melfisher.com.