Key Largo ~ May 2023

               The state of Florida is rather large in comparison to my home state of New Jersey but that didn’t stop me from traveling about 150 miles down the east coast from Jupiter to Key Largo to out plant corals with the Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF).  Despite the hellish 3.5 hour ride I endured with a rather unsavory Uber driver who not only insulted me but said other ridiculous things like “the ocean has an endless supply of seafood”, I made it safely to Key Largo.

               While sharks are the absolute loves of my scuba diving life, I had a slight desire to stray a little bit away from my normal preference of diving.  I wanted to further fulfill my role as a citizen scientist through scuba diving.  I wanted to continue putting my ever-present good intentions of helping the planet to use.  My intent of coming to Key Largo was to become more educated on coral and to personally help organizations, such as CRF, in fulfilling their mission of regrowing coral.

               It all started with a 2-hour long presentation at CRF’s Exploration Center inside a small classroom with bright orange chairs and a handful of eager students, myself included.  Their power point presentation described the environmental role of coral, the ongoing plight they are facing, the reasons behind their current predicament, what we can do to prevent coral bleaching, and coral restoration efforts currently taking place in oceans all around the world.  The staff there also taught us what our role as citizen scientist divers was going to be and what exactly we were going to do on the 2 dives to assist.

               After a brief intermission for lunch and a short 20-minute boat ride through the palm-tree-lined, residential canals of Key Largo, we arrived at the Coral Nursery.  A sea of peaceful, turquoise blue welcomed us as we giant strode our way in, about 20 to 30 feet above the glorious coral trees.  The CRF staff gave us a leisurely tour through the nursery before putting us to work.  This easy swim was like navigating through an aquatic forest with trees that had branches made of algae-adorned PVC pipes and growing coral leaves with monofilament line stems.  The trees were home to growing Elkhorn and Staghorn corals.  This was a dive unlike any other I have been on thus far.  To me, these trees signified hope and an optimistic feeling that there are still people who wish to do good in this world.  And today, I was part of that group.

               Inquisitive fish residing in and near these coral trees stared at us with curiosity as we cleaned the algae from the monofilament lines and PVC pipes with brushes and chisels.  It was quite interesting and definitely a new experience for me to maintain buoyancy while doing some type of upper body work underwater.  As we performed this meaningful task, one of the CRF dive leaders was busy gathering 40 baby corals from other trees within the nursery to take to Pickle Reef where we would be out planting them.

               Our objective at Pickle Reef for Dive #2 was to secure the baby corals to the ocean floor.  To do this, we first had to take a hammer and bang/chisel away any sediment on the ground to make a smooth spot for the coral to be attached to.  We were instructed to clear away a “Costco-sized-cookie” shape on the ground for each individual coral.  Banging a hammer through a viscous medium such as water is quite different than doing so through air!  And we had to be careful to not have any fish casualties.  Worms would pop up from the ground as we banged away and fish would swarm in, trying to eat them.

Once a space was cleared, the CRF dive guide would hand us a small piece of Epoxy which was similar to silly putty.  We were then to form it into a Hershey Kiss shape, stick it onto the sediment-free spot we just created, and then plop a piece of coral onto the Epoxy.  To ensure the coral was secured, we had to wave our hands in front of it.  If it lifted easily and detached from the Epoxy, it was obviously not secure and we’d have to reattach it or find a better location for it.  If it passed the wave test and did not float away, then the coral was deemed secure and ready to grow and thrive on that very spot for months to come.  I personally planted 5 corals and couldn’t have been happier with my experience here.

The next day I did 2 casual dives, just to see what else Key Largo had to offer since I was in the area.  We dove the SS Benwood Wreck and French Reef.  The Benwood was a large World War 2 wreck that had no top and appeared to be just the base or skeleton of the ship.  The history behind it is that this ship and another ship shut off their lights to avoid being seen by German U-Boats in the area.  As a result, the two ships collided.  The other ship was eventually recovered and restored to functional use, but the Benwood went down and was history.  This wreck was full of life including schooling fish consisting of Sergeant Majors and Squirrel Fish.  My guide pointed out a cool Christmas Tree Worm which responded to sound.  When he snapped his fingers, the worm quickly recoiled into his little hole on the wreck.  He also pointed out a canon gun which was encrusted with sea fans, barnacles, and the like.

French Reef was very significant because I clearly noticed the vibrant Elkhorn corals that were growing and were possibly out planted by the CRF team and other citizen scientist divers like myself.  So amazing to see that!  We also did some fun, easy swim throughs in the reef.  Aquatic life I encountered here included numerous Southern Stingrays, blue Parrotfish, and schools of bright yellow fish.  I’m glad to say I was able to help their environment grow and thrive here in Key Largo.

As amazing as out planting corals and diving Key Largo was, my entire experience was not all peaches and cream.  In fact, my entire time spent diving in Key Largo was plagued by a clogged ear which virtually made me 50% deaf for the 2 days I was there.  So after Dive Day #2, I made it a priority to venture a mile down the road from my hotel to Advanced Urgent Care to have my ear assessed and treated.  Surely enough, my ear was severely impacted with wax as it had been six years ago when I first began diving.  I spent roughly an hour on the exam table as nurses Cindy and Sheila gently and carefully irrigated both of my ears.  (Because hey, why not just do both?!)  And it turned out that my “good” ear was infected and actually worse than my deaf ear!  While this was obviously very uncomfortable and at times painful, the staff was so kind, gentle, and caring that it actually made for a somewhat pleasant experience!

Despite that and being sent home with antibiotics, prescription eardrops, and clear instructions to not submerge myself in water for at least ten days, Key Largo treated me well.  I would gladly venture down there again to provide a helping hand with coral restoration.