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Looe Key (Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary)

Looe Key (Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary)

Looe Key (Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary)
5
About
A popular snorkeling and dive destination for new and experienced divers alike, Looe Key reef is a protected coral reef located within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It is a stunning wildlife refuge in south Florida, and a diversity of fish, including sharks and Goliath groupers, congregate here. Make sure you visit all the areas within the sanctuary, as each is home to different species of fish. When hungry, hit the tiki bar for daily food specials as well as live music and entertainment. To get here, hop on a 45-minute boat ride from Big Pine Key. – Tripadvisor
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Looe Key Existing Management Area Nancy Foster Florida Keys Environmental Complex, FL 33040
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5.0
5.0 of 5 bubbles190 reviews
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Renee H
Michigan60 contributions
3.0 of 5 bubbles
Feb 2020 • Friends
When I called to book a trip I specifically asked about the size of the waves when we go out to the reef and was told they were only 1-2 ft swales and it wouldn’t be a problem. I asked this because last year I went on a snorkeling trip to Sombero and the waves were so big you couldn’t enjoy the reef while having to fight the 4 ft swales. Anyway, we get out to the reef and low and behold again 4 ft swales and you couldn’t really enjoy yourself. The captain Katie and Brad were great and very informative about what we would be seeing and what we should and should not do. The boat ride and scenery was great but I will never go snorkeling again in Florida. 🐢🦈
Written 6 February 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Cara W
Gulf Breeze, FL32 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Nov 2022 • Family
Unforgettable Keys Experience! Highly recommend Looe Key Snorkel Tour out of Bahia Honda SP. the sea was choppy but once we got there the reef was spectacular. Saw barracudas, Goliath groupers, blacktips, queen triggerfish, yellow tail snappers and beautiful parrot fish. Water was beyond our expectations. Captain and crew were knowledgeable, helpful and fun. Cost us about $50 per person for the experience. Fantastic!
Written 24 November 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

islandlovingtwosome
Lake Forest, CA125 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Apr 2023
This is one of my rare five star reviews. We took the snorkeling excursion to Looe Key from the Bahia Honda concession. What a fabulous treat. Chris and Zack were running the show and they couldn't do enough to help you. As a team, they worked together seamlessly. It was a beautiful day with calm water and Chris took us to the perfect spot. I've snorkeled on many Caribbean islands, Hawaii and the South Pacific, so who would have guessed that Looe Key would have been better than all of them. We spent our time there snorkeling with large schools of fish and checking out the pretty coral. It was amazing. We also saw a shark sleeping on the ocean floor and another swimming below us. I was having so much fun snorkeling with fish all around me that I had a hard time making myself stop to get back on the boat. I told Chris the snorkeling was badass and that describes it perfectly. I asked him if there were always that many fish, and he said "yes". If you like snorkeling, do yourself a favor and book this excursion
Written 9 May 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

TJ K
Chicago, IL85 contributions
4.0 of 5 bubbles
May 2022
This is probably the best snorkeling (haven't been to Sombrero Reef) in the middle keys. The corals are a little deeper than other site (about 20ft), which meant bigger fish. We saw the usual, tangs, sergeant majors, parrot fish, etc. But I got a great picture of a reef shark, which is exactly what I was hoping to see. We originally booked a tour out of Bahia Honda SP, but they cancelled the day before due to staffing issues. So, we hopped a ride with Capt. Hook's out of Big Pine Key.
Written 26 May 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Brent P
1 contribution
5.0 of 5 bubbles
May 2024 • Family
We booked our trip through Bahia Honda. The prices were very reasonable. We saw beautiful tropical fish, 2 sharks, a barracuda and the reef was beautiful. We had an amazing time. Jim and Michelle were great. They will take great care of you.
Written 29 May 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Boatingfamily
St.Petersburg, Florida234 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
We spend about 2 wks every summer with our boat and kids in Marathon. Our 2 favorite snorkel spots are Sombrero Reef and Looe Key. For us, (NON-LOCALS ALERT!!!), Looe Key has a much more oceanic feel to it than Sombrero does. It certainly seems deeper and much more "open". One thing my kids( and me!) noticed was the abundance ( ok, only 6-8!!) of shark sightings! They were Reef or Lemon Sharks, but what a thrill for kids and adults alike!! We also saw schools of Tarpon, Eagle Rays and the normal corals and tropical reef fish found in the keys. I know charter boats run out of Bahia Honda State Park for snorkeling at Looe Key. We bring our Coleman Party Island, inflate it and toss it off the stern of the boat ( secured, of course!) so the kids and adults alike have a resting spot without climbing in and out of the boat. We had great weather this year with minimal seas with the exception of one day when we had 2-3 ft. The kids ( 6 and 11 ) did well and had no problems. I usually float with a noodle and just watch the fish go by, and my other 30ish-40ish, friend, sis, and sis in law agree!! Looe Key is so named for the HMS Looe which ran aground there a long time ago ( I know, sad!! I should research the date, but it was a LONG time ago). You can still see the ballast stones left from the ship. A great snorkel that we enjoy again and again!! Go if you can!!
Written 11 August 2005
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Michael W
Cincinnati, OH10 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
July 2014 • Couples
The beauty that you will see in this sanctuary will be something that you will never forget. It is not for the amateur diver/snorkeling enthusiast. The current can be strong and you are in open water and there will be sharks. If those aren't deal breakers then get out there and experience one the the US's most hidden gems. Please be mindful of the reef though touching corals and dumping things in the water will affect the reef and kill the fragile corals.
Written 13 December 2014
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Lee T
Palo Alto, CA93 contributions
4.0 of 5 bubbles
May 2014 • Couples
No need to add to the extensive descriptions of Looe Key in other reviews here, and I can't compare Looe Key with other coral reef dive sites in the Keys, because we only Looe Key, in late May, for four dives on two consecutive mornings.

However, I can compare it with other places I've dived--West Palm Beach, the Caribbean, the Bahamas, Hawaii, California, and the Indo-Pacific region.

I did four dives in one day off West Palm Beach a few years ago, and Looe Key was vastly better than that--I saw patchy bits of coral, not many fish...generally second rate.

Looe Key is a particular dive environment--max depth where we went was less than 30 feet. As long as it's reasonably calm at the surface--not always the case in the Keys, but often is--it's about as easy as diving gets. And even though we're used to the psychedelic richness and variety of Indonesia's coral reefs, it was good enough to justify diving there--even organizing a trip around diving there.

For two main reasons: Even living near SFO in the Bay Area, it takes us 29 hours of travel to get from our doorstep to our quarters in the easiest dive resorts to reach in Indonesia, which would be either Pemuteran or Tulamben in Bali. Travel times to other dive locales, such as Thailand and the Philippines, aren't much different, while Australia is even longer (and despite the fabulous PR, the Great Barrier Reef isn't as good diving as we get around Bali).

On the other hand, despite living on the other end of the continent from the Florida Keys, our door-to-door travel time for diving at Looe Key was about 12 hours. It would have shorter if we'd taken a second flight to Key West, but that would have added about $1,200 to the total cost, and we wouldn't have seen the rest of the keys. Key West is only about a 40 minute drive (depending on traffic) from the places you can stay that are nearest to Looe Key--Cudjoe Key, Summerland Key, and Big Pine Key, plus a few others nearby.

And since diving is generally best in the morning (calmer waters usually), and since you generally have to be at the boat in the 7-9AM timeframe, it's best you stay near Looe Key IMO. We stayed in Cudjoe Key at a place we found using VBRO.com ("Vacation Rental by Owner), and it took us 15 minutes to drive to the dive operator we used, Innerspace, on Big Pine Key.

Innerspace had gotten the best reviews overall on TripAdvisor, and we weren't disappointed. I'll review it separately. Suffice to say here that even with their fast boat it took around 20 minutes to get out to the reef--which is standard for the whole Florida Keys, I've heard. There's nothing worth diving into almost anywhere nearer.

Looe Key, from the surface, shows the telltale changes of water color indicating a shallower area, with even some waves breaking over the shallowest part of the reef, though we saw no dry land there--just water. Water dotted with buoys and half a dozen or so dive/snorkel boats moored to the buoys. You're far enough out from the Keys that the land is just barely visible on the horizon.

But with so many boats going out to Looe Key I imagine anyone needing rescuing would have a lot of help nearby most of the time.

May is kind of the shoulder season. Water temperature was around 80 degrees--similar to most of Bali in fact. We were told the water gets much warmer, with flatter seas and clearer water, by July. Our experience in May was that although we were able to dive twice a day in the morning on two consecutive days, the wind had picked up enough each afternoon to make diving iffy for all but the most athletic/intrepid. Not underwater--just on the surface, especially getting back in the boat while being tossed around.

My spouse and I have been on over 700 open ocean dives, so we can handle conditions less experienced divers would have trouble with. I would recommend, if you go there in May, to be prepared to do something other than diving if the dive operator thinks it's a bit rough. A responsible dive operator won't just grab for your dollars--he'll want you to get back in one piece and give him good word of mouth.

The tongue and groove coral formations of Looe Key reminded me of Cabo Pulmo in Baja California--the only real coral reefs on North America's west coast, due to the chilly Humboldt Current that runs up it from the equator. Cabo Pulmo is in the Sea of Cortez, protected from the Pacific Ocean's chill. Only Looe Key is bigger and better.

Apart from just being to darn easy to get to, Looe Key also has some bigger fish than most of what we see in Indo Pacific waters (lots of busy fishermen there). Outstanding being the Goliath Groupers, which we saw on some of our dives.

The closest competitors for a dive vacation vs. Looe Key would be Cozumel off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and the Bahamas/Turks and Caicos, both of which we've dived.

The Bahamas aren't much farther--just an hour by small passenger aircraft from Fort Lauderdale or Miami. The diving off the main island where the capital, Nassau, is located, is generally deeper, and our experience was affected by the dive operator seriously degrading his service to us in order to accommodate some cruise ship passengers' schedule. I don't think that would happen around Looe Key. However, at least one wreck was a lot shallower than most of the wrecks off the Keys.

There is a wreck visited by the dive operators who service Looe Key, but like nearly all wrecks in the Keys you have to have an Advanced and/or Deep Diving certification for them to take you there, and the wrecks are all deep dives in the vicinity of 100 feet just to the main decks of the ships.

We also did a liveaboard in the Bahamas, which was a lot of fun and good diving, but that's quite a different experience from the day boat diving you do in the Keys.

Cozumel is also quite different from Looe Key--the reef walls don't start 'till you're 60 feet or more down; it's all drift diving from boats, and the boats aren't moored, so you have to do your safety stop in the water column with nothing to hold onto and no points of reference besides your gauges--so I think it's not for beginners, though it isn't hard diving otherwise.

A two week vacation to Bali vs. the Florida Keys, centered on diving at Looe Key, would probably cost about the same. Airfare is around $800 less round trip, but everything else is waaaaay more in Florida. Our last dive trip to Bali cost $2,900 each including everything--airfare, three star resorts, all meals, all transportation, 9 days of diving, tips, the works. We haven't added up our costs for the Keys but it will most likely be similar if not more overall.

But a two week trip to the Keys from the Left Coast means, basically, one day of travel subtracted from that total, while for a Bali trip it means 2 1/2 days of travel subtracted from the total--so if you go to Florida you gain 1 1/2 days of actual vacation--not insignificant.

That said, we'll probably head back to Indonesia next year. Once you've dived on the greatest biodiversity of any habitat on the planet, it's hard to settle for less, even though Looe Key was good enough to hold our interest, and we would have dived there several days more if we'd had the time to do so, and Looe Key had those bigger fish.

And of course some divers are all about the big fish--for them they might even prefer Looe Key, though I don't understand that myself. Also, there's only one real wreck in Bali, the Liberty Wreck in Tulamben, a 400 foot long WWII freighter that's now a pile of iron plates, frankly, though richly covered with sea life. And it's a lot shallower than the wrecks you could visit in the Keys (except for Joe's Tug out of Key West).

If we lived on the East Coast, we might plan on a one week trip to the Keys--centering on Looe Key--every year. It's not dazzling, but like a decent American meal, it's nutritious and satisfying, so to speak.
Written 3 June 2014
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Sugarloafers
Key West, FL89 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Instead of taking the high dollar snorkel tour from Key West, drive up to Looe Key and hop on a boat for less than 1/2 the price. It's a shorter ride out to the reef and more time in the water. This is absolutely the best place to snorkel in the keys.
Written 5 June 2012
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Ellzy96
10 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
July 2014 • Couples
I recently went on a snorkelling & diving tour of Looe Key reef. It was my 6th time snorkelling and definitely the best thus far. (Previous 5: Cuba, Dominican, Bermuda x2- Somerset & Church bay (close 2nd overall), Key West). We took the tour with Strike Zone based out of Big Pine key. They were friendly and accommodating, although a bit disorganized initially. Overall, we saw loads of beautiful fish such as angelfish and parrot fish, brightly colored coral, some decent sized barracudas, a 3.5 foot caribbean reef shark, and a 6-foot goliath grouper that had to weigh approximately 500lbs! Some of the divers on the trip also saw a huge moray eel, a sea turtle and a large sting ray, however I didn't see them snorkeling. I recommend the Looe Key trip over the Key West trip, which was rather underwhelming, and if you are in the keys please don't fall for the Key West salespeople selling that trip as the best! Looe Key all the way!
Written 19 July 2014
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

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