Four Dive Friday : Diving The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary

Another beautiful day in Isla Morada. In fact it's so beautiful that we're gonna go do some diving. We've got slick calm conditions today, a nice leisurely water temperature of 86 degrees. We're gonna go check out what the coral reefs have to offer. Good morning Evan. I'm just having some coffee before we go diving. You're going diving today? Yeah. Me too. We're doing um, how many dives? Four dives. Four dives today. Four dives is the way. It's the only way to go. Look at that, breakfast ready to go. Prepared fresh. All right. If you want toast in Isla Morada, this is the place to get it. Cuban bread. This is Cuban bread. Close enough. Close enough. Whole wheat baby. Yummy. Show us how it's done. This is the most important thing. Without air, you can't breathe. That's true. I've been diving this rig for like five years now I think. MK 25 Aqualung Outlaw. I think it's the way to go. Today we're rocking the Hero 10 and we're rocking the Hero 7 on a backscatter rig. We are out of here. Let's go have ourselves a good day. You ready Nick? I'm ready. He's always ready to go. I'm always ready. Let's go get this done. Oh my god. Well, how'd it go down there? It's pretty good. See any fish? Not a couple. Yeah? Did you get them on film? I uh, didn't get them on film. I got them on memory card. Close enough. Why has everybody got to be so sarcastic around here? After you dive you want what? I want something acidic. Now really what I want is off-brand Oreos. You've been diving with Rainbow Reef too much. Scuba diving classic. Everybody knows that wholesale cookies taste better after you've been diving. Well that was Victory Reef. Now we're going over to do the next set. Gorgeous little spit of reef down there don't you think? I think so, yeah. Pretty amazing growth. I really enjoyed the schools of grunts as well as the hogbush and the speckled hinds hanging out doing their thing. See that? The what? The speckled hind. Yeah. I saw a moray eel. Was it a green moray or? Green. What else? Perhaps it's a spotted moray eel? I saw a green eel. It's a green eel. Let's go see what we get into. So well that was Ancient Mariner and that was one of the most beautiful fish tank quality dives we could have done today. Huge schools of grunts, some really impressive schools of snapper. The vibrant colors of that coral are just something that never ceases to amaze me. It's gorgeous out here. Beautiful green water. We're going to head back to the dock, head on up to the next shop and get started on the next thing. Refreshing morning and a nice lunch at Florida Keys Dive Center. We're going to go do some afternoon dives. Heaven's specialty. Extra reefy, extra colorful. Hopefully some really big schools of fish. I had a pretty good time this morning. How about you? It's pretty good, right? So I think, what are you hoping to see on this dive? I'm going to see everything I saw on the last dive because my camera didn't pick any of it up. What happened to your camera? Well, Charlie's GoPro. See, I wanted to use my GoPro but Charlie insists on using his. It doesn't work. It works just fine. I think it was more user error related to be perfectly honest but it is the Keys. Things go wrong down here. When are you going to finish your distinctive specialty in underwater knife fighting? Dive number three. Coral dive. That ledge was full of life. That is probably the most yellowtail snapper I've seen in one place that I can remember. What about you? Well, I had a pretty good yellowtail snapper at Yeah, but that was cooked. Oh yeah, it was fried. These were live. Massive schools. It was absolutely spectacular. The ledge was adorned in very, very healthy coral. Very large schools of fish. Grunts, schoolmasters, silky snappers. Saw a couple little groupers hiding there in the rocks. Saw a couple lobsters. Saw some lobsters too. We're gonna go over to the next spot which is called Spanky's. It's gonna be our fourth dive of the day. It'll be the last one for today and then it's happy hour. That crazy clear. Are you ready for dive number four? Four. Four. Four and we want some more. We're at a place called Pete's and actually there is a ton of boulder coral down here. It's awesome. Awesome. So, once we get these lines in guys, the pool will be open. You guys are going to want to focus on the starboard side of the vessel over here. That's where the reef is, okay? So, we'll get you guys in. You guys can go flex. That worked out. That was four dives today. We started off on the southern side of Isla Morada Key Dive Center. We went out. We did a 60-foot reef dive and we came in. We did a shallow reef dive at the Ancient Mariner which was spectacular. We hauled our wet butts all the way up here to Florida Keys Dive Center. Really first-class operation. We went out and we did David's Ledge which was some of the most spectacular life that I've seen down here in the Keys. Incredible amounts of yellowtails and then we went over to Spankies or maybe Pete's Rocks. We'll go with Spankies. Incredible, incredible wildlife out there. It's been a good time. We had a couple of laughs, blew some bubbles. Man, tropical sun down here. Living the dream. Thanks for riding with us. It's a great time. Evan, thanks for diving with me today. Thanks. Thanks for inviting me. It's good to have you with us. We'll catch you on the next one.