[ricki]

Here's a good one, from 1972. I had hooked up with Don Bartlett through the Underseas Sports Diving Club in Ft. Lauderdale. We were running down to Key Largo via US 1 through south Miami in his VW van (the Turnpike Extension was years in the future). Don was a fireman and a hell of a nice guy. I was a sophomore in High School. It was my first trip to dive Pennekamp. The Keys were a lot quieter and less developed in those days. Lots of mom and pop small places from the 1950's with the larger flashy stuff well off in the future. We were on our way to Carl Gage's Key Largo Diving Headquarters, (now occupied by Quiescent). Made it to the shop, checked in and hung around the dock. I can recall just how clear the water of Florida Bay was, a bit green but a lot clearer than what I have seen in recent times. We loaded up Carl's cattle boat and headed out and through the cut to the ocean. The water was blue, well at least that hasn't changed particularly outside Hawks Channel. Still, like Florida Bay it was CLEAR, really clear. We were only heading out to Molasses Reef if memory serves, over the Florida Reef Tract and not in deep water. In those days there weren't large, well known wrecks in deep water like the Speigel or Duane, those were still well off in the future. Most of the action was over the Reef Tract and to a lesser degree in the patch reefs of the Channel.

We get out, anchor in sand, no mooring balls yet. You could look over the side and all over there was this peculiar but beautiful blue water with these abundant patches of golden brown all over the place. The brown was patches of elkhorn coral (Acropora palmatta). We gear up in our single steel 72's with thin diving vests in some but not all cases and jump in. It was a calm day adding to the visibility which was on the order of 100 ft.. Viz. in this range was fairly common both in the warm months of summer and in particular in the cooler months of the year when plankton populations eased. There were the spur and grove features, tall mounds of coral pointing offshore, crowned with dense, continuous stands of healthy elkhorn. There were thick patches of staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) in various areas. There were massive corals as well, star coral (Montastrea annularis and cavernosa), brain coral (Diploria clivosa), electric stands of vertical fingers of fire coral (Millipora) and a great deal more. The corals were brilliantly and uniformly colored, free of blotches, blemishes, spots or bleaching. Even reef building crustose algae like Halimeda was a rich green with white carbonate flecks going to town.

There was a "normal" diversity and abundance of fin fish over the reef. In particular some LARGE grouper and hogfish. I can recall regularly seeing a four footer on Molasses in a similar area for sometime afterward. This was before domestic fishermen were kicked out of the Bahamas and redoubled efforts to further deplete domestic stocks. Large grouper had yet to be taken by poachers from this Federal Park in subsequent years. It was so clear, I left the tank onboard for the second dive and just jumped in with a mask. Free diving was so easy in all that clear, warm and fairly shallow water.

Today, visibility is consistently less, elkhorn coral is largely gone, staghorn too. Massive corals are still there although so are common blotches, discolored areas and bleaching. Algae covers a lot more bottom that was previously viable coral growth. There are lots of mooring balls today. Large grouper are still not that common to my knowledge although jewfish may be coming back. Not sure where the effects of climate change stop and development impact begin. At any rate, the intensely lush and vibrant reefs from all those years ago are gone. Perhaps someday, they'll come back, we can hope so. I was shown an area of young elkhorn just north of Key Largo a couple of months ago. The colonies covered a couple of acres perhaps more and seemed to date after the hurricanes of 2004 and 2005. Hope they come back in full.

In the meantime, the reefs of the Keys are still well worth visiting and striving to protect as best we can. I still run down there many times each year, there's nothing like the Keys even today, certainly not in the rest of the USA. Best enjoy what they have to offer, it still both special and unique.

I tried to find some photos online of some of the reef features from that time without success. I have my own slides from the early '70's and collect photo books of that vintage. So, I'll see if I can upload some to this story.