Wreck Diving in Key Largo

Key Largo puts three big ship wrecks within a short boat ride of the marina: the Spiegel Grove, the Duane, and the Bibb. In May we went down for the biggest of them. The Spiegel Grove is a 510-foot Navy landing ship, sunk in 2002 as an artificial reef six miles off Key Largo, and you drop down the mooring line into open blue water until the superstructure comes up at you out of the haze, mast first, with the flag still flying from it.

The wreck is big enough that every dive feels like a different site. We worked the deck and the railings on the first drops, then moved into the swim-throughs, where daylight comes in through open hatches and doorways and dive lights pick up the rest. Coral has taken over every rail and ladder, and the schooling fish stack up along the superstructure.

The wildlife didn't wait for us to settle in. Caribbean reef sharks cruised the superstructure on every dive, often two in the frame at once and close enough to fill it. A goliath grouper shared a corner of the wreck with one of them, and a green moray watched the whole thing from a hole in the structure.

Two of our divers brought a Marine Corps flag down with them and unfurled it on the deck. That's the kind of trip it was.