Keys Active: Reef Diving, Flats Fishing & a Sunken Island

The morning snorkel trip to Molasses Reef — one of the most visited dive sites in the world and one of the healthiest sections of the Florida Reef — departs at 9am. The reef rises to within 10 feet of the surface at its shallowest points and drops to 35 feet at its deepest edges, providing snorkelers and divers with close encounters with the full suite of Caribbean reef fish: sergeant majors, yellowtail snapper, blue tangs, parrotfish, and the occasional sea turtle resting on the bottom. The Pennekamp reef is unusual in that its protected status since 1963 has allowed coral to recover from some of the bleaching events that devastated unprotected sections of the Florida Reef. Book in advance — the 9am trip sells out every weekend.

Use the afternoon to explore a different trail, cool off at a swimming hole, or find a scenic spot to watch the sunset.

Islamorada is the self-styled 'Sport Fishing Capital of the World' — a claim grounded in the extraordinary fishing available in the Florida Bay backcountry, where shallow grass flats extending 35 miles toward the Everglades support world-class populations of bonefish, permit, and tarpon. A half-day flats fishing charter (4-5 hours) departs at 7am and poles the skiff through knee-deep water, sight-fishing to individual fish — the guide spots them from the polling platform before casting distance, and you cast precisely. Bonefish and permit are renowned as among the most challenging light-tackle targets in the world: they spook easily, require accurate casting, and run explosively when hooked. This style of fishing, called 'flats fishing' or 'sight fishing,' originated in the Florida Keys and is now practiced worldwide; the Keys remains its spiritual home. Book through Bud n' Mary's Marina (MM 79.8), the oldest fishing marina in the Keys.

Indian Key is a 10-acre island accessible only by water — kayak from Anne's Beach or water taxi from Robbie's Marina — that served as the seat of Dade County in the 1830s under the ownership of wrecker Jacob Housman. The island had a hotel, post office, store, and a population of about 60 when Seminole warriors paddled from the mainland on August 7, 1840, at 2am in a raid that killed Housman's partner Dr. Henry Perrine (a botanist who had introduced sisalhemp to Florida) and drove the settlers into the ocean. Housman escaped by swimming. The island was never resettled and today only stone ruins remain — the ghost of a would-be 19th-century Keys city, surrounded by buttonwood and cactus. Naturalist John James Audubon visited the island in 1832 and recorded several previously unknown bird species from its waters.