Stargazer Reef is the most unusual Key West dive spot.  As much a work of art as it is anything else, this artificial reef sits in about 25 feet of water.  Consisting of a series of metal tubes welded into sawhorse-like structures and entirely silhouetted against white sand, Stargazer Reef is not exactly a fish haven but it is interesting to see.  There is a huge jewfish (Goliath Grouper) that hangs out underneath. and some Angel fish and Mangrove Snappers hang around, too.  But as you can see from the pictures, there just isn’t much surface area on Stargazer for coral to take a hold of.

Stargazer Reef is a nice stopoff spot on the way in from any number of Key West dive spots, and it has a convenient mooring bouey.

Star Gazer Reef from the Surface

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Joe’s Tug has a great story behind its sinking, although much of the circumstances around the actual events remain a mystery to most, even to this day.  Joe’s Tug is an old shrimp boat sunk in not very deep water, just south of Key West.  Because it was made of steel, you can still see the shape of the hull, and it makes a good beginner’s dive since it’s not that deep.  For snorkelers and freedivers, if the vis is good and you can dive down a bit, say around 50 feet,  you will see Joe’s Tug.

Back  in the 80′s, when apparently nobody kept an eye on the harbor too much, Joe’s Tug was docked and ready to be towed to Miami to become an artificial reef.  She had been stripped of dangerous pollutants and readied for sinking.  Sometime in the night, some locals decided they’d like the new reef a little closer to home.  So they stole it and planned to sink it in their own secret spot.

They didn’t make it to their secret spot and the thing sank in 65 feet of water where it is now.  Her position has been slightly modified by past hurricanes and it sits upright in the water.  A lot of the local dive shops that run boats for scuba divers love to take their customers to Joe’s Tug.

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The Cayman Salgave Master

The Cayman Wreck is very popular with the Key West dive boats that take visitors out on daily excursions for scuba.  It’s just beyond the main reef about six miles out from Oceanside Marina on Stock Island.  It’s only one mile from the Nine Foot Stake, another great dive spot.  It’s eighty five feet deep, so snorkelers won’t see a thing.  But it’s perfect for scuba, which is why it remains of the most popular Key West diving spots, year after year.

The Cayman Salvage Master itself is situated on white sand, and has a layer of sand over it, too.  You will see the remains of the steel hull sitting on the bottom, its ship shape still very much intact.  It was once a Coast Guard bouy tender, built in the 1930s and used in the Muriel Boatlift in the 1970s, carrying Cubans.  It was intended to be an artificial reef but sank on its way out where it is today.    Lucky for divers, it never made it to its intended 300 foot depth, where it would never have been accessible for scuba divers.  There are actually a number of intentionally sunk ships out in very deep water, for fishing.