kwadlow@keynoter.com

This huge lobster - the cooler lid is 48 inches long - was caught Thursday near Tom's Harbor Cut in Marathon. The two-day mini lobster season ended Thursday with no serious accidents in Keys waters. Photo courtesy of Monroe County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Dennis Coleman.

FLORIDA KEYS

One statistic stands out from this week's two-day lobster sport season: Nobody died.

"It was a very safe mini-season so everybody is happy about that," said Corey Embree, diving operations manager at Inner Space Dive Center on Big Pine Key.

The sport-diving time Wednesday and Thursday drew tens of thousands of lobster-seekers who crowded local dive shops, boat ramps and marinas.

Posted - Saturday, July 28, 2012 11:01 AM EDT

kwadlow@keynoter.com

Lobster hunter Tony Bianco checks with Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary staffer Joy Tatgenhorst on areas closed to harvest for this week's mini-season, during his stop at the Lobster Information Booth in Key Largo.

MONROE COUNTY

Divers have arrived and the weather looks good. Now it's up to the lobster to determine the success of this year's mini-season in the Florida Keys.

Posted - Wednesday, July 25, 2012 07:01 AM EDT

Tim Grollimund

A Goliath grouper on the City of Washington wreck. (Photo by Tim Grollimund)

Dive Time with Tim Grollimund

I have always had a fascination for Goliath groupers. When I first met them, they were called jewfish. The biggest one I ever saw was on the wreck of the Rhone, back in the [film] day.

Posted - Friday, July 20, 2012 01:00 PM EDT

Courtesy BRENDA ALTMEIER

The 'City of Washington' is a 300-foot ship that was built in 1877 and sank near the Elbow Reef in Key Largo in 1917 while it was being towed from Cuba.

Long before GPS, the coral reef tract that runs along the Florida Keys routinely sank unsuspecting ships. Storms also blew boats into the hard, shallow structures, contributing to a massive underwater graveyard.

Posted - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 12:05 PM EDT

Tim Grollimund

Copper sweepers move through Fire Coral Cave in Key Largo. (Photo by Tim Grollimund)

Dive Time with Tim Grollimund

Over the next several years the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is taking a look at critical management elements of our waters. This may affect not only the diving and fishing industries, but may also change the way we interact with the sanctuary.

Posted - Thursday, July 05, 2012 06:50 PM EDT

The creativity is always on display during the Underwater Music Festival.

A portion of the continental United States' only living coral reef is to be the stage for divers and snorkelers portraying "reefality show" personalities during the annual Lower Keys Underwater Music Festival.

Set for July 14, the quirky underwater concert takes place at Looe Key Reef, an area of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary about six miles south of Big Pine Key.

Posted - Tuesday, July 03, 2012 11:00 AM EDT

Reporter Contributor

A whitespotted filefish shows its orange and brown phase underneath its white spots while a queen angel looks on. (Photo by Tim Grollimund).

DIVE TIME

While I was doing the background research on boxfish for the last column, I spent some time looking at their cousins, the filefish.

Posted - Friday, June 22, 2012 11:01 AM EDT

It would take more than one person to count all of these fish during the Great American Fish Count.

Divers and snorkelers can participate in a series of July events hosted by Keys dive operators, in cooperation with the Reef Environmental Education Foundation, to help identify and document fish diversity and population trends.

The Great Annual Fish Count is an international eco-event in which volunteer divers and snorkelers gather data used by marine researchers, resource managers and policy makers to help assess reefs' condition and their ability to sustain fish and marine life.

Posted - Wednesday, June 20, 2012 11:10 AM EDT

Tim Grollimund

The triangular body shape of the smooth trunkfish has many advantages for swimming and maneuvering on the reef. (Photo by Tim Grollimund)

Dive Time with Tim Grollimund

When I’m on the reef and I want a chuckle, I look for a fish in a box. Not a cardboard box of fish like you find in the bait shop, but a body box that fits perfectly and is color matched to its occupant. I bet I have seen some sort of fish in a box on every dive. On some occasions we find juveniles, too. They are about the size of a quarter and look like floating marbles.

Posted - Thursday, June 07, 2012 07:12 PM EDT

The aquanauts gather at the dining table by the main window inside Aquarius to tell me about their experiments. (Photos by Tim Grollimund)

Dive Time with Tim Grollimund

A few weeks ago, we discussed the giant barrel sponge mass spawning event on Molasses Reef. I interviewed Dr. Joe Pawlik from UNC Wilmington for the piece.

Posted - Friday, May 25, 2012 05:43 PM EDT