Looe Key & the Underwater Music Festival
DivingNo permitMooring buoys
Reef & coral · Also good for snorkeling
- Best time
- May–Sep
- Water temp.
- 22–30 °C
- Dive depth
- 2–11 m
The best-developed spur-and-groove coral formation in the Lower Keys, parallel coral fingers separated by sand channels in 3-11m, with elkhorn stands, tarpon, goliath grouper and huge parrotfish. Once a year, speakers are lowered into the water and hundreds of divers and snorkellers attend a concert on the reef in costume. Named for HMS Looe, a British frigate wrecked here in 1744. The music festival has run since 1985 as a reef-conservation broadcast, the playlist is ocean-themed and interspersed with diver-etiquette announcements. It is simultaneously ridiculous and the most effective reef-awareness event in America. Anchorage: Sanctuary mooring buoys only, no anchoring. Newfound Harbor and Big Pine as bases. Hazards: No site-specific hazards noted, brief normally.



