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| Fish swim among the rocks at the Horseshoe |
The Horseshoe is a quarry that sticks out into the Gulf of
Mexico. At places it is 30 feet deep. It is a perfect rectangle, with one side open
out into the ocean water. At high tide,
water laps over the sides. It is not
marked with a sign on the road. It is a
very unusual place, and it is filled with schools and schools of colorful fish. A perfect place to snorkel.
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| The side of the Horseshoe |
We’ve been looking for a spot to snorkel from shore for years. Usually, you can see a few fish close to shore, but not many fish or a variety of fish. On our other visits to the Keys, we’ve taken
boat tours to offshore reefs that were pretty and exciting, but we had never found a beach where we can see
more than a few fish.
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| A school of grunts |
We learned about the Horseshoe (also known as Horseshoe
Beach) on the internet hidden among a list of other public beaches where you can also snorkel. When you
drive South off of Bahia Honda Key you come to Scout Key, so named because it
is the location of both a Boy Scout Camp and a Girl Scout Camp. As you arrive on Scout Key there is a sign
indicating a road to your right; a
dirt road that leads to a dirt parking lot.
From there you follow a fairly wide trail through mangroves to reach the
Horseshoe.
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| The edges of the quarry - the dark blue water is where it gets very deep |
Local lore says that this was once a quarry used by Flagler’s
workers to dig out fill stone as part of the construction of the railroad that
connected Miami and Key West. The body
of land now known as Scout Key was once 3 small keys that were connected by fill
into 1 larger key. Also, a lot of fill was used to build the nearby Bahia Honda Bridge, a fabulous railroad trestle bridge. It certainly looks like a quarry with very steep sides
down to depth. Local lore also says that
at one point an ambulance was placed on the bottom for scuba divers to explore
as a wreck.
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| Sergeant-major |
We hung out in the four foot deep section around the perimeter. Someone had placed huge boulders along this edge, perfect for grunts, sergeant-majors, and damselfish to hide around.
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| The cute, little, yellow and white fish with the black stripes is a juvenile porkfish |
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| Here he is again |
We saw our first juvenile porkfish. It looks just like it was drawn to be a character in an animated movie. We saw other new-to-us fish that we could not identify, always fun.
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| Parrotfish swimming away from us |
We saw the largest parrotfish that we have ever seen. They were very difficult to photograph; all
of our photos of them show just a part of them, generally their tails as they swam away from us. Russ found a lobster hiding under a rock, and, remembering skills from 1965, worked to try and entice it out of hiding. Sadly, there is no photo of the lobster.
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| Head of a parrotfish |
When you get to the Horseshoe you walk along the stone edge of the quarry to where you can set up your chairs, towels and gear. There was a very high tide the morning of our first snorkel at the Horseshoe and water covered over the edges. We set up our gear on the only dry ground, the path. Other folks coming to enjoy Easter Sunday at this lovely spot, left because there was no place along the edge to set up their chairs.
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| Grey snapper locally known as mangrove snapper, from Caloosa Beach, Bahia Honda where we also snorkeled |
On
our second snorkel trip, we were only the second group of people there upon our
arrival. By the time we left, we had
shared this huge gorgeous area with only 8 other people. Pretty nice little known and secluded spot.
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| Happy snorkelers - Caloosa Beach, Bahia Honda |
If you want to see other photos of fish, here are some posts
from previous snorkel trips in the Keys.
