The ShoreXplorers: Snorkeling in a Quarry in the Ocean – Scout Key [April 17 and 26, 2022]

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.

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.

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.

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. We never found out how it came to be opened on one side to the ocean.

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.

The cute, little, yellow and white fish with the black stripes is a juvenile porkfish

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.

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.

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.

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.