Florida Dive Trip — Venice & Key Largo
We left Baton Rouge on a Thursday afternoon, pointed the truck east, and spent the next week doing exactly what a summer should be for: family, salt water, and as much time underwater as we could manage.
Venice first
The first stop was Venice to see Karli. We had the weekend together in Venice and Port Charlotte — including a day out on the boat with friends — before the divers in the family started getting restless and the whole crew headed south on Sunday, crossing the Everglades on the Tamiami Trail toward the Keys.
Key Largo — the diving
Monday and Tuesday were the heart of the trip: two-a-day mornings on the Spiegel Grove, the massive 510-foot Navy wreck that sits off Key Largo, followed each afternoon by a pair of reef dives. Eight dives in two days between father and daughter — tired arms, full logbooks, no complaints.
The rest day
Wednesday we surfaced for good behavior. Breakfast at Robbie’s of Islamorada, where feeding the tarpon off the dock is somehow both breakfast entertainment and a contact sport, then an afternoon on the sand at Bahia Honda State Park down near Big Pine Key — one of the only true beaches in the Keys, and worth the drive.
The long road home
Thursday morning we pulled out of Key Largo for the two-day drive back — an overnight in Tallahassee and home to Baton Rouge by Friday afternoon, with just enough weekend left to rinse the gear and pretend to be ready for Monday.
Curious about the road-trip logistics in an electric F-150? That story lives on Battery Required.