This is a vlog-style YouTube video (hosts Kara and Nate Buchanan) documenting day two of their Florida Keys trip, centered on scuba diving near Hawks Cay/Duck Key and nearby Marathon Key. They describe two dives (first ~30 ft reef dive, second shallower reef swim), notable marine life seen (lionfish, large crab, nurse shark, giant conch), challenges practicing underwater navigation without a dedicated guide, and post-dive waterfront meals (Tarpon Grill, crab cakes, lobster tail). The transcript mixes on-camera dialogue, instructor briefing lines, and repeated lines from the source.
Chapters
Today is day two in the Florida Keys, and this morning we got to go scuba diving.
So we still haven't figured out the whole, like, scuba diving and vlogging things since it's impossible to talk underwater. So today's vlog is going to be a little different.
Sam.
So we woke up bright and early this morning and the dive place is actually here on the property at Hawks Cay. It's called Dive Duck Cays. So it was like super nice just to be able to eat breakfast and then walk over there. And we were really excited to go diving because we hadn't been for over a year. The last time we went is when we got our advanced certification while we were in Thailand. And we haven't been since then. Really, like the only times we've been diving is like when we were getting certification and then one other time in Belize. But we were super excited to go here in Florida because they have one of the only living coral reefs in the United States.
While you're down there, if you lose track of your buddy, remember we look around for one minute. Look around for your buddy for one minute. If you can't find your buddy, go ahead and come on up to the surface.
Every time we have the opportunity to go diving, we get a little intimidated and nervous because there's a lot to know. And it's like, you know, the people who are on the boat going with you know so much. We're always nervous that we've forgotten since we go so long in between each dive. But then it's like as soon as I get my tank on and I get in the water and it's working, like all my worries go away. And it is just the best. We enjoy it so much.
It is like you. We always kind of have to force ourselves to like schedule it and go a little bit because it can be intimidating because people know so much more than you. And a lot of times, like the people on the dive boat are not super nice. They can be a little intimidating because.
They know that they don't want people.
To get it's life or death. So I completely understand that they, like, take it very seriously. But the people on the boat today were so nice.
They were so cool.
So we had two different dives today. The first one, the depth was about 30ft. We dove down to a reef. We saw tons of cool fish. Probably the highlight of the entire dive was the lionfish that we saw. It was huge, massive, and beautiful, scary looking. We also saw this, like, giant crab. It was dead, but it was like the one. The crabs that you see on the Deadliest Catch. And I didn't even know that those existed in Florida. For all I know, it could have been, like, thrown out of a restaurant.
It's.
This guy was super unique for another reason, too. Like we said earlier, all of our dives that we've done up to this point, we had, like, a guide that was. We were following, learning from. We didn't have to worry about how long we were down there. We didn't have to worry about where we were going. We would just follow along and enjoy. But on this boat, like, there were some people with the guide who were still getting certified, but we didn't have a person, like, going down with us. We had somebody on the boat who was kind of in charge of us. But this was our first time going down where it was just us, so we had to, like, think about which direction we were swimming, which can be really scary.
I mean, after you get down under the water, everything looks the same. Everything looks the same. And you've got to, like, really pay attention to which direction you're going. So technically, we are advanced divers, which means that we know how to navigate underwater. But really, we dove very few times because we got our open water certification. Then we got our advanced. And so we really haven't had much practice. But thankfully, these two dives were, like, two of the best possible dives you could ask for to practice your navigation, because it's not super deep. So if you do get off track, you could pop up and see where the boat was, which we had to do on the first dive, which was a little embarrassing.
But it's just so hard to communicate underwater, like, saying, I'm lost to Nate. Like, we were going like this.
You got it.
And I could mean anything.
Hand signals. So, anyway, it was. It was really fun to be able to practice navigating today. The first dive, we didn't do so.
Well, but the second spent a lot of time worrying. The first dive.
The second dive, we kind of nailed it.
We did.
We swam along.
So this was a lot more.
It was like sand and a reef. So you just swam along the reef for, like, 20 minutes and then turned around and you swam back?
Yes.
Unfortunately, the GoPro died on our. On our second trip, so we don't have any footage from that. But we did see a big nurse shark that was so big, which was really cool.
It was so big.
It's the most comfortable I've ever been in the water with a shark. One nurse sharks are not, like, Known to be aggressive. And two, we saw a ton in the Galapagos. And so, like, we were off by ourselves underwater, saw a shark, and we were completely at peace and just thought it was really cool. We saw one other really cool thing on the second dive.
Oh, the huge conch shell. It was like, bigger than my face.
It was cool. Really, really cool.
And Nate showed us the bottom of it.
I don't know if you're supposed to touch that.
So as soon as we finished diving, we rushed back to the room. We got ready real quick, and then we headed back down to Marathon Key, which is where we ate dinner last night, because that's like the next big key away from Duck Key, which is where we're staying. And we had lunch at a place place called the Tarpon Grill.
It was really yummy. We had the best table outside on the water. And we realized today that every time we've eaten in the Florida Keys so far, we've been outside on the water. And I just really can't imagine eating in Florida not on the water. It just makes the biggest difference.
The great thing about the Keys is, like, everything is beside the water. So we've had three, like, delicious seafood meals sitting right here on the water.
My hair is all salty in a bun.
Very much enjoyed the Florida Keys island life so far.
I got the special of the day is this huge piece of fish made into a Reuben sandwich. It is so good.
Well, something a little different for lunch today. It is a watermelon salad. I honestly expected there to be more leaves and less watermelon, but it's literally watermelons. Feta cheese, pickled onions, and I added blackened mahi mahi to the top of it. It looks incredible. Now it is 6 o' clock because we may or may not have passed out when we came back. Waking up at 3 yesterday and then going diving this morning, being in the sun all day just really took it out of us.
And taking drama mean makes me really tired.
Yeah, we both don't get seasick often, but we usually take seasickness medicine just to make sure it doesn't happen. So now we're going to jump in the pool and then head to dinner.
We are going to dinner on the water again.
Oh, my gosh, it's so yummy.
I cannot think of a better way to enter second day in the Keys than crab cakes by the water and stealing some of Nate's lobster tail.
