Looe Key Reef

On Thursday of this week, we went to my favorite reef in the entire world, (and I say favorite because it is the best reef I have CURRENTLY ever seen). Looe Key is a National Marine Sanctuary that is a spur and groove reef system parallel to the Atlantic side of the Summerland and Big Pine Keys. Looe Key became a National Marine Sanctuary in 1981 due partially to the success of the Key Largo Sanctuary created in 1975. This site held the largest abundance of fish as well as diversity of fish. There were also many top predators as opposed to all of the other sites that we visited such as barracudas, 3 different species of sharks (that the group saw), stingrays, and moray eels. It was almost overwhelming to document every species  that we saw.  

this is an aerial photo of the Looe Key reef.