Key West · United States · Reef
Texas Rock
A forest of deep-water sea fans on the north face of a lone coral mound
Photo: Joe Parks from Berkeley, CA · CC BY 2.0
Texas Rock is a lone mound of coral almost due north of Garden Key in Dry Tortugas National Park, standing up out of open sand. Divers come for the fish packed over its crown, the deep-water sea fans on its north face and the rare black coral tucked into its crevices.
Also known as Texas Rock Coral Reef.
Where it is and how deep
24.6279° N, 82.8717° WApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.
The dive
Divers slide over the side of the boat and can drop straight into a cloud of fish stacked from the top of the reef almost to the surface. Below them the coral mound rises from the sand at about 17–18 m (55–60 ft) to a crown near 11 m (35 ft).
The reef is isolated and ringed by sand, and it takes a full dive to swim around the mound. On the north side stands a forest of deep-water sea fans, and the nooks and crevices along the way hide rare black coral. The mound also serves as a coral growth monitoring station for ongoing research.
Marine life and season
- Reef fish swarms
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Good | Good | Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Prime | Fair | Fair | Fair | Good | Good |
Season follows Key West: Boats dive all year; May to October brings the warmest water and best visibility, but August to October is hurricane season.
Dive videos
Texas Rock One · Sharon Warfield on YouTube
Questions divers ask
Can Texas Rock be covered in a single dive?+
Yes. The mound is isolated and surrounded by sand, and one full dive is enough to swim all the way around it, from the sea fans on the north side to the crevices with black coral.
Sources
- Swimming, Snorkeling, and Diving - Dry Tortugas National Park — National Park Service
Photo credits
- Brick fort walls and a moat beside a flagpole and small lighthouse, with a sandy spit and turquoise shallows beyond by Joe Parks from Berkeley, CA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
More dive sites in Key West
Goliath grouper and turtles on a 5-9 m reef fifteen minutes from town
Reef
Fields of coral drifted to 18 m with goliath grouper and sharks
Goliath grouper inside a 56 m hull that sank under tow in 1985, upright at 27 m
Coral fingers and sand canyons on an SPA reef a mile east of Sand Key light
Swim through needle-shaped coral heads on a spur-and-groove outer reef
Reef
Hammerheads, bull sharks and eagle ray formations on the park's outer edge
Unusually deep, wide reef crevices that hide grouper and morays
An eroded island's sand patch ringed by shallow reef under Sand Key Light
Similar dives elsewhere
A King Neptune statue set down in the late 1970s marks the north end
Reef topography that mirrors the cliffs above, at 11 to 18 metres.
Cracked shallow reef where big-eye trevally school.
Reef
Huarache Reef
Loreto Bay National Park · Mexico
An offshore reef with schools of surgeonfish and guitar rays