I've dived with Ocean Divers based in Key Largo into the Pennecamp National
Park - you need to talk to them beforehand as the dives differ each day.
Some days they only do tourist stuff, shallow and safe.
Other days they will start with a deeper wreck dive then go and see the fish

I did my Reef Ecology Specialty there and can't recommend it enough - I
learnt a lot!
The diving further south I found less interesting but I didn't dive south of
Key West, only north of it.  There are many many good dive shops on the Keys
and if you look for a PADI 5 star centre you should be okay.

As far as I know, there aren't any shops in the Keys that specialize by
nationality.

Everybody who has been there can.  The fact is, everything depends on your
preferences.  Most Keys dive shops are good, but not all of them are good
for everybody.  If you're there for hour long dives in clear, warm water
with lots of color and even more fish, then just about any operator will
work fine.  If you have other preferences, you'll need to be more
discriminating.  Lucky for you, you know somebody that lives in Florida . .
. me.

Personally, I'd not take a non diving spouse anyplace in the Keys other than
Key West.  There are things to do in other parts of the island chain, but
Key West is far and away the center of activity.

You're going to need a car for visiting pretty much any place in the Keys.
Fly into Miami or Ft. Lauderdale and drive south until you get tired of
driving.  If you actually decide to go, let me know where you plan to be and
I'll fill you in on everything I know of that's worth seeing and/or doing on
the way and while there.

Florida Reef Divers, out of Cudjoe Key http://reef-divers.com/ , is about
thirty miles from Key West.  The owner/operator, Jim Wyatt, is a highly
qualified technical and recreational diver.  He can arrange whatever you can
convince him you're safe doing.  He's not a pushover, but he's not a
dictator either.  Of all the people I know that have been diving with Jim,
and there are a lot of them, only one, a female diver that prefers the
operator to do everything for her, that did not like his operation.  Note
that I'm not judging her.  I only mention that because that's not the kind
of operation that Jim, or anybody I'd recommend, runs.  There's a rather
nice apartment right above Jim's shop.  If that interests you, let him know
well in advance.  There's only one of them.  Personally, I'm more inclined
to recommend staying in Key West and driving to dive than staying at Jim's
and driving to Key West, particularly with a non diving wife.  You won't
inconvenience her at all by leaving her to have fun in Key West and taking
the car to go diving.  You would if you did it the other way around.  You'll
want to take part in some of Key West's late afternoon and evening fun too.

Further north in the chain, Banny Thorn's Never Enough Charters
http://www.thefloridakeys.com/captbanny/ is well respected in Marathon,
Conch Republic Divers in Islmorada http://www.conchrepublicdivers.com and
Quiesence in Key Largo http://www.keylargodiving.com/.  You can get a lot of
information on diving in the Keys from http://www.upperkeysdiving.com/ .

If you've got more specific questions, you know where to find me.  BTW, if
you happen to e-mail me directly, be sure to make the subject line clearly
indicate it's a diving post.  I get tons of spam daily and sometimes lose
good messages along with the bad.

Lee

"Daddy Longlegs" <daddy@spider.web> wrote in message

I was diving out in Key Largo last March, here's a report I wrote at
the time  http://www.bubbling-under.com/diving/reports/florida2003.html

We didn't want shallow reefs/drifts and Horizon were able to offer us a
weekend of slightly deeper wreck diving, if that's what you're into.

HTH
Chris