Spending the day on the water isn’t complete without the perfect playlist. But have you ever heard it played underwater?
This weekend in the Florida Keys, that’s exactly what happened as mermaids, snorkelers and scuba divers made some serious waves, all in the name of coral reef restoration.
Creative costumes, sparkly dresses and red high-heel shoes were on full display during the Lower Keys Underwater Music Festival. The eccentric event featured a trumpet, harp and even a ukulele and took place on Looe (pronounced Lou) Key Reef, an area of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary located about 6 miles south of Big Pine Key.
If you’re wondering whether this event really happens underwater, you’re not alone.
“I have heard of the Underwater Music Festival for years and I never thought it was actually underwater,” said Samantha Queen, one of the festival’s “mermaids” living in Key West. “I assumed that was just a cute Florida Keys name. So when I found it was actually underwater … it was like I’d been missing out for so long.”
The music was simulcast on US-1 Radio and piped underwater from speakers suspended beneath boats, providing a “sub-sea soundtrack.” Songs from Key West’s own Jimmy Buffett, as well as the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” and the Little Mermaid’s “Under the Sea,” played during the four-hour concert, which featured diver awareness messages aimed at minimizing the environmental impacts on coral reefs.
“We have the largest living coral reef in the Northern Hemisphere, and we want to bring attention to it and some of the stresses that it faces and just to point out that it’s there and needs our care,” said Steve Miller, executive director of the Lower Keys Chamber of Commerce.
Now in its 41st year, the Underwater Music Festival included free tours of Mote Marine Laboratory’s Coral Reef Research Center, where visitors saw the work being done to protect and rebuild the Keys’ coral reef ecosystem.
The real “lure,” though, was the scores of divers, snorkelers and, you guessed it, mermaids, the festival brings to the Keys.
“We are very proud to say that we have a large contingent of mermaids. By the way, a group of mermaids is called a ‘gossip,’” said Miller with a grin.
