A beautiful underwater space in Florida may well be a perfect place to host a music party, but that won’t stop music lovers from going underwater to have a good party.
For the past 35 years, this stretch of paradise about six miles south of massive Pine Key, one in every one of the islands that conjure the archipelago, has hosted the Underwater Music Festival, a happening that pairs music with conservation.
Guitars, horns, drums, and other musical instruments are readily available and divers descend into the depths and play along to a playlist of water-inspired that are piped underwater via speakers. Local station U.S.-1 Radio 104.1 FM broadcasts the show live for non-divers to enjoy.
Over the years, the event has gone from being a tiny low grassroots effort put together by some locals, including former disk jockey Bill Becker and dentist Fred Troxel, with the concept that after people see what’s happening beneath the surface, the more likely they might be to shield it, to a two-day festival that pulls dozens of scuba divers, snorkelers and boaters to the Keys from round the world.
For many of these years, August Powers, a neighborhood artist, crafts original musical instruments using non-corrosive tin and copper, which are inspired by sea life and include amusing hybrids like a “bassoon” and an “obloe-fish” that’s a cross between an oboe and a blowfish. In years past, he has created a “from bonefish” and a “manta-lin.”
“Thirty-five years ago some Keys locals sat down and wanted to work out how to bring awareness to our coral reefs that might preserve them and rebuild them and restore them,” says Dave Turner, executive of the Lower Keys Chamber of Commerce.
However, these days it is not common for divers to don shark or fish costumes before descending into the deep, but all fun aside, the festival’s focus remains the same: to guard the local coral reefs and therefore the delicate marine environment that forms up the Looe Key Sanctuary Preservation Area.
