Photo of sky and water at Bahia Honda State Park.

Visit Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary

Chances are that if you are in the Florida Keys, you will eventually enter Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The sanctuary protects the waters surrounding the Keys, extending from south of Miami westward to encompass the Dry Tortugas, excluding Dry Tortugas National Park. And with a shoreward boundary that starts at the mean high-water mark, once you set foot in Keys waters, you are in the sanctuary.

Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is a special place, with spectacular and unique resources such as coral reefs, shipwrecks, seagrass beds, and fisheries that are the source of commercial and recreational activities like diving, fishing, and boating. The sanctuary is in place to protect these resources, but their ultimate protection hinges on you and other visitors following sanctuary rules and taking simple steps to be a good, thoughtful steward of the environment.

We’ve assembled the information below to help you plan your visit and help us ensure that you and other visitors can continue to enjoy all that the Florida Keys have to offer.