Sight · Biscayne National Park
A boat-only snorkeling reef with a named mooring as its access pin.
Overview
Map
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Biscayne Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Biscayne National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
Shark Reef is an offshore reef in Biscayne National Park, named as a snorkeling destination in a 1999 account. The Shark Reef 2 mooring is in 12 feet of water; use it as an access pin, not as the reef's surveyed center. You need a boat, and it's worth confirming that a trip will visit this specific reef before booking.
Approach slowly through the shallow water. Use of the mooring is limited to four hours per boat. A buoy can be damaged or missing, so keep a backup plan, and don't anchor on coral.
That 1999 account described reef crevices and stands of elkhorn coral at Shark Reef. It's a historical glimpse, not a current reef survey, so treat it as a clue to the place's character rather than a promise of what you'll see now.
Wildlife
201 sightingsWest Indian ManateeMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
154 sightingsAmerican CrocodileMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
15 sightingsBurmese PythonMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
17 sightingsTamanend's Bottlenose DolphinMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
23 sightingsBald EagleMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
146 sightingsGreat BarracudaMost seen around 6 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Biscayne. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Keep exploring
Sight · 0.5 mi awayRocky Reef 1A coral-reef stop for boaters, marked by a named mooring.
Sight · 2.8 mi awayPacific ReefOffshore reef with numbered moorings and seabirds near Pacific Reef Light.
Sight · 3.5 mi awayAnniversary ReefTwo official moorings mark this snorkel stop on the Florida Reef.
Sight · 4.2 mi awaySchooner WreckA boat-only snorkel stop over an unidentified 19th-century sailing vessel.Parkwolf’s Biscayne ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
