FLORIDA KEYS — The Florida Keys & Key West offer a variety of new and enhanced attractions, underwater adventures, museum exhibits, flavorful diversions and other activities to tempt visitors ranging from dive and snorkel enthusiasts to art lovers.

Explore the highlights here.

Keys Heritage

A century-old Florida Keys icon is to be saved for future generations. Keys government and Florida Department of Transportation officials recently ratified a 30-year, $77 million agreement that will fund a restoration and maintenance program to ensure the preservation of a portion of the historic Old Seven Mile Bridge.

Connecting the Middle Keys' Marathon with Pigeon Key, the span currently is utilized by more than 100,000 people every year for walking and biking.

The bridge was built more than a century ago as the centerpiece of Henry Flagler's Florida Keys Over-Sea Railroad. Completed in 1912, the railroad stretched more than 100 miles out over open water, connecting the Keys with each other and mainland Florida for the first time.

In 1938 the bridge was converted for automobiles and in 1982 the Federal government built a new span paralleling the historic one. "Old 7" was retired and became a fishing pier and walking area, but the harsh marine environment has taken its toll.

Today, Pigeon Key, the miniscule island beneath the old bridge that once housed about 400 railroad workers, is a historical and education center. Visitors are transported there via a ferry because the old bridge, Pigeon Key's only physical connection to Marathon, has been deemed unsafe for motorized vehicles.

An extensive design process is planned to shore up the existing structure as well as replace the bridge's decking, substructure, superstructure and hand railings to make it safer for pedestrians.

Gus Pego of the Florida Department of Transportation said he hopes construction efforts will begin in about two years and added that some $30 million of the budget will be spent on initial preservation efforts. For information about Pigeon Key, visit www.pigeonkey.net.

For decades, Key West visitors have explored the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum to view the Western Hemisphere's richest single collection of 17th-century maritime and shipwreck antiquities. Now, for the first time, they also can take behind-the-scenes tours of the museum's laboratory where the priceless artifacts are studied and conserved by experts.

Located at 200 Greene St., the museum is an internationally recognized center for excavation, preservation, research and exhibition of New World maritime artifacts.

The core of its collections are the gold, silver, emeralds, weapons, rare navigational instruments and other objects from the Spanish galleons Nuestra Señora de Atocha and Santa Margarita, which sank off the Florida Keys in 1622. As well as viewing the shipwrecks' precious cargo, recovered in the 1970s and '80s by pioneering shipwreck salvor and museum founder Mel Fisher, visitors to the lab can discover the stories behind it.

Guided by archeologists and conservators, lab visitors learn about the painstaking work of recovering and preserving objects from these and other excavations. They also view pieces undergoing conservation, ranging from massive 17th-century cannons to ships' fittings, period tools and small silver coins. A question-and-answer session also is included in the tour.

Museum admission is $12.50 per adult or $22.50 including the guided lab tour. The museum is open daily and lab tours are offered Monday through Friday. Visit www.melfishermuseum.org for tour times.

Keys Water Sports Adventures

Captain Spencer Slate recently replaced his popular Atlantis Dive Center with Captain Slate's Scuba Adventures, offering expanded services and diving options in a new location. Slate has moved his complete operation from its previous Key Largo headquarters to MM 90.7 oceanside in Tavernier in the Casa Mar Village shopping enclave.

Captain Slate's Scuba Adventures offers dives to new locations including Davis Reef, Pleasure Reef and Crocker Wall off Islamorada; Key Largo's Snapper Ledge and Molasses Reef as well as Middle Keys sites. Popular excursions to the Spiegel Grove, Duane and Eagle shipwrecks also are available, as are packages for disabled divers.

The dive shop has two 40-foot boats that can accommodate up to 25 divers or 36 snorkelers. Both are equipped with walkthrough transoms, six-foot-wide boarding ladders, showers and built-in tank racks. The fleet also includes a 30-foot, 26-knot boat that carries smaller groups.

Since 1978, Slate has offered dive, snorkel, underwater wedding and glass-bottom boat packages in Florida Keys waters. At its new location, the dive shop also is a certified dive outfitter for Islamorada's Islander Resort, a Guy Harvey Outpost.

In addition, the shop continues to provide certification courses at all levels from beginning to professional, as well as dive instructor courses and an extensive variety of specialty offerings.

Slate is known for staging dive events such as the annual Underwater Easter Egg Hunt, and for his signature "Creature Feature" dives that are to continue from his new location. The "Creature Feature" package enables diving aficionados a safe opportunity to "meet" marine life including Goliath groupers, moray eels and other underwater species while a professional videographer shoots the whole dive. For information, visit www.captainslate.com.

Scuba divers and snorkelers can enjoy the Florida Keys' underwater world and take home a tangible memory with the newly launched "Become a Reef Explorer" program, which spotlights Keys coral reefs in a specially created souvenir journal. The Florida Keys are home to the continental United States' only living coral reef.

First-timers, families and fun-loving groups of all experience levels can explore the destination's reefs and be awarded for logging reef dives or snorkels between Key Largo and Key West.

Interested divers and snorkelers can request a free Reef Explorer journal when they book a reef charter during their Florida Keys visit. Participants then collect validation stamps from professional dive or snorkel operators indicating they have visited one or all of the reefs highlighted in the journal.

After they collect five stamps, one in each region of the Keys, participants can email reefexplorer@fla-keys.com to receive an access code to download, personalize and print a Florida Keys Reef Explorer poster ready for framing. Details can be found at www.fla-keys.com/diving/reefexplorer.

Bluwave Adventure Dive Center recently opened at 46 Garden Cove Drive oceanside in Key Largo. Owned by underwater photographer and diver Tom Dailey, the center offers charters and scuba certification classes. Dive services and training for disabled individuals also are available with Handicapped Scuba Association–trained staff who are ready to meet the needs of disabled divers.

The dive center provides course offerings from entry-level sessions to open water classes, as well as rescue dive courses and deep and night dives. For advanced divers, Nitrox-based dives are available for select programs.

Bluwave Adventure Dive Center operates a 30-foot boat that carries no more than six guests per dive. The vessel features a hydraulic platform with three feet of travel to deploy or recover divers and heavy equipment. Vessel amenities include onboard fresh-water showers, dive benches designed for easy equipment handling and a cooler for complimentary soft drinks and snacks.

Those who shoot underwater photography and videos can rent a Hasselblad high-resolution digital camera and underwater housing. Underwater photography classes also are available. For details and booking information, visit www.bluwaveadventure.com.

Key Largo tour operator Largo Looker recently opened at 13 Seagate Blvd. at the Pilot House Marina. The company offers glass-bottom tours in its high-speed hydrofoil-design vessel that rides on the ocean surface.

The ultramodern Largo Looker vessel features six-by-10-foot viewing glass so guests can enjoy the only living coral reef in the continental United States, which parallels the Keys. Passengers have plenty of room to view the area's tropical fish, coral formations and marine life up close and in comfort.

Morning and afternoon tours are offered and each lasts approximately two hours. Tickets are $65 per person plus tax. For details and booking information, visit www.largolooker.com.

Keys Kudos

The beach area at Bahia Honda State Park in the Lower Florida Keys recently was named among the United States' top 25 beaches for 2014 by TripAdvisor, acclaimed as the world's largest travel website.

TripAdvisor's Travelers' Choice Beaches Award winners were announced in mid-March, with rankings based on the quality and quantity of TripAdvisor traveler reviews and ratings for beaches over a 12-month period.

Listed at number 17, Bahia Honda's pristine sandy expanse is part of a 524-acre state park located on Bahia Honda Key between mile markers 36 and 37. One of the Florida Keys' most popular camping and recreation areas, Bahia Honda offers deep near-shore waters for swimming and snorkeling as well as camping, picnicking, watersports, nature trails, the Sand and Sea Nature Center, a marina and rental cabins. For information about the park, visit www.floridastateparks.org/bahiahonda.

Keys Libations

Fans of fine beers and ales can enjoy made-in-Key-West creations at Bone Island Brewing, 1111 Eaton St. The Key West enterprise is the latest creation by brewmaster Jim Brady and island city merchant Richard Tallmadge.

The nanobrewery serves different styles of craft beer from pale ales to Irish stouts —sold only on site. Visitors can enjoy tours of the operation and beer tastings.

Bone Island Brewing is located inside Tallmadge's Restaurant Store, a landmark Key West emporium also home to Cole's Peace Artisan Bakery. Learn more at www.facebook.com/BoneIslandBrewing.

Keys Culture

Artwork from the Florida Highwaymen and Key Largo's hermit artist Harry Sonntag is on display at Islamorada's Keys History & Discovery Center April 3 through June 1. The center is located at the Islander Resort, a Guy Harvey Outpost at mile marker (MM) 82, and the collection is in collaboration with Lisa Stone Arts.

Paintings feature the work of Florida's best-known African-American landscape artists, including the talented group's only woman, Mary Ann Carroll.

In the 1950s, an era marked by racism and poverty, the Florida Highwaymen were a group of largely self-taught, determined artists who painted iconic Florida landscapes as an alternative to physically demanding labor and sold them to tourists — often before the paint had fully dried. They created a body of work that today is referred to as a contemporary art tradition and visual legacy of modern Florida.

Also on display are several watercolors by their contemporary, the reclusive Harry Sonntag. Sonntag operated a small gallery in the Rock Harbor area, one of Key Largo's early settlements.

The Keys History & Discovery Center is open Thursdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $12 per adult, $10 for seniors and $6 for guests of the Islander Resort. Children age 13 and under are admitted free. For information, visit www.keysdiscovery.com.

Florida Keys visitor information: www.fla-keys.com or 1-800-FLA-KEYS (1-800-352-5397)

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