My wife and I are going to Key West in June.
We are trying to find out about diving locations and operators in the Pine Key/Looe Key area.

I have two friends who have dive operations - one in Key West, the other on Summerland Key. Click on David's website www.greatwhitedivers.com. For the best in Key West diving, check out Bonsai Diving. Both are very confident, safe, and reasonable operators. No cattle boats, either.

Whatever you do, do not use Looe Key Divers. I wanted to dive on the wreck of the Busch last spring. I even got 3 friend to take off work to join me. We drove up there from Key West and they refused to take us out because a couple of snorkeler didn't show up. They told us they could take us out if we each payed for a 3 tank dive but my buddies didn't have all day to dive for 3 tank's worth of diving with surface interval. We suggested to them that they charge the snorkelers their deposit for no-showing but they didn't want to upset the snorkelers so they blew us off. Oh, by the way, you must have a dive computer to dive with them which they conveniently have for rent. Key West Divers and Southpoint Divers were both good in Key West.

Can snorkeling be done in late December/early January without a wetsuit/drysuit?

We were in the keys last summer (June) and went diving with a company out of Big Pine Key called Underseas Inc. Located at MM 30.5 Staff was friendly and knowledgable, priced affordably and we had a great time. DO NOT miss the National Marine Sanctuary it was unbeleivable. We plan to dive with them again this year. Their phone number is 305-872-2700 and webpage is http://keysdirectory.com/underseas/index.html