'Elvis' Performs Underwater (photo)

'Elvis' Performs Underwater

BIG PINE KEY, Fla. (AP) - He wasn't wearing blue suede fins, but an Elvis impersonator was among the snorkelers and divers who swam in the Underwater Music Festival.

Neil Goldberg, of Key West, costumed in a white-caped jumpsuit and flashy gold chains, joined several hundred visitors and residents who took the plunge for the six-hour weekend radio broadcast piped underwater at Looe Key Reef.

"We even had a Chihuahua in goggles and a swim vest on one of the dive boats," said festival founder Bill Becker.

Other participants dressed as a mermaid with a blue and purple tail and a hot-pink angelfish with gauzy fins, while an underwater band pretended to play instruments sculpted to resemble deep-sea creatures.

The broadcast featured melodies ranging from Jimmy Buffett's "Fins" and the Beatles'"Yellow Submarine" to classic Presley hits. The songs were mixed with public service announcements promoting reef preservation and warning the divers to avoid touching the coral.


In this photo, Elvis impersonator Neil Goldberg of Key West, Fla., pretends to play a guitar replica at the Underwater Music Festival in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary off Big Pine Key, Fla., Saturday, July 8, 2006. Goldberg was one of several hundred divers that took the plunge to listen to a local radio station's six-hour broadcast piped beneath the sea via underwater speakers at Looe Key Reef.