Next stop on the grand Florida adventure was Key Largo. {cue the Beach Boys} They are said to have some of the best diving out there. You could see forever in the blue blue water. We saw tons of coral and a bunch of fish with names I can't remember. The big blue angelfish were my favorites. Later while I was snorkeling near the boat, a huge fish that the boat captain said was a Bahama chub (I can't find that name anywhere so I suspect it has another identity too) came up and swam alongside me for a while on its way to some nearby seeweed. Here we are on the boat. Look how blue that water is!
In our trip planning, we noticed there were some caches in the area that you had to get via kayak. That sounded interesting so we put it on the agenda. Figuring out where to get a kayak and how to get from there to where we were going was a little tricky, but with the help of a kayak rental guy who happened to live near the caches, we figured it out. We diligently packed a GPS, extra batteries, a well-charged cell phone, and some extra food and water in case things didn't go well. It turned out to be a lovely paddle through the mangroves, with the tide helping us along in both directions. We found 2 caches in just over 2 hours without getting lost or stranded. (I can't lie. . . I was a little . . . OK, a lot, surprised by how smoothly it went.) Here I am grabbing one of the caches. Chris took a bunch of pictures of my back, but this one has half of my face so you can tell I was really there.
We had such a good time, we decided to do it again in Miami at Oleta State Park. That one was much less complicated. While we were paddling, I kept an eye out for a Burn Notice character to jump out of a helicopter or something to explode, but I only saw the local party boats. Bummer. The scenery was fabulous though and almost made up for the lack of a Burn Notice sighting.
Since Florida is famous for its alligators, seeing them was high on my to-do list. In preparation for seeing them, we had some for lunch. They weren't bad.
Seeing the gators deep-fried wasn't good enough for checking off the list so we headed to the Everglades in search of a live one. Apparently, they don't like the heat any more than I do, so they tend to hang out under the water when it's hot. We looked and looked (and looked) for a long time with no luck. We did see lots of other wildlife. This bird had just stolen someone's egg. He sat at the top of the tree like this for a long time. I think he was showing off a little bit.
We saw some turtles too.
Finally, I had given up on alligators but Chris suggested checking one more spot. We found this guy lounging in the shade near the path. (Good thing he wasn't hungry and he didn't know we had eaten his cousin for lunch the day before or we would have been his next meal-- Rumor has it they can run 30 miles an hour and we were only about 2 feet away.)
We tried for a few more sightings on an airboat tour, but they were hiding there too. Oh well, at least I can say I've ridden in an airboat.
Florida is also known for golf so we played a few holes. Turns out Chris and I both stink at mini-golf. Unfortunately, she's just little better than I am. I won the last game though, and I got two holes in one. I think that counts for something. It's a good game if you can lose and still have fun, right?
A golf ball in the water won't stop our game. Not even the third time. . .
The last space shuttle trip was the big news while we were there. Our timing was off for shuttle sightings but we spent a day at Kennedy Space Center getting the scoop. This is the launch pad.
The shuttle on display was HUGE! They look much smaller on TV.
Our final excursion was to Crystal River to swim with the manatees. That was just too cool. We were right there with them in the water as they swam around. The babies were especially friendly. They seemed to think Chris (dressed in her gray dive skin) was their mother.
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