Middle Keys

After much anticipation we finally made it to the Keys. On the drive down, as we began to catch glimpses of the water, we couldn't believe how much the color looked like the Virgin Islands, until finally we crossed a bridge that revealed the shallow turquoise water in its full brilliance, proving that it truly rivalled our memories of the Carribean. Based out of Marathon in the Middle Keys for a couple of days, we snorkeled and played in the warm, shallow waters of Bahia State Park. One of our campgrounds was located next to the old seven-mile bridge where we took a walk suspended over the water, spotting sea turtles down below. At our next campground, we had a campsite right on the water where I drank my morning tea wading in the warm, knee deep water, and we got a firsthand look at why retirees spend months in their RV's in Florida. It was so cool to watch white-haired folks riding bikes around just for the fun of it, stopping in the road and chatting. I could imagine them as kids doing the exact same thing, running around free, in packs, throughout their neighborhoods. We spent one afternoon on a boat that took us out to a coral reef where we snorkeled in four foot, choppy seas. Submerged in the waves, we would ride them up to the crest and then drop so fast that we could feel it in our stomachs....some of us more than others. I was sea-sick both in the water and on the boat, and, understandably,  Aaron found the conditions entirely too violent for someone his size to be in. In spite of the rough conditions, and the short amount of time that we stayed in the water, we still managed to see a loads of fish, coral reefs, a nurse shark, and a sea turtle.

Photos here.