Miami and Florida Keys

Monday Oct. 23

We are in Key Largo at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. It is nice and hot here, about 90F today and with a cold front coming in tomorrow it should drop to about 78F. The keys don't have beautiful white sand beaches because of all the coral. A few hotels have brought in sand to make beaches but the state park beach is coral so water shoes are a necessity. The kids tried some snorkelling on Sunday afternoon but it was too cloudy to see anything. They could hear the parrot fish biting the coral looking for their favorite snack, algae. Another interesting fact about the parrot fish is that when they eat coral by mistake it comes out of the digestive tract as.....sand. Think about that your next tropical holiday (sand is crushed rock where we come from thank goodness).
Today Richard, Jenna and Catherine went snorkelling on the coral reef. The Florida Keys has the 3rd largest coral reef in the world. They had an amazing time. There is a bronze statue of Christ sunken in the water by a fellow who was marketing flippers. It is a replica of a Christ statue off the coast of Italy. You can't hug the statue because it is encrusted in fire coral which hurts quite a bit when you touch it. Jenna held the hand on the statue. Jenna also came face to face with a barracuda while snorkelling. The girls were both a bit nervous going out into open water to snorkel but they absolutely loved everything about it. While Richard, Jenna and Catherine were snorkelling Matthew, Rachel and I went on a glass bottom boat. It was spectacular and very informative as well. We saw parrot fish, gropers, angel fish, barracudas, and also many different kinds of coral, brain, fan and fire among others. It takes 50yrs for a brain coral to reach the size of a basketball. We saw one that was as big as a coke machine unfortunately the top was all broken because someone dropped an anchor on it. Now you may not use an anchor on the reef but can tie up to one of the bouys they have available. They estimate that this reef is between 5000 to 7000 yrs old. It really was an amazing trip.
After the boat/snorkelling trip we headed down the road to a hotel to use the pool and beach area (it is open to the public). The first of the cold front came this evening in the form of rain. It is nice though when the rain is warm. Tomorrow I think we will hang around camp and on Wednesday we are meeting up with some homeschoolers we met in church in Miami.

Thursday, Oct. 26

Yesterday we spent the day with our new friends from Miami. Their grandparents live in the Keys about 20 min. from our campsite. We met at the grandparents home and saw their lovely gardens which they were still busy rebuilding after all the hurricanes last year. In the 15 years they have lived there they have never encountered a hurricane season like the last one. Many of the plants were destroyed by the salt water. Our next stop of the day was Robbies which is where you can feed huge tarpon right off the dock. Many of the tarpon were 6ft. or over. They jump right out of the water when you hold a fish up. When we go back Richard wants to take the video camera. The rest of the day was spent on the beach. Jennifer has 3 children, one Catherine's age, one Rachel's age and one Matthew's age. They played all day. One of the interesting things they found was fish snot which is really the egg sack of one of the tropical fish. They had lots of fun with that stuff!
After the beach it was back to the grandparents home for some fishing. They live right on the water and the breakwater in front of the house is perfect for fishing. All the kids caught something. The tropical fish we threw back in but the red snapper they kept. While we sat there fishing we watched the sunset and also saw some dolphins playing near by us. It was really magical. It was hard to leave but we were all very tired after a full day. We hope to see more of the Fernandez!
Next day: we headed back to Robbies Pier with our video camera and got some great footage with the tarpon and also some with Matthew being chased by a pelican. On our way back we went to the bird santuary. It is a place of rehabilitation for many of the area bird which get injured by fishing line or being shot at. One of the parrots there was named Pickles he could talk and imitate sounds. There was also a cockateil and many pelicans, red hawks, egrets and white herons.
Over the weekend we had to move out of the state park for 2 nights because they were booked. We moved 1 mile down the road to a nice site right on the water with our own tiki hut. The kids spent the day fishing off the dock. They caught lots of fish. There was a haunted house to see that was put on by the local community. The kids got a few frights but on the whole it was pretty tame. The bag of candy was all that they really wanted.
On Sunday we returned to the CRC here in Miami. This must be the friendliest church we have encountered. After church we went to the Fernandez' for lunch. We had a great visit although I think Richard's back is a little sore from moving furniture for them (ha ha). They have a pool so the kids were busy. We had to leave too soon because we needed to move the trailer back to the state park.
On Monday morning we got up early to make the long trek down to the end of the Keys. On our drive to Key West we stopped at the Dolphin Research Centre. There were lots of dolphins doing tricks. The kids learned lots of interesting facts about dolphins like.....dolphins can count (they were training the 4yr old to count), dolphins don't have a sense of smell (their 5th sense is echo location), dolphins have sharp teeth and they only get one set of teeth for life. At Key West we stopped by the dock. We really loved Key West. It was so interesting. Million dollar boats beside broken down boat houses. The contrasts were incredible. We walked all along the dock. No pretty gated communities here, just a melting pot of rich and poor. We walked into a store that was full of sunken treasure from the Spanish Galleons. There were pieces of 8 and Dubbloons. One gold coin she let us hold was 300yrs. old and worth $18,000!
Yesterday we headed up to the Everglades for an airboat ride. It was lots of fun and loud! Good thing they give you ear plugs. We saw an alligator nest and 4 alligators in the wild. There are many species of birds and animals that make the Everglades their home. The grass forms a hammock where the animals like to stay. There are fox, otters, white tail deer, panthers, bears, snakes, scorpians and many invasive species such as black mambas, gaboon vipers, monkeys and pythons. Seems things thrive in the Everglades, even peoples' abandoned pets. After the ride one of the rangers spoke to us and let us get up close and personal with the alligators. He showed us a skunk and toad (asked Catherine to kiss it and see if it was a prince) and a scorpian as well as a 4 wk, 10 month and 4 year old alligator. We all learned lots and it was so much fun. Did you know that temperature determines whether an alligator will be male or female in the egg? 89F or above male, 84F a female. Who knew??
After the alligator encounter we headed to the Fernandez' house so the kids could spend Halloween going to a church activity in their neighbourhood. We even had a sleep over there and went ice skating in the morning. That was a bit of a laugh. Richard put some skates on and tried to skate but the skates were so dull he kept slipping. He asked the guy to sharpen them but the guy said they keep them dull because when fights break out they tend to be used as weapons. Finally the guy agreed to sharpen Richard and Jenna's. Next thing I know Richard is sprawled on the ice.....all the skates have toe picks!! No guy skates in Miami.....who knew?? The kids had lots of fun. Matthew was getting really good and didn't want to come off the ice. We have had a wonderful time with the Fernandez' and it was hard to say good-bye to them. Hopefully they will make it to BC.
Tomorrow we are off to Fort Myers.