The Great South Florida Adventure

By this time you've probably noticed that, to us, almost everything is an adventure. Maybe not all of our activities rise to the true level of "adventure" in your view, but life is what you make of it.


Chicago winters are not much fun; lots of snow and no place to sled. No place to put all the snow you shoveled off your walk either. Besides that, we only rarely get to see the sun, usually when the temperature plunges so low that it's just too cold for clouds. Rather than try to put a positive spin on this and tell ourselves we were having the "great Chicago winter adventure" we decided to take more decisive action. And thus began our journey to the sunny climes of Miami Beach.

Now there is not too much to say about all our activities for the first few days. We were hoping for 5 solid days of sunshine, but Monday and Tuesday were mostly overcast. As it turns out, this was probably for the best. 2.5 days of sun was about as much as we could handle, pale as we were. Our time was mostly spent chasing the sun around the beach. As many high rises as there are along the coast, you really have to get in your sunbathing early in the day before the buildings block it out.

In the evenings, we ate seafood: lobster, stone crabs, scallops, various fishes, a few shrimp and oysters. I didn't' have much experience with these creatures (most Kansans don't, I think), but it was all very good.

















And this brings us to the real adventure of the trip which was snorkeling in Key Largo. This spot, at the very southern tip of Florida, is near some national marine sanctuary that features several coral reefs. To get to these reefs we had to take a boat about 5 miles out into the Atlantic. The water was a bit choppy, and this led to several instances of seasickness on our boat (including Liz).

Neither of us had been snorkeling before, so it took a few minutes to figure out how to work the flippers and breathing tube. Once we did we could see all kinds of fish and coral. Here are a few pictures.

And now for the drama of the day... as we floated about aimlessly, what should appear but a....

Shark!!!

There, that is all the dramatic flair I can muster. So we saw a shark swim right in front of us. Someone had asked the boat captain earlier what to do if we saw a shark. His answer was "take a picture." So that's what we did. I don't know what kind this is--maybe a gray reef shark or something. We learned later that, at least in this area, most snorkelers don't get to see a shark, though all of them are "seen by sharks." Happily we were among the fortunate minority and we even had a camera handy.

Now we are home and sunburned and eager for spring. And eager for more adventures.
That's all from here.
-Eric