Sand Key

Recently we took a daysail out to the reef to go snorkeling.  Had a blast, although seeing a shark sent Jamie into a mild panic attack.  Understandably, I suppose.  Sharks do look scary, and this was Jamie's first face to face encounter with one.  (Well, other than feeding them in the little Key West Aquarium, where, truthfully they seem more like pets.) But the "usually harmless" 5-6 ft. nurse shark didn't give us a second glance as he shot off in the other direction.  

Barracudas, on the other hand, seem to like to hang around, stealthily checking us out, and frankly, I'm more nervous about them than I am sharks.  They are stalkers, and seem to always be watching you, much like in a haunted house where the eyes in the painted portraits follow your every move....<shiver>  

Anyway, here are some pics of our jaunt, with some commentary from the boys.

Dad and me snorkeling.

 One day we decided to sail the boat out to Sand Key, about a mile away.  We wanted to go there to snorkel.  Here are some picures from our experience. - by Brady and Jamie
                                   

I (Jamie) am cranking the winch.

Brady is putting up the sail.

On our way.  We are sailing now.

This is the lighthouse at Sand Key.  They have the lighthouse here on the reef so people don't run into it at night.  There are mooring balls set up around the reef for boats who want to use them so they can go snorkeling.

I snorkeled all around the lighthouse.

There were fish all over.

A barracuda was hanging out around the bottom of our boat.  Some little fish were hanging around him, maybe cleaning him.  He seemed really curious about us.  I (Brady) got really close to him.  I could have reached out to touched him, but I didn't!

Close up of a barracuda.

Here's some of the fish we saw.

A blue parrot fish.  They eat coral.

It's fun to stand up front like this.  Dolphins came and swam next to our boat.

You can see the reef here.  It looks kind of yellowish.  We put up a red dive flag so other boats know we are diving and don't run over us.

This is us leaving the reef.  We had a great day.

Snorkeling Adventures

Explorers R Us

The cut, with current.

          The other day we went to explore a tiny island close by.  As we were driving around the island we noticed a narrow passageway and we realized it was actually two islands but they were very close together.  

It looked there was only one island but somebody cut them apart.  We went to go and check it out.   We stopped between the islands and decided to go snorkeling there.  We found a VERY fast current ran between the islands.  We saw a bunch of baby barracudas, coral, a big huge crab, and sponges, and lots of sea grass.  Then we decided to go some somewhere else to snorkel.  We saw a big sting ray and a bunch of of cormorants, frigates, seagulls, snowy egrets, and blue heron.  We had fun. 

Snorkel fun.

Just after seeing the Ray...

Wreck site from sea level.

Fish on the wreck.

                              
The next day we heard a roar of a dingy engine coming toward us and noticed it was our friends from the anchorage.  They said that they were going to go snorkeling on a wreck close by.  
So we hopped in our dingy and followed them to the wreck.  We anchored and jumped in the water and snorkeled on the wreck.  it was really cool.  There was lots of coral and fish everywhere. 

Jamie launching from the dinghy.

Thumbs up.

  
I (Brady)  also found a small anchor on the bottom and after diving six feet down several times I managed to bring it up from the bottom and put it in the dingy.   By BRADY and JAMIE 

Brady's first salvage treasure.