January 1, 2012

Welcome to the new year! After everything is counted, I realized that I have spent 400+ hours in the ocean in 2011. As the new year arrived, I thought the best place to spend it would be in, you guessed it, the ocean! Even though I have been battling a cold/flue, I thought that it should not slow me down (I feel a lot more sick today as I write this LOL). Water temperature on the GPS read 69 degrees F, how great! Well the destination of the day was Boca Chita inside of Key Biscayne National Park. Being that this was a weekend and the amount of boats that would be on the water, I decided to leave the jet ski at home and head out with my brother on our boat. No need for cop trouble, having owned a Ford Mustang before I know how they like to follow those We headed out early in the morning. I won't bore you guys with the pictures of the trip over as it mostly would include marina's and other boaters.

We were lucky, 2-3 foot seas all day long on this adventure!



Our first area that I found interesting was Stiltsville! The name actually accurately describes the homes. They are all built on stilts! They are located just one mile south of Cape Florida and its lighthouse. Being that it is super shallow we had to remain in the channel and could not stray. The homes were built in the 1930's and have survived all of our hurricanes, including Andrew!

Some of the homes






Our next stop was Boca Chita. Unfortunately every single docking location was filled with boats, Winter in Miami let me tell you!





The water is extremely clear in this location and you can easily see the bottom, its a pretty nice adventure!


We were greeted by our new friends along the way!



After finding a non-shallow water way around the islands, we found a way into the ocean. We had to keep the boat on plane or it would draft too much water and we could possibly have lost a lower unit.

Adventure ahead!


Our next stop was the Fowey Rocks Lighthouse. This time I had fins, masks, and other snorkeling gear ready to go!

The lighthouse is absolutely beautiful in its old weathered stage.


And here are the underwater pictures that I took with my camera. I was using an Olympus Stylus 3000 point and shoot.














We were surrounded by beautiful water!

And just like all good things, my time on the water came to an end, we were ready to head home!