We went down to Key Largo to do some snorkeling and thought to share some of our photos with you. Of course Heinz and Frenchie were not along for the trip. We talked about that in our last post. They were parked in the garage that weekend. We missed them but we had a great time anyway.
We went out on a catamaran named Quicksilver. The boat takes a group out to two different coral reefs and you have about an hour or more in each spot. The waters in the keys are so blue and so warm. It is such a pleasure to be out in the ocean swimming with exotic fish. Wish we had an underwater camera along with us, but we didn’t think of that. I think they sell cheap ones to the tourists for just such an occasion.
We stayed at the Ramada, right at the little cove where all the fishing and diving and snorkeling boats are moored. Here is a photo of the hotel and the small harbor.
One cannot go to Key Largo without taking a photo of the African Queen from the Bogart movie. So here it is.
We toured the Key Largo Grande Resort and Beach Club and had dinner there. This is a view from the balcony at the restaurant. Spectacular place and they preserved so much of the natural vegetation. Here is a link if you want to see it. http://www.keylargoresort.com/?src=sl_keywestcom_mainlink It is truly a beautiful place and the website is great! You will need some big bucks if you want to stay there. In our next life!
We continued down South to Islamorada. A truly beautiful area. Here is a link for more info. http://fla-keys.com/islamorada/ where we visited the World Wide Sportsman store. It is like visiting a museum of everything fishing related. We could spend hours just looking at all the equipment. They also have a fascinating aquarium. "World Wide Sportsman was designated as a Certified Audubon International Signature Sanctuary on September 22, 1998 and celebrates over ten years of environmental stewardship and protection." For more information, go to: http://www.auduboninternational.org/
The wild birds are really beautiful and we were fascinated with this lovely white thief. I think it is a white heron. He had a brush of teal blue around the eyes that looked like he applied make up especially for this photo session. And he was quite tall when he decided to give it a stretch. He was hanging out in the bait room hoping to steal a little from an unsuspecting customer.
Could not resist taking this photo of a tired old pelican, hope he is retired, and a proud little sea gull. Since our knowledge of birds is limited, if we didn't call these guys right, feel free to let us know.
Hope you enjoyed this and that it gave you some inspiration to visit the Florida Keys.
