On day six, we woke up at the same place for a second day in a row — a rarity on this trip. After eating a small breakfast in the hotel room we hopped on the resort’s tram to see the entire property. It was nice to see the whole place.
An hour later we were on the road again, driving north. For lunch we stopped at a key lime roadside shop. I had some fried fish and homemade coleslaw. Afterwards we all split some key lime pie. I bought a metal lizard as a souvenir. It wasn’t until I got in the car that I spotted the “Made in Haiti” sticker on the back. :(
Next stop was the Penneback state park, where we went snorkeling. After signing away our lives we hopped on a boat with 20 other people and drove out 8 miles to go snorkeling. After getting a 5 minute course on the boat we all jumped in the ocean one by one. It was very scary at first! The ocean floor varied from 10-20 foot deep out there and you could see the ground from the surface easily. It was very exciting and very exhausting. There were also jellyfish around us that we had to be cognizant of. There were fish all around us,, mostly small ones although we did see a couple of larger ones. We snorkeled for about an hour and that was enough for me. We took some pictures with a waterproof film camera. We will have to wait until we get home to see if they turned out.
After that all we did was drive. We drove from the Keys all the way up to Orlando, where we found a hotel for the night. The kids wanted Subway for dinner, so that’s what we had. Nothing exciting happened after that. We went to the hotel, checked in, and went to bed. Tomorrow we have a lot of driving on our plate. Our goal is to drive from Orlando Florida to Memphis Tennessee. Two more days on the road…
Sorry no pictures this time. I’m doing this update on the iPad.
It’s Pennekamp state park – John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. Worked for a dive shop out there in 1987. The jellyfish may have been Portuguese Man-O-Wars and they are nasty business. Had one divemaster get hit by a big one (the tendrils wrap around your leg and tiny spines inject poison, causing paralysis) – we had to manually pull him back onto the boat and administer a putty of water and Accent meat tenderizer (it’s what you did 20 something years ago – they probably have actual kits now).
Anyway, sounds like you guys had a great time snorkeling.