Key Largo trip

April 29, 2011
Third times the charm! The past 2 trips to the keys (that included me) we have had no less than bad luck with the weather. The first year crazy thunderstorms approached our boat and we had 5 foot swells when we were out to sea! Last year we thought we'd take Savannah along but the wind was too strong and also produced large swells and poor visibility. Well, this year we had the best weather! The forecast didn't make it look like we were going to have the ideal weather for snorkeling however it turned out sunny and perfect! Our friends Tony and Jana were awesome for taking care of the kids. They ended up having a blast and we can't thank them enough. Aaron and I have snorkeled quite a bit on our trips to the Caribbean so this time I thought since we were in home waters we could brave it and get re-certified to scuba dive. It's been, well, 10 years since we scuba dived last ( bahamas for our honey-moon). Thanks to Mike and his awesome friend/dive instructor we spent the night before in the pool refreshing our scuba skills! We were set off to the keys we go! This trip we went with the Stevens, Mike, Dave, Jamie and the Apontes.

Taken of Key Largo from the car on the 4 hour drive down!

Here we are waiting for our first stop Molasses reef which was a 30 ft dive.

Becky the Dive Master. Thank goodness for Becky's help getting us reacquainted with the whole diving process. Needless to say we were novices!

All geared up and nervous! at least I was:)

The hard part for me was jumping in the water and climbing back in the boat! The gear is so heavy. Guess i need to do some weight training before next time.


Gorgeous tourqoise water!

So glad Aaron was able to clear his ears and enjoy the dive!

Brain Coral. I need to get Aaron on here and name all the fish and coral in the pictures.

Looks relaxing right? I was actually pretty nervous! The second day was much better. It took a while to get used to the breathing and my mask didn't fit right.

Mike

Free Diver Dave! I think Savannah is going to be as good a diver as he is. She loves diving in the ocean to find creatures.

Day 2 we stopped at Christ of the Abyss and then North dry rocks. Both were shallow dives the deepest we went was 25 ft

Christ of the Abyss is a 8.5 ft sculpture. The original "Il Christo Degli Abissi" was placed in the Mediterranean Sea off Genoa Italy. A second statue was made and donated to Florida state park services.

As you might be able to tell we are still figuring out camera settings. Day 2 pics show our improvement.

Here is a little video we took you can see how the current makes it hard to hold the camera still.

This video is of a cute angel fish family, mom dad and baby. It was hard to capture them, there is also at the end one of my other favorites a turquoise parrot fish. Our video nor photographs captured how pretty their color is.

Good bye Keys Diver! Thanks for a great time and being so helpful!

One of the local places we ate at that had the yummiest pizza and garlic cheese rolls ever!!

After lunch we headed to Robies where you can buy a bucket of fish to feed the Tarpon! The Tarpon are huge. It always makes me a little nervous walking out on the boat dock. If I were to trip and fall into a school of Tarpon it might not be too fun!

This is a collection of lost items their fishermen find in the nets. Mostly glasses, cameras and hats. There where even a few I phones!

Mike feeding the tarpon pic 1...the next one is the best.

Yes! That is mikes hand in the tarpons mouth! It did scratch him and he did bleed a little bit. After that everyone else was a little hesitate to get too close to the water with the bait

The crew feeding.

The guys trying to get the fish to jump out of the water and grab the bait.

A picture of us in our lovely hotel room! The more the merrier...right? We actually did have more than one room

That night we played cards till early in the morning. Needless to say, for those that know Aaron well, Aaron lasted about 20 before his head started to hit the table. I do have a pic of him falling asleep but he wouldn't let me post it.

The next day we didn't want our vacation to end so we made one last adventure to Miami. First we did a little shopping at Lincoln rd Mall, then a little time at South beach. Quite an experience in and of itself!

The last picture. Finally!!!