Thursday February 19, 2026
We packed up early and got on the road by 8:30 am to make the 2.5 hour drive to Biscayne National Park to explore the northernmost Keys. It is a nature preserve spanning about 20 square miles east of Miami. We looked at the Visitor Center museum and watched an education film and I learned how the keys were formed (ancient exposed coral reefs). We took a short nature walk along the shore and mangroves surround. Then we found a picnic table and ate the tuna sandwiches I prepared. :) We had plenty of time to change before our excursion at 2 pm so we sat and waited a bit, and Shawna went back to the car thrice to leave something or get something lol.
This was the "speed boat." The driver went 40mph for eight miles to the first snorkel spot. Our hair whipped our faces and my hat was bent in half in the wind as we speed-boated to Elliot Key, an eight mile long 1/2 mile wide key with coral shores. This was my favorite snorkel excursion. The water was a bit warmer and there were lots of things to see--lobsters, puffer fish, long barracudas, Kim even spotted an Octopus! Trumpet fish, angel fish anemones, conchs. My mask was leaking and giving me fits and I had to stand up once because I was swallowing sea water and my eyes were stinging. Not a good idea, everything is coral and sea grass and you really shouldn't be touching anything. Despite the mask issues it was the funnest and prettiest spot to me.
We speed boated to a second Key to snorkel there and it wasn't as great. I was pretty much done, my neck and shoulders were stiff and sore from snorkeling 4 days in a row and there wasn't as much to see as the first place, just lots and lots of sea grass. The speed ride back to the mainland was cold--now we're wet--but she broke it up a bit by stopping at Bocachida Key, a small party island with a non-functioning lighthouse built in the 1920's. We got to climb up the lighthouse and see the arial view of the Keys in Biscayne. So beautiful! We got back to visitor center at 5:15pm and I speedy quick changed into dry clothes and took a turn driving the car (since Shawna drove us there) back to Marathon Key. We saw the most beautiful and vibrant sunset on the way home! The sun had already set but the deep red and pink color was unparallel, we all gasped. It only took 2 hours to go back and we got Wendy to our verbo in plenty of time to teach her Pathways class at 8 pm.
Kim, Shawna, Amy and I went back out after a quick clean up. Kim made us a dinner reservation at 8pm at Cast Away, a local favorite restaurant in Marathon we hadn't tried yet. That place was packed! We got 4 different types of fish entrees and 2 Shushi rolls. We wanted to get Lionfish after learning in Biscayne it is an invasive species eating all the fish in the Keys, but they were all out. It was so expensive I started having spending anxiety. Seems I've been handing out cash tips and whipping out my credit card every two minutes on this trip, and the $26 sushi rolls and $36 entree were the straws that broke my conscience. It was very good! But I had to call Jared on the ride back to confess my spending sins. He was very cool about it and encouraged me to just enjoy myself.
We were all pretty tired at 9 pm eating late again and started having the giggles, saying out of pocket things or laughing more than the situation merited. For example, when the menu misspelled Shrimp to SHIRMP. Amy kept saying "I think I'll get the shermp," and we couldn't understand why she was saying it like that until she pointed out the typo, then we couldn't stop saying it like that! I ate too much again but slept decent despite that. This time everyone went straight to bed! Work hard play hard. :)
