John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park

     We have visited southern Florida before in our pop-up tent trailer when Arik and Matt were about six and four.  We stayed in a campground in Homestead and drove to Key Largo for the day.  The boys were too young for snorkeling so we decided to take them on a glass bottom boat tour to see the coral reef.    It wasn't a good experience for Matt who gets motion sickness.  The boat spewed deisel fumes.  When we got to the reef we went into the dark, poorly ventilated lower portion of the boat and watched the reef roll beneath us as the boat rocked.  I am almost always fine with waves, but Matt and I had to sit outside and breathe fresh air rather than look at the reef.

     Today we went back to the John Pennekamp Coaral Reef State Park.  It has a small land area as well as 70 nautical square miles of protected underwater area.  It is part of the third largest barrier reef in the world - the Great Florida Barrier Reef - and is the only live coarl reef in the continental United States.  The full reef system is four miles wide by 170 miles long, extending from Biscayne Bay National Park to the Key West area.  In the 1950's tourism to the keys increased and John Pennekamp, an editor for the Miami Herald, led a fight to protect the reef just as the Everglades had been protected in 1947 when the area became a National Park.  In 1969 Key Largo reef area became the John Pennekamp Coaral Reef State Park.  

    I read online that the old, smelly, glass bottom boat had been replaced by a new catamaran.  We went to the park and found a tour starting in 10 minutes, grabbed our lunch and sunglasses, and hopped onboard.  Our tour took us out through mangrove swamps where I added two more birds to my Florida list.  We got out to the ocean and found a nice breeze, some slow waves, and a lot of other boats enjoying the perfect day.  When we got to the reef we gathered around two big sets of glass panels which were between the pontoons.  We listened to the naturalist tells us about the fish and the coral.  We saw many varieties of colorful, tropical fish, a nurse shark and a green sea turtle.  In this nice, air conditioned, light space I had no queasy stomach at all, although there was plenty of advise and support for those folks who did.  When we returned to the dock we toured the small aquarium and saw more of the many species of fish and coral that we learned about on the tour.  

     After cooling off and resting back at our motel we went out to look for dinner.  I found a likely place on TripAdvisor but we couldn't find it.  Some of the roads are so short that they don't show up on my maps.  I looked some more and found a place called Ballyhoos Historic Seafood Grille which has been in Key Largo since the 1930s.  We sat outdoors among palms and magnolias.  Little curly-tailed lizards chased each other in the bushes.  The food was so delicious we had to take home our key lime pie to eat later.  

    We have seen a lot of folks closing up their boats and driving north.  Not us, tomorrow we head further south.