Under the Sea!

I woke up around 5:30 and thought that people will be parking again soon, so I got out of that garage. Only cost me around 35 bucks. Much better than the 200. I drove to a nearby Publix to wait until 7 for our breakfast run (ice, drinks, some food for the day, water). One thing about Key West are the chickens. Cute during the day but at night or early morning, the roosters just don't shut up...

Dozed on and off till 7. When the store opened, we got some portabello mushrooms, three slices of Muenster cheese, gatorade, fruit, and other goods. Since this was plannedas a park day so I prepped.

When we showed up at the Bahia Honda State Park and asked about getting a camping spot, we were put on a waiting list and were told to come back at 1 p.m. Figured we would explore the beach. I decided to grab my snorkel. Oh my god, I'm so glad I did. The coral reef is right on the beach, just pas t the sea grass! JJ didn't snorkel but he put on the mask to look. He spotted a starfish and we picked it up and studied it. All the stuff we learned from the touch tank in Key West was applied here.Cool! We found an urchin and while snorkeling, I found a huge shell, but it had a counch inside. It was beautiful. I found a couple small shells for my collection. Also spotted lots of fish ( tropical) coral reef. My favorite fish I saw was the cowfish. Looks like puffer but it's square.

Even with multiple uses of SPF 100, I got sunburn but it was so worth it. (Actually looking back, this was a really bad sunburn that lasted well after the vacation was over, but I didn't know it at the time).

So far we've seen both sides of the keys: The party side and the nature / Reef Beauty. Seeing that if we moved our car, there would be no parking spots, we walked back to the ranger station. We arrived ten minutes early, but we hung out. Fortunately for us, a tent/RV spot opened up. He let us in he let us buy it for the night. It was concrete / gravel but we made it home. The park was full of people, speaking Spanish, some English, some Chinese, some Japanese; all having a good time. No rain.

We parked in the spot and used the car as an anchor to make our living space.Used tarps for a canopy; we learned our lesson now. I set up a clothesline to wash some of our clothes. Cooked up our dinner and J.J helped with the dishes. Finally got to relax.

In our camp, there was a hole by my chair and there was this crab. He would creep out a little, but when I wanted to take a picture, he would run back in and stare at me. Tried messing with his little home but he didn't come out. I felt bad that I messed with his little home so I fixed it.

I love that the park offered showers and bathrooms. My back was burning so Ispent some time under a cold shower. When nighttime happened, we started to settle down. I decided to take some pictures of the sunset hitting a bridge.

After night happened, I had to go outside for a few moments and I looked up. There were a vast amount of stars, more stars that I have seen in so long. J.J. was already sleeping and you can't really get him up for nothing. I got some sleep but I woke up around 11 because there was something going on outside.

From what I understand there were way too many people at the campsites and the Rangers were trying to get control. That wasn't happening so the cops were called and there were a lot of crying, whining and bitching. I remember people going from one camp site to another. They must have been all over and friends. so that everybody was like equally distributed so no one really got in trouble until later. After some time, everything got quiet and started to settle down. I went back to sleep. 

Overall, my experience with Bahia Honda State Park was amazing! The camping was great and the beaches were wonderful. I would love to go back there again.