Tales from the Keys (part 3)

Sunday involved a bit of an early start, we wanted to go down to the Keys and go snorkling. We did this last time I was here and it was jolly good fun, so stopping only to get some blueberry pancakes (If the are blueberry they are bound to be good for you, blueberry's are a fruit after all) we hopped in a car and zoomed down to a national park where they had the boat tours out to a coral reef.

When we arrived Conrad went to get us tickets and I had a look at the pirate themed key-largo gifts. I got my little Brother a t-shirt that said 'Pirates have balls of steel'. I had a look at the hat section but they didn't have panama hats OR pirate hats for grown-ups which is a real shame.

Unfortunately the snorkling tour had been booked out so we had to go on the glass bottomed boat tour instead. This involved going to a slightly different reef so we piled on to that boat and took up position on the top deck just incase any pirates turned up and we would have to fight them off. The boat had a snack bar on it that sold drinks, crisps and drugs. I thought this was a brilliant idea but sadly the drug selection was limited just to ones for sea-sickness.

The tour was good, we bobbled around the sea looking at coral and fish while the slightly grumpy, but very well informed female tour guide told us about the different fish. She even said some of the fish were bad, which I liked the idea of. Bad Fish, go to your room.

After watching fish for about an hour we were feeling rather hungry for fish so we decided to find a local seafood place to see if we could eat anything we had seen. Conrad and his girlfriend wanted to go for a swim so we had a quick dip in a lagoon. I swam out far in my now traditional search for sharks/aligators and got to see a heron at extremely close range which was lovely. While bird watching I looked down and saw a long, green shape in the water. For a moment I thought it could have been an aligator but it turned out to be a cannon. There were a few lying around under the water and briefly I toyed with the idea of bringing them home but sadly there wasn't room in the car.

We jumped into the car and headed south on the road with the rule of stopping at the first place that had a sea view and seafood. On the right was a faded pink sign saying Snook's next to a little dusty road. We drove down it and there was a strange pink building with a group of tiki huts huddled next to it by the sea. It was an amazing sight so we grabbled a table and set about eating our own body weights in fish. After a massive feed, and a beautiful sunset over the sea we reluctantly left and began the long drive home which was uneventful apart from spotting a place that said 'Swim with dolphins'

So maybe my dream of punching one will come true.