Beaches and Beaches...in Key Largo

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It was a change of pace today. While our other days on the trip have generally been action packed, with hiking, walking, tours and lots of stops, today was just one location, and lots of relaxing. We went to the John Pennekamp State Park, and enjoyed time on there beaches. It was anice opportunity to swim, snorkle a bit and lie on a towel and read in the shade of a tree. The first beach you encounter at Pennekamp is Cannon beach. We stayed an hour or two at Cannon beach. It is a rocky and hard to walk on beach, but there are trees to find shade under, and some remnants from a Spanish ship wreck about a hundred feet from shore to snorkle out to. There are a number of sunken cannons and a very large anchor to swim around, and while I was out there I also saw a large school of very small fish, a small group of some cooler larger fish, and best of all, a sea horse. An actual real sea horse. About 6 inches tall, it let me watch it for a while, and then swam away with surprising speed. With the swim done, lunch over, and some reading done, we went on to another beach at the park.

The second beach we visited was Far beach. This beach was smaller, a bit sandier, but overall way better. More space on the beach and more shade from a whole bunch of large palm trees made for better experience, and the entrance into the water was soft and sandy, compared to the rocky and sort of painfuil entrance to Cannon beach. We snorkeled (nothing at all to see here), swam, and lied under the palm trees and read our books. It was quite a bit more relaxing today. We both got some sun, but no burns today, which is always good. We left satified and rested, looking forward to a few more activities later.

When we returned to the hotel, we took advantage of the free kayaks that they have here and we went out for a short ride around the mangrove shores of Key Largo. We saw some large birds I couldn't identify, got some exercise and some good photos, and the had to hurry back when Jackie saw a small fin sticking out of the water (probably a small shark) and got worried. We hustled back, and went for a swim in the pool and hot tub, and that was that, a great day. Dinner tonight will be at Senor Frijoles with a sunset view. It should be good.

Dinner was disappointing. Great location, great view, mediocre Mexican food. It's especially mediocre in comparison to the super flavourful Mexican food at Alejandro's in Roanoke. Oh well. And we ended our night with a romantic swing on this neat comfy couples swing here at the hotel while listening to live music from across the bay and looking at the stars.

Tomorrow, Bahia Honda and a move to Key West.

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