Something in the Water

Yes- this was a long day, we went to the Everglades, checked in at the hotel, and then to finish off the day we went snorkeling at John Pennekamp. 

Yea!  We made it!

setting up camp

All right kids, time to practice snorkeling!

These kids were amazing! Makayla and Emma were just like fish in the water.

Emma getting the hang of it.

Kyle

Mark and Makayla

Derek had no interest in snorkeling, he was perfectly happy just hanging out in the water!

The group

What you go there Darren?

Fun!

Can you see that fish?

Emma

There is an achor and some really cool cannons that are about 100 feet off shore.  It was fun to snorkel around them.

Ellie swimming down!- I can hardly even do that!

Here is one of the cannon's

Hello me!

This picture doesn't do it justice- this fish was so pretty, it had these cool blue stripes on it.

Can you spot the baby sting ray that we saw?

 So, as we were finishing up snorkeling and the sun was setting we were looking at the water,  I was about knee deep when all of a sudden something very large surfaced and went back down.  It was huge- at least 6 feet long, and it was where I had been snorkeling moments before!  I yelled at everyone and we looked- and it came up again.  I jumped in and started swimming after it- I figured it was a manatee and wanted to see it up close! But then the water started to get murky and I started to think, "what the heck am I doing following a large sea creature that I THINK is a manatee?  What if it's not?"  So I stopped following and we watched the mysterious thing swim away. It was cruising!    I asked a ranger who happened to be there and he confirmed what we thought.  He said there is a trench there where the manatees sleep and then they swim out of the area around dusk.  I got a good adrenalin rush out the whole incident!   As we stood there watching the water the Tarpon started biting too.  They are a big fish-2-6 feet  and come up and twist in the water so you see a bunch of fins above the water.  It is pretty cool to watch.  It was an incredible evening!