In Biscayne National (Underwater) Park we had booked, earlier than originally planned, two trips. Since Biscayne is a coral reef hiking is not really that easy (well, it does have some islands as well .. so maybe we could have done it), so we wanted to take a glass bottom boat trip and snorkel – the glass bottom boat trip was really mostly for Felix being able to see something since he cannot snorkel.
Felix has become a lot better in the water than he used to be, but he is not the most adventures person when it comes to water.
To get to the outer reef in Biscayne it takes about an hour and the glass bottom boat was pretty noisy. There was a bit of wind and it was high tide the day we went out, so the captain had some trouble keeping the boat in one place so we could see something. The colors of the reef were not these fancy red and blue colors like we thought they would be (we both completely forgot that we actually saw a program on TV about the Biscayne coral reefs once where they said exactly this), more green and sand colors, and it was honestly not that easy to see something. Felix’ most exciting moment was when he was allowed up in the cabin with the captain steering the boat.
After the first trip we were really in doubt whether it was worth to go snorkeling, too, since we could not see much, but we ended up going – partly because they wanted to go somewhere else so we would not have to look at the same corals twice. This time we took a boat which was faster and quieter (I do not think it actually took much less time getting out, however!).
Snorkeling was great!!! Yes, the colors were still were mostly green and beige, and it still wasn’t as clear as one could have dreamt about, but this time we could see quite well. We also saw quite an amount of fish, of which the most special we saw was a parrot fish (at least I think that is what it was).
Felix even got to get in the water with us. We wanted to switch off being on the boat with him, but the captain read in book for Felix, while we got one round in the water together.