A Little Boca Chita Feb 5-7

The winds have been blowing hard from the north for a while now, and many boats have been waiting for the seemingly elusive opportunity to cross the Gulf Stream in safe conditions, but it has been over two weeks since the last favourable winds. So it is time to move on. We headed out to the neatest little island called Boca Chita Key, part of the Biscayne national park. It is a beautiful spot that was partially developed back in the 20s by Mark Honeywell (of thermostat fame). Now it is just a nice place to tie up a boat - especially on week days. Weekends the loud music on big boats arrive beating out the tunes of their cultural heritage. A very different flavour but still fun. If you look at the pictures you can see Tiffany Rose tied up and in the background only a few steps away is the ocean. A Ranger came along and gave a talk on the different ecosystems. More boating schooling on-the-fly! Christopher was interested in the different corals she brought along to show us, like the fan coral he's holding in the picture. We spent some good time exploring the island and going out at night to see if we could see the large land crabs that have been digging huge burrows all over the place. But they didn't show themselves to us.