Camping in Bahia Honda

Last week, we headed south to Bahia Honda State Park in the Keys. Located just south of Marathon, the park is absolutely gorgeous - probably the prettiest beaches in the Keys.

Yes, we went camping. In the Keys. In August. I was reluctant to do it when Holly suggested it (I don't usually camp in the summer - anywhere) but agreed once I figured out I could bring an air conditioner for the tent.

We had a great time. The kids got to snorkel in beautiful waters, and see some wildlife they would never get an opportunity to see. It's a shame that we didn't have a waterproof camera, since most of that wildlife was in three feet of salt water.

I think the coolest thing we saw was a baby sea turtle, swimming out to sea. There were nests up and down he beach, and on Wednesday morning, about 11am, I spotted a dark object in the surf. David and I swam over and saw that it was a small turtle, about five inches long, swimming like crazy for open water. Holly and Chase joined us and we watched the turtle for a minute or so, before backing off and letting it get on with its business. It was awesome.

We also saw stingrays, a barracuda, and a variety of fish and coral - all within a half mile of our tent. That's a heck of a beach.

The weather was fine - hot as hades, but bearable in the shade with a breeze. It stormed pretty bad the first night, but the tent held up to the 40mph winds and horizontal rain very well.

We drove down to Key West as well, but none of us were very impressed. We did go into Fort Zachary Taylor State Park, which was very nice, but the rest of the city was underwhelming.

We hunted down four geocaches in the Keys, which was a lot of fun.

I've attached a slide show of pictures taken on the trip.

Cheers!