FLORIDA: It’s a bit of a choppy ride…

Bev Fearis and family get a shock to the system when they leave the laid back Florida Keys and hit the bright lights of South Beach Miami.

"We didn’t really want to leave Islamorada and could have done with a few more days chilling out at the Pine and Palms, but it was time to move on. Thankfully, we’d pre-booked a glass bottom boat tour on our way to Miami, which made it easier to persuade Freddie to get back into the hire car without any fuss.

We drove 40-50 minutes north to the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, which prides itself on being America’s first undersea park. Established in 1963, the park, combined with the nextdoor Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, covers 178 nautical square miles of coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangrove swamps and is the only living coral reef in the continental US. It’s also the third largest coral barrier reef in the world, after the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the Meso-American Reef in Belize. Impressive credentials indeed.

We had been told to arrive well in advance of our tour and we weren’t the only ones. We collected our tickets and were warned that it was going to be a big choppy (3ft waves). "If you’re prone to sicknes and have pills, take them," we were advised. Neither Warren nor I have good sea legs, so we bought some from the boat crew. We didn’t want to take any chances.

The Spirit of Pennekamp is the park’s flagship glassbottom boat and can carry up to 130 passengers. Tours take 2hrs 30mins and take you out to the reef for around 30-40 minutes viewing and then back again.

The open top is the best place to sit if you’re a bad sailor, so that’s where we sat. We set off through the mangroves, the water like a millpond, and I began to wonder why we’d bothered with the tablets. Even when we were out in the ocean and going at top speed, I felt fine. The young crew looked after us, telling us to move to starboard to avoid the spray of the waves, or was it port? (I told you we aren’t good sailors). When we were finally over the reef, we were invited down to the lower inside deck to take our positions around the glass bottom.

The reefs are home to over 260 species of tropical fish and around 80 species of coral. We saw lots of parrotfish, damselfish, snappers, grunts, and even a barracuda, and we were even lucky enough to see a ray, which are usually very shy. I could tell the ray was a rarity by the excitement of the guide, whose enthusiastic commentary almost reached fever pitch. Freddie was more interested in the crisps for sale at the bar, and in the end we gave in to his requests – just to keep him quiet for a bit.

It was all going well, until I started to feel a bit hot, then a bit thirsty, and then I knew the dreaded sea sickness was taking hold. I missed the last 10 minutes of the viewing and joined the other sufferers back on the top deck, all of us peering at the horizon in silence. At least I’d been there to see the ray.

I’m not sure what kind of sea sickness pills they gave us, but both Warren and I got off the boat and felt absolutely spaced out. All we wanted to do was have a lie down, so we were pleased that the Pennekamp Park also has two small beaches. We laid down our beach towels and Warren took a nap (he was driving), while I watched Freddie splashing around in the shallow water.

We’d done a lot of driving on our trip, but so far it had all been relatively stress-free. Long straight roads, not a great deal of traffic, and our trusty Hertz Neverlost had made it all very easy. But as we approached Miami, it all got hectic. Driving on the right hadn’t been a problem for us – we live in Brittany for some of the year, so we’re used to that – but the highways in Miami are sometimes six lanes across and, to add to the confusion, there are exits not only on the right, but on the left too. Still feeling a bit drowsy from the sea sickness pills, and not used to the sheer volume of traffic (by now it was rush hour), we missed an exit – or maybe two – and seemed to be getting nowhere. When we finally reached South Beach, it was dark and the party crowd was starting to venture out for the night. When we pulled up outside our hotel, the Catalina, we realised it was very much a part of the party scene. The pavement outside was swarming with people, dressed to impress and sipping cocktails. It was more like a nightclub than a hotel. We later realised we’d arrived during the hotel’s Happy Hour.

Getting to our room was all a bit of blur. I remember that Warren was in charge of dealing with the valet, who was looking like he’d already had a long night, while I tried to negotiate getting Freddie, the pram and three weeks’ worth of luggage from the car and through the cocktail-drinking revelers to the lobby. It was no mean feat, and didn’t get much easier when we were handed our key and told that our room was actually in a completely separate building next door. Luckily, a porter had now appeared and was piling our bags on to a trolley, leading the way and reassuring us that "you’ll be much better off in this building, it’s much quieter".

We went to bed a little disorientated but glad to be safely tucked away from it all. After a few gentle days in the Keys, our arrival in the city had been a bit too much. Within just 24 hours we were to find ourselves fully embracing the craziness of South Beach and loving the Catalina, but first we needed a good night’s sleep."
 

www.visitflorida.com

www.miamiandbeaches.com