Beach Trip 2013 Update #2

4th of July was beautiful. We headed out to the Content Keys, which was about a 1/2 hour boat ride from their house. It was another local hangout, and as you can see, is absolutely beautiful. The time to go is low tide, because the water recedes and leaves a beautiful white sand beach underneath.

My beautiful girls

Our family

We discovered that Kaylin LOVES snorkeling in the shallow water like this. She did it at Bahia Honda too, and loved it.

This is Bobby and Macy. Love this picture! They saw a stingray and followed it. Macy was so excited!

We moved to another place that was deeper, and had a reef so there were more fish to see. More snorkeling!

Me and the girls. I've never been able to find a snorkel mask to fit my face, so I just swam with them and enjoyed the time in the water.

The kids would swim for a while, then need a break to eat a snack, then head back out.

Bobby and Kaylin on the way back

Two of the most memorable events of the trip happened this day.

In the second place we were snorkeling, we heard Jon say "shark". Jen and I headed for the boat quickly, and the kids were already there. Jon disappeared for a while, and Jen and I were getting a little worried. When he came back, he said the shark had circled him two or three times, and nipped at him. He made it back to the boat before it circled again, but he was going to stab it with his speargun if it came back again. Bobby was mad he didn't get to see it.

Then on the way back to the house, we ran into a little bit of rain.  About the same time I saw the rain, I heard Jon say, "This is going to hurt. We can't stop!" and the next thing I know, we were getting pelted with rain. IT HURT so bad! We were going full speed, and that rain felt like pellets stinging. It only lasted a minute, thankfully. The girls have enjoyed telling that story.

That night, we loaded up in the boat again to watch fireworks. The timing wasn't great, but hey--we were on a boat in the ocean watching fireworks. What could be bad about that? In the far distance, we could see the fireworks from Key West.

One of the best 4th of July's I've ever had!