The Ten Keymandments
Don't anchor on a reef. (Reefs are Alive. Alive. A-L-I-V-E) Don't feed the animals. (They'll want to follow you home, and you can't keep them.) Don't trash our place. (Or we'll send Bubba to trash yours.) Don't touch the coral. (After all, you don't even know them.) Don't speed. (Especially on Big Pine where deer reside and tar-and-feathering is still practiced.) Don't catch more fish than you can eat. (Better yet, let them go. Some of them support schools.) Don't collect conch. (This species is protected. By Bubba.) Don't disturb the bird nests. (They find it very annoying.) Don't damage the seagrass. (And don't even think about making a skirt out of it.) Don't drink and drive on land or sea. (There's absolutely nothing funny about it.)
(from my travel guide)

Key West

Then we left to the Keys. The travel took some hours (3? 4?). We tried to find a cheap camping place from the middle Keys, but couldn't find any before Key West. The camping place there was perhaps not the best quality, but much better than having no place at all.

We went to reserve the snorkling trip for tomorrow afternoon. The trip was about $35 for four hours. Maybe not the cheapest one available, but we didn't have too many choises.

We walked around the Key West city center, and rented bicycles ($6/day) and then drove around the island.

Me at the southernmost point of (continental) USA

Susanna and Ian in Key West in the evening

After the stroll we went back to the camping place and put up our tents. It turned out that the rocky ground was not really very ideal for sleeping. But, who cares about that afterwards.

Sunday July 10th, morning
In the morning we went to walk around the city again a little. After that we went to the harbour; the boat was supposed to leave at 14:00.

In the harbour

Saturday July 10thm, 14:00-
The boat left from the harbour and took us some 17 miles out in the sea, where the coral reef was. We were to go to two different sites, and dive for one hour at each site.
We were given lots of instructions during the boat ride. About the equipment, safety, and conduct at the reef.

The first site was excellent. Well, it's a bit difficult to describe the reefs, the different corals, and the many kinds of fishes I saw there. It was very nice to just float in the surface and follow schools of hundreds of fishes that swam along the ridge of the reef. Especially beautiful were black-blue fishes that had a fluorescent, glowing blue mane. I saw also two barracudas, which swam rather quickly. Some barracuda species are very aggressive, especially the Great Barracuda, which can be almost 2 meters long. These ones were much smaller, just about a meter or so.

Many people got very sick, and two threw up over the board. I got somewhat sick too. I think it was the combination of swallowing salt water and the rocking boat. It got better when the boat was moving, and when we got back to the water at the second site.

The second site wasn't really very interesting. I went to the wrong side of the boat and didn't find the reef, and the waves were too big for me to see the other snorklers. I did see two more barracudas. I heard that some people had seen a shark.

Preparing to dive

Back in the harbour again

Sunday July 11th, about 19:00
After a short final stroll around the Key West city we headed back to Miami.

Some aeroplane taking of from...Key Marathon, I think.

A bridge

The same bridge as above. It was an older bridge.

Here is the 7 miles long bridge

Unfortunately the car broke down when we were almost back at Ian and Susanna's place. The left tyre broke at 100km/h speed, and we had to stop. The tyre had been peeled off and car's left corner had been broken and the lamp was missing. Susanna called for police, because there might have been some scrap on the road which had broken the car (as well as the lamp), and so we waited for them for over an hour. When they came they concluded that we had hit a railing, which we were quite sure we didn't.

We concluded that the tyre had been bad, which had caused some wobbling in the car, which had broken the tyre, which had somehow broken the corner while peeling off at high speed. Anyways, we got the broken lamp back, but the spare tyre was flat. Because the police didn't like to help with that, Ian had to call a friend to come with his spare tyre. We got a tyre, and after a while finally got to our destination.

A very sad ending for an otherwise very nice trip. Well, we got back very very late (at about 3:00), very tired. My bus to Orlando left at 6:00, so I had to wake up at 4:30 and take a taxi to the Grayhound bus station. We had just one hour to sleep.

Monday July 12th, 05:00
The taxi came at about 5:00. I packed up my things and said very tired goodbyes to Ian and Susanna, who also hadn't slept almost at all. The taxi was about $30, but I had prepared for some taxi expenses.

I got to the bus station, and bought the ticket (about $35).