Way down yonder in the swamplands of south Florida lies not one, not two, but three national parks. They each have their own unique elements; Dry Tortugas covers colonial history and island keys; the Everglades covers swampland, the river of grass, and mangrove stands; and then there’s the national park almost entirely devoted to marine life, Biscayne National Park. I mean, just look at a map of it:
It’s sort of neat when you think of it. The shallows just south and east of Miami are known ecologically as essentially an underwater savannah with abundant seagrass and plentiful wildlife. Our oceans have been decimated by pollution and climate change in recent decades. So how does the National Park Service respond? By putting its primary underwater national park within sight range of downtown Miami. Very neat stuff.
Elizabeth and I visited Biscayne in April 26th of this year as part of our friends trip. We both agreed that just visiting the shoreline and visitor’s center wasn’t going to cut it. If you’re making it a life’s mission to see every U.S. national park, it really behooves you to take your time at each one and enjoy it. Elizabeth took the lead on figuring out ways to explore the park further. She reported back two possibilities: kayaking in the mangroves, or a guided snorkeling tour on the barrier reef. I was sort of partial to the first; she was adamant on the second. Despite my mistrust of oceans, snorkeling, and fish, I reluctantly agreed. That’s part of what being a good spouse is all about. Kins/Keer/Moriah/James all opted out of snorkeling, which in fairness was the much-more-expensive option. They got themselves booked for the kayaking option a couple of hours earlier in the day. Accordingly, our group of six ended up separating for a good chunk of that Saturday. The other four of them left the AirBNB right after we returned from our morning crocodile spotting in Everglades, while Elizabeth and I had a little more time to kill.
Robert Is Here! Who is Robert, you ask, and where is he? Well, I’m not entirely sure who Robert is, but he’s made a killing over the years from Florida fruit. His fruit “stand” is more like an open-air bazaar. You can get papayas, pineapples, coconuts, flowers, ostrich eggs (?) while waiting for your world-famous Robert Is Here milkshake to arrive at the window.
Then you can grab your milkshake and wander back behind the market to check out the petting zoo or any number of street vendors with their products. Or you can just watch the chickens wander by.
Kitschy, quirky, unique – whatever word you want to use, I really enjoyed Robert Is Here. My only issue was my own milkshake order. I tried combining pineapple and coconut into my own pina colada shake with some vanilla to make it sweet. Robert is Here prides themselves on only using the fruit to flavor the shakes, and what I ended up with was a little too unsweet and a little off in flavor (probably from mixing those flavors with ice cream_. If you ever go to the stand, keep it simple and remember that you’re mixing dairy with whatever fruit you order.
Still sipping on our monstrously-sized shakes, Elizabeth and I drove from Florida City to Biscayne. It feels like that should be a longer undertaking than reality shows – the drive is only about 20 minutes. The drive goes right by the Homestead Speedway as well. My funny bone was tickled by the concept of a famous NASCAR track being tucked into a stretch of South Florida where a 20-minute drive east or west would lead you into a national park. And then, to top it all off, the last couple of miles of driving takes you through a web of cooling canals from a nuclear power plant. America is a land of contrasts.
The entrance sign and parking lot for the Dante Fascell Visitor Center are mere yards away from the ocean. Elizabeth and I parked the rental, took last gulps of our shakes, and slammed some water before we got out. It was hot and humid as hell even here in April in south Florida, and we didn’t want to take our chances on any sort of heatstroke. The snorkeling tour didn’t leave for another 45 minutes or so – maybe not enough time to check out the whole Visitor Center, but enough to wander the grounds. Almost immediately after reaching the boardwalk, I was amused to see a group of tourists lugging kayaks down into the shallows. Given the timing, it was probably… was it? Yup, it was! I waved and called out to our friends, some of whom did not look all that comfortable clambering into a kayak.
There were a bunch of people out enjoying the day on the boardwalk – some fishermen, some families, and some wanderers like ourselves. Across the vast expanse of ocean in front of us, the city of Miami shimmered like mirage on the horizon.
And there were lizards.
A gaggle of small groups and families waited on the back porch of the Visitor Center overlooking the marina. Although it wasn’t well marked, we assumed (correctly, it turned out) that these were the people waiting for the snorkeling tour. Elizabeth and I slathered the sunscreen on thick and waited for the tour vendor to arrive and start telling us what to do. Before too long, they had done so, and the underside of the Visitor Center was full of people trying on flippers for size.
We got seats on the front right side of the little 30-footer boat. There were maybe 10-15 other tourists with us, the boat’s captain, and another worker, so it was a rather snug fit. As the captained piloted us toward open water, she gave an excellent guided tour of the history, sights, and wildlife of Biscayne National Park. I think that’s what sets these tours booked at NPS units apart from tours you could book privately elsewhere – you learn a lot and the employees really are passionate about what they do.
Even though it was a brilliant day, there was a slight breeze. It added no more than a light chop to the water here on the interior part of Biscayne Bay. However, the captain was concerned that on the other side of the keys, the wind would be enough to stir up dirt in the coral reef and prevent us from getting pristine reef-viewing conditions. She opted to play it on the safe side and instead take us in close to the keys (Elliott Key maybe) to view the marine life close to the shoreline. I’m not a captain hired out by an NPS contractor to make those decisions, and based on the disappointment of a few of the people on board, I’m glad that I’m not.
It took about 20-30 minutes to get out to the staging spot. When the boat came to a stop, we were sitting in maybe 8 feet of sparkling clear water. The workers instructed us to put on our flippers, buoyancy vests and goggles (which had a nice lining of baby oil to keep them from fogging up) and to turn around to sit on the outside of the boat. Once we were ready, we could drop straight into the water and swim wherever we wanted (as long as we could still hear the whistle chiming that it was time to go). As someone with a known fear of aquatic life, this was a bit of a gut-check moment for me. I took a deep breath, squared up those fears, and plunged into the 80-degree water.
Elizabeth was a few feet away, waiting for me to finish thrashing around and start settling down. She already had her goggles on and snorkel ready to go. I stuck my head in the water and was given a glimpse into a whole new world. There below us was a pulsing meadow of sea grass looking yellowed and gnarled in the filtered sunlight. If you focused on any one place long enough, little pieces of motion gave away where tiny fish darted in and out of the sand. The water gradually shallowed out toward the rocks; I discovered how claustrophobic it could feel by swimming into an area so shallow that my stomach scraped the bottom.
There were these fish that kind of just sat there staring at me. They had the classic deadpan look that fish are known for, as well as long, streamlined silver bodies. They didn’t approach any closer but they didn’t back away either. I was kind of nervous looking at them. Elizabeth was super kind and waited until we got back on the boat to inform me that those fish, which I must have seen half a dozen of, were actually barracudas. Nice.
We stayed offshore in the first spot for maybe a half hour. Everyone in the group fanned out (although a couple of teenage boys stayed obnoxiously close to Elizabeth and me at times and kept splashing, which scared everything away). I saw what I thought was a pufferfish, but only Elizabeth actually brought her phone into the water (with the old waterproof phone bag!) to take action shots. My bigger problem was that my goggles were cutting into my head. It was actually quite painful and I needed to take a break every minute or two to pull them off of my face and relieve the pressure. Obviously it is very important to keep the seal so that your goggles don’t start leaking saltwater directly into your eyes, but do people really enjoy that sort of pain?
The captain blew the whistle to draw everyone back to the boat. I was happy enough to take the cutting goggles off of my face and swim back. Seeing the fish was cool, but I think I was okay without doing that again. Elizabeth climbed up the ladder behind me and flopped over the edge to take her flippers off. While we were comparing notes on fish seen, she made an offhand comment that she was struggling with her goggles leaking a bunch. “Not me, “I began to brag. After all, how often do you get to be better at something than someone who had snorkeled way more than you in their life? That’s when the lightbulb went on in my head. Wait a second… if Elizabeth’s goggles were too loose, and mine were too tight…
“I think we switched goggles”.
Spoiler alert: we had. As soon as I jumped back in the water at the second snorkel site, it was abundantly clear how much more comfortable the ones that were fitted to a head of my size were. There’s probably a lesson in there if you care to find it. Now the two of us were rolling in the deep – er, the shallows.
We were actually some of the last people to get back on board at the second spot. I distinctly recall being much more reluctant to finish snorkeling this time. Partially that was because the ocean was alive and teeming with all sorts of fish; barracudas staring at us, a pufferfish darting just out of sight, even some weird things with giant eyes that, when we consulted the marine life book on board the tour boat, we deduced were likely reef squids. Let’s take a look at the pictures out of Elizabeth’s waterproofed phone bag.
Indeed I do refuse to format any of those pictures properly.
The whistle did finally blow one more time, which meant it was time to return back to the Visitor Center. Our friends had enjoyed their time kayaking among the mangroves (without any tipping over, though apparently there were some concerns), but I daresay that Elizabeth chose the right option for us. That’s true even though I had to suffer through a 30-minute boat ride through the biting wind, with saltwater caked all through my hair and ears, and with my swimsuit being itchy as all get out for whatever reason. Needless to say, there was no one happier than me to get back to land so that I could change out of this swimsuit.
It certainly wasn’t the national park we had spent the most time in, but I give points to Biscayne for uniqueness. I haven’t ever been snorkeling like that before. While there are other national parks that will undoubtedly let you get snorkeling as good (maybe better?) than this, it’s pretty rare to visit one where you’re pretty much forced into the water to enjoy it. That’s the coolest part of the National Park Service these days; you get all sorts of ecotourism opportunities in the course of visiting 63 parks.
There were still several hours of daylight left to make the most of with our friends (after all, it was a friends trip). We made plans to meet at the Everglades Gator Grill a few miles southwest of our AirBNB. My parents had eaten there when they visited south Florida a couple of years prior and had given solidly positive reviews. Unfortunately they were closing relatively soon, so I did not have time to change out of the itchy swimsuit beforehand. The Gator Grill is most famous for offering alligator bites – think chicken nuggets, but with gator meat instead of chicken. They were pretty good! I was certainly plenty hungry after a makeshift lunch at the AirBNB, so I destroyed my dinner AND some alligator bites gladly.
After that, Elizabeth and I started jonesing for some ice cream. We’re so predictable on vacation. With it being south Florida, there was an option on Google maps called “Havana Sugar” that seemed intriguing. Turns out, this place was chock full of ice cream flavors. Many of them had Cuban or other Hispanic elements to them, though that didn’t stop Elizabeth from getting cookies and cream. I decided to be adventurous and get the flavor that translated to “wheat”, figuring it might be something like sweetcream where it takes the top off of the flavor and you’re left with subtle sweetness. From what I recall, it was a little less sweet than even that, but it was still delicious. The weirdest part of the whole thing was that the ice cream shop shared the parking lot with a pupusa stand dedicated to Bukele. America truly brings the weirdest people all together.
That pretty much wrapped up our formal Saturday plans. The sun went down and the six of us headed back to the AirBNB for the night. James brought down his Nintendo Switch for a riveting evening of Mario Kart. He slaughtered everyone at some races and then some battles, and then I finally pioneered a tactic in the bomb battle (a tactic I like to call the precision airstrike method) that led me to get some revenge. There was also a dodgeball-like game involving a deflated volleyball, the back patio, and “the floor is lava” mentality with the stone paving. That game ended abruptly when James lost his balance and nearly caved in the fence surrounding the air conditioner for the unit. That was a signal to everyone that maybe it was time to turn the silliness down and get ready for bed.
If you’re going to take a friends trip, there’s no reason not to go all-out with it. Considering we’d visited two national parks in 36 hours, had lots of good food, and made some more lifelong memories, I’m pretty confident the Florida trip of 2025 succeeded in doing so. We still had another two days to go before flying back to Oklahoma City, but now it was time to hit the second half of the trip: the relaxation.
