Florida day three

getting ready for the water 

Day three was awesome. Dark rainy weather when we woke up, so we hit the turtle hospital and got educated. Really great place and you get to see a lot of big turtles and stuff. We finished that and the weather was perfect. We hit a well known snorkelling spot. My go pro battery let me down, but you will simply have to take my word for it. I also have a 6 second video clip before she dies. What you ask? I snorkelled all alone, about 400ft from the boat and everyone else, with two Carribean Reef sharks. Don't be an idiot and ask if they are man eaters. Google that specific species and take a look. Not known to be too aggressive when left alone, but a very capable and well built killing machine. I swam with them 3 times, and the last session was about a minute and half at 10ft away. Go figure, I had exhausted my go pro battery in the previous 1.5hrs of the swim. I decided I had used enough of my luck (since nobody would even see or know if I went missing until way too late) and headed back to the boat to share my ultimate experience. I can't stop thinking about how perfect that encounter was, well, minus the go pro dying. One of the best days of my life so far. We also saw lots of barracudas and neat fish as expected.

snorkelling charter for Looe Key

found out the go pro hd 2's fisheye housing lens actually causes blurry focus underwater. Really inconvenient that they sell a separate underwater housing with a flat lens to correct this, but I already have a waterproof casing on? Go pro is the new Sony. You may have noticed the newest go pro version has the flat housing for the lens...they know how to make us spend coin eh?

Brenna points out a neat fish

the Carribean Reef Shark I swam with for a good while. This is at about 20-25ft away. 10ft away for 1.5mins was unreal though

shitty photos are better than no photos right?

I guess the Yetti was photgraphed with this camera as well

a really worth while stop

here a rescued turtle has surgey to remove tumours that will hinder its survival if not removed

this little lady was run over by a boat. Check the big propeller marks in the back. The steel used to keep her together was because a second boat ran her over very recently. These are stitches in the underwater world

this guy was hit by a boat, causing "bubble butt". A condition that deforms the shell from the impact, allowing an air bubble to form under the shell. This keeps the turtle from floating properly, then they can't dive for food and are stuck on the surface, to either get hit again, eaten, or get desperate and start eating garbage that will kill them shortly after. The solution is those lead weights to balance the turtle's weight out. He can't go back to the wild because the weights eventually come off due to a layer of shell having to give way. So he stays in captivity, and has the weights re-installed when they come off

hard to tell in the photos but some of these turtles are the size of a 4-wheeler. Big ones in the wild can be the size of  my crx and weight twice as much. For real

iguana's are considered an invasive species here, but I like them

the adjacent highway, if I am not mistaken the True Lies bridge scene was shot here, 7 mile hwy I think

a really fun drive. On to the next spot!

plantain or banana ?