Biscayne National Park in Florida was the 11th park that we visited on our travels and this one was a bit different from the others. Instead of being thousands of acres of forest, Biscayne is 95% under water. This limits the number of activities that you can do inside the park.
We wanted to get on a boat and head out to the reefs to do some snorkeling, but the weather and the water were still too cold. We really need to come back to South Florida when it’s a bit warmer so that we can really enjoy all of the snorkeling opportunities. Instead, we decided to bring our kayaks and cruise around the shoreline and mangroves.
Right outside of the visitors center parking lot is a small launching area where you can launch your kayaks. Unfortunately, the winds were causing quite a current against us so it was difficult to get moving. We finally made it out to where the two mangrove islands were located and were hoping to see some manatee. We didn’t see any, but we did see a bunch of pelicans and turkey vultures out there. We decided to head into the channels to see if we could find any alligators.
We started cruising down the mangrove channels until we got as far as we could, which wasn’t actually all that far before we started heading down some of the side channels. The side channels were much smaller and there were several times we had to use the branches to slide through some of the tighter spots. At one point, Aaron got turned sideways and just about capsized his kayak! There wasn’t much more we could do so we headed back towards our launching point to land. It looks like the best way to experience Biscayne National Park is by boat as you can’t get real far in your kayaks, so make sure you plan for that!
Leave a Reply