Biscayne Bay National Park

Biscayne Bay National Park

Thursday Feb 2 2017

Just a few miles east of our campground is Biscayne Bay National Park. The park encompasses 172,971 acres, with 95% of it being underwater. Hhuumm, that congers up some images. Who came up with such a precise figure? I can see the surveyors now, Frick says “its actually 172,970 and 1/2 acres,” Frack barks back, “we get paid by the acre, round it up to 971!”

Millie at the visitors center

Anyhow, the park covers a vast area, it ranges from just south of Miami to Key Largo and extends out into the Atlantic about ten miles. The string of islands at its eastern edge are the northern most portion of the Florida Keys. A good bar room bet would be to the name of the northernmost of the Florida keys. Most would answer Key Largo, the correct answer is Elliott Key. 

tour boat to Boca Chita Key

On the parks western border Biscayne Bay melds into the mainland of Florida through 4825 acres of mangrove forests. This tidal mix of trees, shrubs and water are also part of the National Park. I read an interesting story about the one small beach in the mangroves. Back in the days of segregation, it was a “blacks only” beach. It existed as such until the 1960's. It is now the visitors center for the park and the departure point for our boat trip to Boca Chita Key.

Tourist looking for dolphins

The concessionaire who takes tourists out to the keys uses a large powered catamaran to traverse the shallow depths. The bay has an average depth of 10 feet with many dangerously shallow areas. On the way out the captain finds the resident pod of Dolphins and circles around them so the tourists can see and photograph them. The dolphins don't seem to mind and even ride the wake the tightly turning boat creates. I think there is a double standard going on here, if this was not a park service tour the boat would be confiscated and the caption manacled and displayed before the media for harassing the wildlife!

Wreck in Biscayne Bay

We also floated over the wreck of a sunken shrimp boat. Through the clear water we could clearly see several varieties of fish swimming about the old steel hulled boat. The captain said it was ten feet underwater. 

fake lighouse

Our destination was Boca Chita Key. The harbor and surrounding ruins were built when the property was privately owned. It is now maintained for boaters access to this portion of the park. The lighthouse was never functional and was built as a display when the area was a playground for the rich, circa 1930-s to 1940's.

Boca Chita harbor

I was surprised that the seaward side of the key did not have any surf, there must be a submerged reef offshore somewhere, but I couldn't see waves breaking anywhere on the horizon.

view from the lighthouse

More bar room trivia:

If you look at a map you will notice that Boca Chita Key and several other small islands are north of Elliott Key and I had said Elliot Key was the northernmost of the Florida Keys. Boca and the others are not true keys, instead being transitional islands.

This may lead you to query, what is the difference between a key and an island. A key is formed when an underwater reef grows to the surface of the water. An island can be formed in several ways, like a key it could have started as an underwater reef. Before it breached the surface wind and waves deposited sand on top of it, creating a transitional island. An island can also be created by sand deposited on the ocean floor, these become barrier islands, lots of these on the eastern coast of the USA. Lastly an island can be pushed to the surface through geographic forces like volcanoes (Hawaii) or shifting tectonic plates (the white cliffs of Dover in England).

There you have it, all you ever wanted to know about islands. Hope you win lots of bar bets. Millie and I enjoyed our day trip to Biscayne Bay National Park, next attraction for us is drag races at the Homestead NASCAR track on Friday night.

Miami skyline in the background

Millie and Larry after seeing their shadow on groundhog day and realizing they have to endure six more weeks of this weather!