First day of Travels

Airport 5 am . Off to Orlando at 6:45 am, next stop Ft. Lauderdale, then to the Everglades for a hot, humid hike through the trails. We saw an anhinga drying off in the trees, multiple green backed herons, two black vultures, gar fish, red winged black birds, soft shelled turtles, American crow, anole lizard, lubber grasshopper, and TWO ALLIGATORS all in about an hour! We loaded back into the air conditioned van, and crashed right away and then woke up to a beautiful sight of the Atlantic ocean. Within 15 min. we were in Key Largo! When we arrived at the Marine Lab a cool dude named Adam, gave us a tour.  We soon felt at home. We took our swim test and got to take a practice snorkel in the emerald lagoon to see the the underwater hotel and lab. We swam through big bubbles and had flashbacks to "Finding NEMO!!" :) We then took time to write in our journals. After,  Jessica, the head coordinator, lectured us on mangrove ecology,  sea grass, and the coral reef. She showed us how to read key charts showing different depths and locations of important sites of the Florida keys. After, we did a lab on water quality where we learned to use different test kits.   Maria and I got chosen to do the blog because I was almost attacked by a vulture and was overly excited about the alligators!
Thanks everybody for viewing our blog, hope you enjoy our photographs.
Goodnight ! Demi and Maria