The Ospreys Fly Home

Our time in Florida has come to an end, and we in the first group have returned home. We left Florida with a great number of memories and souvenirs (some more expensive than others Emily). With all these memories it makes us want to come back. We did almost everything on this trip in the Florida Keys as the island chain has the most water access and plenty of coral reefs and mangroves. The Keys themselves are the remnants of ancient coral reefs and sand bars from 125,000 years ago which became exposed as land when water levels receded. The massive ancient corals were buried by continuous coral growth on top of one another to create a huge limestone deposit which makes up the islands. This entire time we’ve been driving along the Keys we were driving over an ancient coral reef ecosystem. Just the thought of that is incredible.

 We spent an entire semester of class preparing for this trip and it was truly worth it. So many of the species we learned about we got to see in person. The most common fish species must have been the Yellowtail Snapper, it was at every site we’ve dove at and in great numbers. Some of the coolest fish we saw in my opinion were the Grey Angelfish and the Nurse Sharks. Getting to go to Florida has made me plan on coming back some day, but the question is were should you go? While mainland Florida can offer resorts and parks like Disney World, the Keys seem to be the best place to visit. It takes a long time to drive through the Keys and there’s stuff to do along the whole island chain so trying to pick a place to stay depends on what you want to do. If you are planning on traveling up and down the island chain a lot the best place might be in Key Largo because it is well developed for tourists but still close to many parks and activities. If you merely want to relax and enjoy the environment and weather in the Keys, then Key West is probably the best place to visit.Me and my classmates visited Key West and got 2 hours of free time to relax and explore and we all enjoyed it. The city is well developed with resorts and other restaurants and activities which make it a great place to stay. Hopefully some day all of us Tropical Ospreys can come back to see Florida’s beautiful waters again. For now, we are all off to enjoy the rest of our summer, and to everyone I say good bye, it’s been so much fun.

If you want to learn more about how the Florida Keys were made and it's history, you can see here:
https://floridakeys.noaa.gov/ocean/limestone.html
If you plan on visiting Key West and want to learn what there is to do you can see here:
https://keywest.com/