Under The Sea 03/04/21

Markham County Park, Sunrise, Florida

Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac (means ‘he laughs’).  I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.  As for Ishmael, I have heard you:  I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers.  He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.  But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.”  When He had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.  ~ Genesis 17:19-22        So God once again stresses His choice to make Abraham and Sarah’s child the covenant child.  God ALWAYS keeps His promises!  And as a concession to Abraham’s request, He also chooses to bless Ishmael and promises to make Ishmael the father of twelve rulers (see Genesis 25:12-18).   Verse 18 tells us that ‘they lived in hostility toward all their brothers’.  So we have to wonder.  Why  would God do this?  I believe it’s because He knows that we lean more on Him during times of stress.  Without conflict of some sort in our lives, we get lazy and begin to rely more on ourselves and less on God.  Sad, (and sinful) but it seems that’s human nature.

We don’t have many pictures to share from our day because we went snorkeling!

Some forty years ago, if certain people had had their way, snorkeling here most likely wouldn’t have been a possibility.

Back in the 1960s, Biscayne Bay was the seat of much (and nasty) controversy.  Thirteen area landowners  wanted to develop the keys and islands (By the way, do you know the difference?  A key is made up of ancient, dead coral, and island is dirt and rock.), build resort housing, dredge up 8,000 acres of bay bottom (40-foot deep) in order to create a jetport,  and they wanted to build an oil refinery. 

Conservationists didn’t want any of that.  They wanted to keep the waters pristine and preserve the coral reef. They were just regular people who knew the area and understood new concepts like ecology and environmental preservation.  They were doctors and pilots, farmers and writers, and they called their movement ‘Save The Bay’.  A newspaper writer for the Miami Herald, Juanita Greene, wrote stories about the importance of saving the bay.  One guy, Hardy Matheson, based his entire campaign for county commissioner on the issue of establishing the Park.  Herbert W. Hoover, Jr. (the sweeper guy), brought legislators down from Washington for dramatic blimp rides over the proposed park.

It seems to me that the developers were hard-pressed to further their campaign, so they resorted to scare tactics and destruction. One of the ‘Save The Bay’ members claimed that the anti-conservation group poisoned his dog and tried to get him fired from his job.  They also brought in bulldozers in an attempt to spoil the area.  Dubbed “spite highway,” the swath they cut was six lanes wide and seven miles long, right down the middle of Elliott Key.

The save-the-bay group portrayed developers as soulless pillagers of nature. The pro-development crowd ridiculed the conservationists, claiming that, if they had their way, Miami’s growth would be stifled and the area would be robbed of thousands of jobs and millions in tax revenues.

The conservationist group knew that the best way to protect the Bay permanently, was to enter it into the National Park Service.  They succeeded, and it was dubbed Biscayne National Monument when the bill was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968.

Here are a few random facts about the Park:

• It covers a total area of 172,924 acres – 200 square miles
• 95% of the National Park is underwater
• The only way to access the vast majority of the Park is by boat
• It became a National Park on June 28, 1980
• The highest elevation is nine feet on Totten Key
• Biscayne Bay was originally intended to be a part of Everglades National Park, but it was cut from the proposal to reduce opposition to the Park’s creation.
• The average depth is only 10 feet
• The largest island in the Park is Elliott Key, which was used in the early 1960s by the CIA as a training area for operations focused on Cuba
• The Park is 20 miles south of Miami
• There are at least 44 shipwrecks within Park waters
• In 1992, Hurricane Andrew damaged the Park so badly, it was closed for four months
• It contains the northernmost living coral reef in the US
• The reef is a transitional bank-barrier and patch system, which means that there are numerous small reefs (about 100), instead of a single monolithic mass
• The reef system supports over 200 species
• More than 170 species of birds make their winter home in the Bay area

So now that all that’s out of the way, let’s get on with today’s adventure.  We purchased a seat on a snorkel tour with the National Park.  It’s quite a bit cooler today, and quite windy, so wetsuits became a necessity.  Fortunately, the Park Service will rent you a “shortie” suit for just $8.  It was soooo worth it!  They rent other things like fins, etc., but we saw no reason for those.

• 

• 

Once the ten of us were on the boat, and anxiously awaiting our reef snorkel, the guides came on and informed us that there were no trips to reef happening today because of 4-5’ swells.  Such an enormous disappointment!  But they assured us that they were taking us to another area and we’d still enjoy ourselves.  We were all welcome to exit the boat and receive a refund if we wanted.  No one left.

And off we went.  And let me tell you . . . it was C-O-L-D!  The boat was very fast, but at least it sat with the bow in the air, so we didn’t get wet.  They took us out to a mangrove area, and along the way, they tried to feed us information about the area, but it was really hard for me to understand the girl that was yelling words at us.

Basically, according to the pilot, the area we were in is considered the precursor to adulthood for the fish that live in the colorful coral reef.  Many are smaller versions of those fish, and most don’t have their colors yet.  So that’s where we went, and even though we were disappointed in the loss of the reef, we still were enthralled with God’s Creation over here.  Too bad we didn’t have an underwater camera of some kind!

Besides all the grasses, and other things growing underneath us, I had planned to offer few internet pictures of some of the things we saw.  However, that turned out to be a very time consuming effort because it seems there are billions of options for things like “small, yellow-striped reef fish”.  Instead, I’ll show you what would’ve been, if we’d been able to get to the reef.  😊

What we actually saw, was pretty colorless.  By that, I mean it was mostly shades of browns mixed in with some greens and light maroons.  I know it doesn’t sound nice, but we really did have a marvelous time exploring around the mangroves!

A few of the things we saw included the aforementioned striped fish, several large schools of tiny green fish (maybe an inch or so long), a spinney lobster (I have a picture of that), and quite a few larger fish swimming around. 

Along the edges of the mangroves, we also encountered quite a bit of old rope that’s now growing all manner of stuff on it.  One of the ropes got caught in my hair, and when I went to pull it off, my fingers began tingling like they were numb.  The guide on the boat said some of the stuff that grows out there has micro-organisms that sting, similar to jellyfish.  Before we got home, they were all back to normal, so no worries!

But our very favorite today, the thing that stole the entire show, was our encounter with Moon Jellyfish!  They were so unbelievably beautiful and graceful!  And plentiful!  And they didn’t hurt a bit, although we were careful not to pet the inside.  😊

And by the way – – Blaine was first out, and last in the boat today.  Everyone else had returned, I think because they were cold, and we had to be called back.  They seemed surprised that we lasted in the water so long.  Of course, Blaine radiates heat all the time.  I had moments of shivers, but then something would catch my attention, and suddenly I was no longer cold!

After we returned and changed into warm dry clothes, we checked out the Visitor Center, and then went for a walk on the short trail they have at the Visitor Center.  Beautiful!

Oh the beauty and diversity our Father has created just for us!  We are soooo very grateful!

And not just fish, but birds as well!  Blaine was able to snag a few pictures this evening of the resident green parrots who live here in Markham County Park!