Nature And Outdoors in Florida

Outdoors in South Florida means water and wetland; the hills never arrive. An hour west of Miami the Everglades begin: a freshwater marsh sixty miles across, shallow enough to wade, moving south so slowly the current is invisible, holding the alligators, herons, anhingas and turtles everyone comes to see. Airboats work here because nothing else does: a flat hull and a fan cross water a few inches deep and grass that would wreck a propeller. South of the mainland the Keys run out to sea on a single highway, with the only living coral barrier reef in the continental United States a few miles east of them. Between them sits Biscayne Bay, sheltered and flat, where the Miami boats go.

The days sort by distance. The bay is the short one: a couple of hours past the island mansions, a sailing catamaran with jet skis, or a bus-and-boat combination that gets the city and the water into one afternoon. The marsh is the half-day: an airboat, the alligator pit, back by lunch. The Keys are the long one: snorkelling over the reef, dolphins at Islamorada, the southernmost point of the country at the end, and fourteen to sixteen hours gone door to door. Anyone wanting all three takes a package.

Practical. November to April is the dry half of the year, when the water drops and the wildlife concentrates around what is left; that is the window to plan for. Summer is hot, wet and inside the storm season, and the afternoon thunderstorm is a fixture, not an accident — it also stops the boats, since this is the most lightning-prone corner of the country. Nothing out here has shade, so a hat, sunglasses and sunscreen beat a rain jacket. Airboats are loud and hand out ear protection; reef trips are cancelled for wind, usually the same morning, and anyone prone to seasickness should take something before boarding. Captains and guides are tipped per head, and the earliest departures are the best ones: calmer water, more wildlife and fewer boats.