Pic. 1 Before sunrise

The plan is to get to West Palm Beach before dawn with my friends David Wong and Michael Wallis, do a little snorkeling with our underwater flashlights in the dark, then get out of the water at sunrise to take pictures. After the photo shoot, we'd get back in the water again and snorkel/freedive until we can't take the salt water anymore, then we drive back to Orlando, all before my dog pees all over the carpet.

Loading all the gear and the kayak in my dad's 4-Runner the night before, we started driving at 3 o'clock in the morning, but not before taking a short nap at my parent's house. The drive to West Palm was uneventful. Driving down the highway with a kayak on top of the 4-Runner makes a god awful noise, I was surprised that Michael could fall asleep in the backseat, snoring like a bear in hibernation. David and I tried to keep each other awake by (haha) talking, so we don't have to take any rest stops along the way. What in the world can two guys talk about for a couple of hours? Needless to say, he started falling asleep too around the break of dawn (when someone wears sunglasses at 6 in the morning, you know something is up).

Pic. 2 Sunrise

With me at the wheel, we were going right about 70mph on I-95. I'm a defensive driver, that's why my parents trust me with their cars. It took us about 4 hours to get to our destination. Don't tell me that you can get to West Palm in 2 hours, I don't even want to hear about it. Knowing the sun rises at about 7:16 a.m., we knew there is no time for the planned "snorkeling before dawn" anymore. That was actually a big relief for Michael, who has this unfounded fear that the last thing in this life he will ever see is a great white's big open mouth with sharp teeth lit by his waterproof headlamp. We parked at a metered lot, fed the meter a bunch of quarters, and then went on the beach to photograph the sunrise. It was a spectacular scene when we got there. There was a tall cloud right along the horizon that was backlit by the sun. The edge of that cloud was lit up, like a golden border. The sunlight was parted by it, forming sort of a "path" in the sky. (Pic. 1)

Michael and I

Minutes after we got on the beach, the sun started rising above the horizon. More clouds were lit up with a golden edge, and you see rays of orange sunlight parting the clouds shooting down at the ocean. (Pic. 2) It was a wonderful sunrise.

After the sun had raised above all the clouds, we started to get ready to go snorkeling. Just after we unloaded half of our gear, Michael and David informed me that they were planning on renting kayaks. "WHAT?!" The only reason I brought my kayak was because I thought they didn't want to spend money to rent one (We wanted to have at least one kayak as a supporting platform to mount our dive flags and keep some other gear). If I knew they would rent it, I would have no problem swimming out to the reef and back. Whatever. So we load everything back in the truck and drove a short distance to a place I knew that offers kayak rental.

Sand Dunes

The kayak place would not be open until 10 o'clock, so we decided to go out to the reef first, then maybe come back at 10 o'clock to rent kayaks. For the second time we unloaded our gear, and this time we actually made it into the water. I felt bad that Michael and David have to swim out to the reef, so I offered to tow them with my kayak. Even though they were also kicking to help, it was a hard paddle towing two snorkelers behind a kayak. The water was a lot clearer than the silty stuff we have in Central Florida, visibility wasn't too bad. It was just about 8 o'clock, and there were already plenty of boats with dive flags flying out there. At about 100 yards out, we started seeing some small reefs. I mounted the dive flag, and joined Michael and David in the water. We soon discovered that there was a south-to-north current. With the current pushing on the kayak, it was quite difficult to anchor it in the soft sand, but we managed.

I don't know if it was because we weren't at the right spot, but the reef didn't look to be in very good condition. I saw less marine life than I did when I was down there at the same beach in May. I saw a lot of sea urchins in May, but I hardly saw any on this trip. I also saw less fish. David said he saw a stingray, but I didn't go confirm it. I was having trouble equalizing my ears because I freedove just the day before (my Eustachian tube almost always swollen up the day after I go freediving), so I didn't attempt to dive too much, I just snorkeled at the surface most of the time.

Pier

We started heading back to the beach at around 11 o'clock because David was getting sea sick. It was still hard towing two snorkelers, my arms were getting very tired from paddling. And Michael, lazy as he is, wasn't even kicking much to help. Finally I decided it would be easier just snorkel back to the beach. After much whining and moaning, Michael let go of the kayak and started for the beach. David was already ahead of him. I soon put on my mask and got into the water after them. I had to tow the kayak behind me, but with my long blade fins, it wasn't as hard as towing two snorkelers with a kayak. When I got close to shore, I saw more fish, a blowfish, a steering wheel sized jelly fish, and a dead fish (I think). The last one further led me to believe that the water isn't in its best condition.

Preparation

David and Michael dropped down right where they had dragged themselves onto the beach (which is a hundred yards north of our put in point, for David is directionally challenged), then they proceeded to pass out under the sun. I, on the other hand, felt the swim back to the beach was rather refreshing, the jellyfish was a little scary (I got stung a lot when I went to Panama City over the labor day weekend) but everything else was nice. So I actually decided to stayed in the water a little longer. Towing the kayak with me, I casually swam to our put in point while looking around at fish and stuff. After getting my kayak onto the beach, I walked around the beach collecting shells as souvenirs for my girlfriend in upstate New York.

Tropical fish

David was the first one to get up on his feet and stumbled down the beach, empty handed, to where I was. I presumed that he came to help me carry my kayak back to what he thought was our put in point. After I notified him of the errors in his navigation, with a saddest look on his face, he stumbled back up the beach again to pick up his gear, at the same time waking up Michael. Michael was surprisingly bushy tailed, he said he was ready to rent a kayak out for a little paddling. But first, he had to have his sour cream and onion rice lunch (and cook it over his fancy little alcohol stove).

So while Michael was cooking his rice, David ate the pack lunches he bought at Wal-Mart that morning.

Yellow flower on the beach

While Michael was cooking his rice, I chewed on a powerbar, my standard meal for short trips (I had to admit, the rice smelled much better than the powerbar).

While Michael was cooking his rice, David and I loaded most of our gears in the car, leaving the kayak on the beach for paddling later.

While Michael was cooking his rice, we waited for him on the beach.

While Michael was cooking his rice, a thunderstorm started forming at the edge of the ocean.

Beach front

While Michael was cooking his rice, we saw that the storm was moving toward us.

(10/01: Michael has just informed me: "I thought we were taking a break, and I thought we had the whole day there.")

And finally, just when Michael was eating his rice, the sky turned so dark that we decided kayaking is not such a good idea anymore. So we loaded the kayak back on the 4-Runner, got the last bit of kayaking gear, and started driving back to Orlando. We got back to my parent's house at around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. My dog, being the sweet and cute dog she is, did not pee all over the carpet.

She got a milky bone as the reward.