Greg & Camille Go Bike

We'd intended to wake up around 5:30, but struggled a bit and only fully got up 6:30-ish. After coffee, hygiene, packing and foolishly trying to finish the rest of the perishable food we didn't walk out the door until 7:30. Biking out of Miami was a bit stressful. The traffic was pretty crazy and for the first couple miles we were either on the shoulder of roads or side walks in the midst of the early morning rush.

Eventually, we made it to a dedicated multi-use trail that took us about 20 miles all the way to Homestead. The trail varied a lot over this distance but much of it was along the side of a two lane road dedicated exclusively to the local commuter buses. We didn't move as quickly along this stretch as we frequently stopped at crossings, busy with morning commuters.

In Homestead, we stopped off at John is Here, a popular fruit stand. Their shakes are supposed to be famous, but we focused more on some of their exotic fruit options. We picked up some Sour Sop (aka Guanabana), both a full unripe one and a half fruit to eat immediately, some black Sapote which we were told would be ready in a day or so and a few jars of preserves to gift to our Warm Showers hosts tonight.

Leaving John is Here, we had ~25 miles to go and only 1 hour 45 minutes before our check-in for a snorkeling expedition. We both felt a little stressed about that timeline especially given how slowly we'd gone in the morning. Pretty soon we were biking in the shoulder along route 1. Without the constant stops at intersections, we maintained a pretty steady 16 mph. We were starting to feel more comfortable about the timeline when Camille went over a fist sized rock picking up a pinch flat. She quickly swapped it, but once again we were stressed about our timeline.

We became even more discouraged when the road turned to the east and and we were biking directly into the wind. Our progress slowed to a crawl. We were certain that we were going to miss the expedition, but with 2.75 miles to go, we received a call from the snorkeling operators. They called to check on our timeline. We told them how far out we were and with renewed energy we raced there.

All the other guests were waiting on the boat and we felt a bit guilty that we may have kept them waiting (or maybe we just timed it that perfectly). The boat had two crew members, John (the captain) and Gia (who gave instruction on snorkeling). The boat went out to an area of the reef called the Grecian Rocks, passing through a mangrove swamp/forest on the way. We'd had a lot of sun exposure, some strenuous riding and not enough water and realized we weren't actually feeling that great. The choppy waves and rocking of the boat certainly didn't help either.

At the dive site, we slowly put on our gear and jumped into the water, probably the last guests to jump in. The water felt absolutely wonderful after all the sun and heat. Some of the more interesting highlights from exploring was a beautiful school of bright blue fish that seemed pretty un-phased by the swimmers, a lone darker blue fish and a rainbow fish with a flat derpy appearance.

Back on shore, we'd missed a couple messages from our Warm Showers host and made our way over. We arrived shortly before they returned home. Their place had a ton of character, with both a main house and smaller house, a trailer and tons of hand made decorations and tables/chairs all over the yard. There was running water into a small pond and wind chimes constantly ringing to give the property a perfectly tranquil feel. After a few minutes, our hosts Jacquelyn and Breaze returned from work. They gave us a tour of the place, showing us where we could set up the tent, where the bathroom and outdoor shower were located and generally made us feel at home. We chatted a bit, but we were feeling pretty exhausted and not as social as we would have liked.

We cleaned up and ate dinner. Checking on the black sapote, it had split open and was weeping black juice. According to the employee at John is Here that meant it was ready to eat. Neither of us really agreed with the chocolate pudding description commonly attributed to it, but it was tasty nonetheless. We offered some to our hosts as well, but they declined as they had dinner plans. We chatted for a bit about their experiences mountain biking, the school bus they'd refinished for use while traveling and some good advice on spots to stop through the keys.