By Sahara

We arrived at Marineland- which is a marina, not a park- yesterday in the afternoon. We decided to go for a short walk through the palm tree forest, where we discovered that palm branches are practically impossible to break off, yet when you do manage to whack them –or should I say hack- they make very good spears.  And that there is a very yucky plant with spikes that come off and stick to anything that touches it.

Passed this amazing dock

We then walked out to the beach, which was very close, and discovered that it was a rough day for the ocean. With like 5 foot waves.  Then Devon tried to jump to a rock in fell in the water.
 

 
This is the only natural rocky beach in all of Florida. It is made out of coquina limestone. They are little shells that somehow get cemented together over time, creating this hard stone. It was what the fort was made of, and the cannon balls just bounced off. It was used as stone for building.


After this, we headed back to the boat where we had pizza, and dad made us watch an episode of “Flipper”, since it was filmed around here. All that really came across was the little boy yelling Flipper multiple times and someone being stung by a man o war and being saved by the dolphin.  And when the little boy went to yell flipper, yet stopped after the ‘f’, making it sound like he was trying to say something very very bad.
 

 

Day 2

 

                Today started with a breakfast of “pancreas pancakes”. For those who don’t know, the pancreas is the organ that makes insulin, which controls the sugar in your body and makes sure your cells gets sugar. People that are diabetic (atleast with type 1) have had their pancreas attacked by their immune cells-they get a little wacky sometimes-, therefore they cant control the sugar in them. So they have to get shots of insulin to keep them healthy. Sorry, but mom said it was my homework to write about this….

Anyway, today we went to the beach, because even though it was windy, it was warm, and cloudy. It was also even rougher than yesterday. As we were walking down this very spectacular beach, Devon went and fell in the water. He was wearing clothes and a sweater, so then he felt it necessary to flick his sweater around to get everyone wet. We also found some pretty cool stuff, such as shark egg sacks and cannonball jellyfish. Those particular jellies are hard bodied (hence the name cannonball), making them very fun to poke with feet when they wash up on the beach, as long as you avoid the short tentacles.  

 Along the way,  we went out to the sandbar, and tried not to get too wet. However, when we got back to the beach, we decided we were going to have to take showers and do laundry anyway, so we went back in and tried to get very wet without being pushed down by the mega waves that crash on the sandbar. The water here was actually the warmest yet, however not nearly as warm as we would like it. The people who walked by with their dogs wearing big heavy winter coats were looking at us quite strangely. 
 

 

  
Devon and cannonball jellyfish with a spider crab inside.
 

We headed back to the boat, where we took showers and had lunch and did dishes. Very sad. Then mom and dad left us to go get some groceries (they came back with wine, beer, and chocolate), and we had to do our French work. While looking up strange videos, like the mermaid caught on tape playing with a goldfish. And listening to awesome music. Then they got home, and we had to do laundry and write blog posts and admire the pumpkin that they brought back.

 

                     AND TOMORROW IS DECEMBER!!!  The time when Devon plays every Christmas song he can find.