I have never been the kind of person to stand on the beach in the pre-dawn hours, the sky dark above me, the sand cold beneath my bare feet, but the pandemic has changed many things. I no longer want the things I used to want. The beach at noon with its crowds, and noise, and music hold no allure for me anymore. Suddenly, and with force, I want quiet and beauty—to see things I’d never seen before.
And so, I found myself this past winter in Miami, a familiar city, but one I wanted to see differently. Instead of its glamorous, sun-drenched side, I planned to spend a few months getting to know its pre-dawn birdsong, its peaceful mangrove channels, its out-of-the-way parks. In short, the natural beauty so many visitors miss by sticking to South Beach or Wynwood or Brickell.
I got started by setting my alarm for 5 a.m. One February morning, I drove through dark, empty streets to the island of Key Biscayne. Crossing the Rickenbacker Causeway, I was the only car on the bridge—just me and a few early-riser cyclists. When I pulled up to Crandon Park for a sunrise kayaking tour, the gate was down, the county park still closed in its overnight slumber. Right when I thought I might need to turn around, that I’d missed a phone call canceling the tour, I saw a cellphone light flash. A guide from the Miami-Dade parks department lifted the gate and let me through—the first park patron of the day in the minutes before 6 a.m.
COVID-19 has changed many things, but it hasn’t changed the thrill of kicking off sandals at the water’s edge, stepping into a glass-bottom kayak, and paddling out into the soft surf. I’d been kayaking before, but not in one with a transparent hull, and not in time to witness the orb of the sun rapidly cross the horizon line and rise into the sky. Due to the pandemic, Miami EcoAdventures kept tour sizes small this winter, and our two kayaks—my husband and me in one, two guides in the other—were the only souls for miles. Watching the sunrise, we gently bobbed in the current, listening to pelicans swooping above and witnessing a dark cloud in the distance release torrents of rain into the ocean.
With the sunrise came light and illumination in the underwater world beneath us. As we paddled, our guides described the seagrass, the shorebirds. They answered questions about sea turtles, nurse sharks who swim through these shallow waters, and the role of the mangroves in protecting the shoreline. They tailored the tour to our interests, answering questions with enthusiasm and pointing out things around us, like puffer fish in the mangrove shallows, that I would have missed if I’d been out kayaking on my own.
This pre-dawn tour was the result of my latest obsession: the website run by Miami-Dade parks, which lists a variety of eco-adventures all over the county. Tours are planned for sunrise, for sunset, for after dark, for the full moon. When I arrived in Miami, fleeing the cold of winter in the northeast U.S., I filled my calendar with these experiences, signing up for a night-time owl walk, a morning kayak through mangrove channels, and a full-moon boat tour. Each week I looked forward to these excursions that led me to corners of Miami I’d never seen before. When I told local friends where I was going, they often looked at me with blank faces: you’re going where? They said. Never heard of it. That’s when I knew I was on to something.
After just one peaceful paddle in Key Biscayne—stepping out of the kayaks to wade through the water and watch the sun climb in the sky, listen to the volume of birdsong turn up, see a baby cuttlefish play in the waves at the shoreline—I was hooked. In the months I spent in Miami, I never once stepped onto South Beach (which, of course, has its own pleasures), but I did listen to the call of an eastern screech owl in the woods of Bill Sadowski Park before roasting marshmallows on a campfire; I did watch ruby-throated hummingbirds zip between blossoms, their throats glistening like sequins, in Castellow Hammock park; I did learn the call of red-bellied woodpeckers and sandhill cranes. I did find a balm in nature.
On a remarkably clear Saturday morning in March, I turned onto an unpaved road in Matheson-Hammock Park. Guides at several other park excursions had cited this kayaking trip as one of the county’s most exciting, with currents that whip through mangrove channels and the chance to see a variety of birds, such as a tricolored heron. On the day we arrived, the currents were calm, but that was fine with me, slow suited my purposes. My phone and my camera were locked in the car. I was unreachable. I worked the muscles of my shoulders and arms, the strain a reminder that my body is healthy and active, able to get me where I want to go.
We started out on a wide channel, disturbing a few great blue herons relaxing on mangrove branches. When we caught up with them on the kayak, they took off again, flying down the channel to a new perch. We repeated this pattern several times, as if they knew we wanted to scrutinize them up close at first, and then to see them fly, and were happy to oblige. Soon we turned off into a narrow channel, requiring some ducking beneath low branches and more attention to nimble paddling. We slowed to watch scrambling crabs and a yellow-crowned night heron with eyes almost closed, as if settling into a morning nap.
Would this time in nature feel quite so thrilling if it hadn’t been for the prior year spent mostly indoors? As we paddled out into the glassy open water I didn’t care why it felt so good, but relished in the sun and wind and glare of the sun off the water.
Ed Pritchard, a guide and Interpretive Programs Leader with Miami EcoAdventures who led one of my kayaking expeditions, is familiar with that look on visitors’ faces.
“People are amazed to find such a wild place in Miami,” Ed says. “I love those little moments of wow, of watching someone see the fossilized mangrove reef at Key Biscayne with the Miami skyline in the background, it’s like watching people’s mindsets change in real time.” Ed has a Masters in Marine Conservation, and is enthusiastic about outreach programs that promote conservation, educate about native species, and explore environmental issues facing south Florida. The result for visitors is often a new sense of ownership in protecting these spaces. “Once you’ve been on the beach and witnessed a sea turtle hatching, watched the sand boil up and then dozens of flippers push through the sand, the hatchlings sprint off toward the water, it changes your perspective on things,” Ed says.
Part of the appeal for a snowbird like me was affordability. In trying to create stewards of the park system, prices are kept affordable, with most excursions between $8 and $45. A sunrise kayaking excursion with a private outfitter would cost far more than the $45 I paid for the privilege of paddling at daybreak with a knowledgeable guide.
On one of my final nights in Miami, I signed up for a sunset boat tour in Biscayne Bay. We climbed on board right as the air started to cool, the clouds began to glow in shades of soft pink and orange. As the guides narrated our journey, sharing local history, I couldn’t help but think that caring about sustainability and the environment has an infectious quality, that my own perspective had undeniably shifted in recent months as a result of these excursions. The boat paused for a moment to take in the sun setting in the west, and then we shifted our gaze to the full moon rising in the east. I felt more hope and joy than I could recall in recent memory.
As state and national parks are receiving extra attention from travelers this summer, it seems that many other people are feeling the same craving for nature, too. Seeking wild places and unexpected corners of nature—this is one travel trend I could happily get behind.
