Day 5: The Fury

Whew! Recapping our most recent adventure to Florida has been quite the undertaking! We’re working toward the home stretch and I have a few more fun things to share with you, so hang in there. You’ll get a T-Shirt at the end saying “I Survived the 2015 Thomas Family Vacation Recap”.

Not really, but that would be cool. Maybe next year. 🙂

What you can expect are TONS more photos, a few more short videos (there’s one in today’s post!!!), a full vacation video (that one’s going to be a beast), the write up of our last few days all bundled into one post, and our 2015 Vacation Superlatives! I’m exhausted just thinking about how much energy that is going to take to produce. BUT, I’m willing to do it because it has been so much fun to read back on other trips we’ve taken and I realize every time I do that I am so thankful to have a record of them. So we’re pressing on.

PS. Feeling lost and frightened? It might help to read about Day 1, 2, 3, and 4 before moving forward.

So, DAY FIVE. Wow, Day 5 was really something. Exhilarating, adventurous, and wild are all words I could use to describe Day 5.

Day 5 was Thursday for us. And Thursday meant that it was Fury Day. The Fury is a boating company located in Key West that takes people on day trips- all kinds of day trips. You can do a snorkel trip, a jet ski trip, a sunset and live music trip… they’ve got it all. We chose the Ultimate Adventure.

Now, I’ve done this once before and loved every minute of it so we already knew that it was going to be good. Way back when, a group of college friends and I went down to Key West and on one of our days there, we did the Fury.

Mitch and I already knew we wanted to try all of the water stuff that you do when you’re in tropical waters and the Ultimate Adventure trip lets you do all of that. Here’s the thing- to do all of the fun stuff (snorkeling, jet skiing, kayaking, parasailing, etc.) a la cart will cost you an arm, a leg, a second mortgage and your first born child. It’s ridiculous. The great thing about doing one of the trips with The Fury is that you can do all of that for one price- I think we paid something like $130 per person.

For $130, we got a full day on the water (10am-4pm), breakfast, lunch, and the experience of all of the following: snorkeling, jet skiing, parasailing, kayaking, and playing on water inflatables. That’s a pretty good deal and we jumped all over it. (PS. This is not a commercial for The Fury. They do not know the Thomas’s. We are just another number to them and we paid full price for our tickets. 🙂 We’re just passing on some helpful information to anyone thinking of planning their own trip sometime.)

Our day started with breakfast at the house (you can read all about that dreamy place here) before we hit the road to Key West.

Once there, we checked in and waited until it was time to launch. One of the things you have to do is get a boating license for the state of Florida (so that you can operate the jet ski legally). They give you the option of taking it online ahead of time or paying $3 the morning of to take an open note test. We decided to be super prepared and take it ahead of time so that we wouldn’t have to worry about it that morning and we’d save a little bit of cash. Our advice: DON’T DO THIS. Just spend the $3 and take it there! The online test took THREE HOURS to complete and there were quizzes and tests you had to pass based on your knowledge of boating safeties and policies- no open notes. In the end, yes we were prepared, but it was definitely not worth the time and stress!

We left the dock at 10am and sailed for about an hour before we anchored for snorkeling!

The snorkeling was awesome and we saw gorgeous fish and sea life. It was amazing. We also had fun taking photos and videos under the water and then laughing later at how silly we looked with all of our gear on.

After snorkeling, everyone got back on the boat and we had lunch while we sailed to the next place we anchored at. For the rest of the afternoon, we rotated through the other water sports. First, we did parasailing… and we were the first ones to go!

It was beautiful up there and so peaceful. Although it might not seem it, it’s actually really calm ride and if you don’t have a fear of heights, it’s not scary at all!

We loved it and I was thrilled that we were able to go because this was Mitch’s first time parasailing. Here’s the view from the top (!!!):

Next up was playing on the water inflatables and just swimming near the boat. We didn’t stay out there for very long because the the inflatables were hot and painful to slide down and climb on after being in the sun all day. Our final rotation was jet skiing!

I think this was Mitch’s first time doing this as well… and he loved it!

We took turns driving while the other manned the camera. It was a blast.

And because the only thing more fun than photos of the day is a VIDEO! I mean really- how could I resist mashing all of our water sport videos into one wet and wild ride? I couldn’t, so here you go:

When we were finished jet skiing, the crew got everyone back on the boat and served snacks and drinks as we made our way back to shore. The boat ride itself was beautiful and we got to see so many neat things along the way…

My grandpa would have appreciated this huge sailboat…

This landmark… I forget exactly what it is (channel marker?), but our crew told us that it is really really old and to take a picture now because the next time we visit, it might not be there anymore. They said that it is highly likely that it won’t make it through another hurricane! So I took a picture… figured we should participate in history. 🙂

It was seriously an awesome day on the water, but by the end we were ready to be back on dry land. We decided to try one of the local restaurants we had heard good things about- the Hogfish Bar Grill- for an early dinner before heading back to the house.

It was so relaxing to eat looking over the the marina and we enjoyed sharing some of their popular dishes: the lobster bisque and the fried Hogfish sandwich (which had been on Man vs. Food!).

After dinner, we headed back to the house, showered, and just relaxed the rest of the night. We both fell asleep around 8pm, slept straight through the night and woke up at 8am the next morning. You don’t realize how much being in the sun and water all day takes it out of you- it took 12 hours of sleep to recover!

It was a wonderful day, though, and we got to see and do so many awesome things… thanks for the memories, Fury Team!