The upstairs visitor’s center is very tastefully done, and has a large room full of wonderfully informative displays featuring park ocean animals and plants. There are also monitors running footage of underwater creatures, and plaques offering all sorts of educational tidbits about the park. Our favorite thing about the kid-friendly visitor’s center was their well-stocked touch table. They had everything from old fishing floats to sea beans to tortoise shells; we got so involved with the displays that we forgot to watch any of the several films that the park offers.
After we checked out the visitor’s center, and had turned in our Jr. Ranger work, we headed out into the wild unknown! 😉 Out the front of the visitor’s center is a small bay where we had to check out the NPS’s police boats, and also where the glass bottom boat tour starts out from. Around that small area of water, is a walking path, and a boardwalk over the water to a jetty-looking point. We walked the smooth, flat path over to the jetty, which is covered with small trees and bushes, and which a path goes down. While we were on the boardwalk, we got to watch a man fishing (off the boardwalk) with his big ocean poles, and we also watched crabs and barracuda on the bottom of the bay.
We really enjoyed our visit to Biscayne National Park, and would love to return again, this time with kayaks in tow! It’s a beautiful park, even if we were only able to access the 5% of it that is above water!