Sometimes a trip just doesn’t go well from the start. I headed to Florida to help on a documentary of the Florida Keys, to start with I missed my connection in Dallas, I had a long wait and was on the computer, I forgot that the time on the computer was still on mountain time and not central, I was still at the other end of the airport, so when I realized my error it was too late, I just missed the flight; oops. It was worse for the rest of the crew; while they were checking in at the airport in Rome (Roma) one of the cameras was stolen. The security cameras show a man walking by grabbing the bag in the brief moment that nobody was looking.
We meet up in Miami and head down to the keys. It has been overcast and raining every day for over a week. This is not good news when you are trying to shoot a nature documentary. The majority of the filming is to be underwater and the poor visibility is a big problem. In the morning we head out to do a couple dives, we get some good footage but with less than ideal visibility. The guide on this first day considers himself the greatest diver in the universe (in his humble opinion) and he has no clue of how to work with a filming crew, confrontation arises. Fortunately we are scheduled with a different diver the next day and we get on with him fabulously, we also see our main goal, the Goliath Gropper, however it at a distance and in cloudy water.
We did manage to film some Key Deer which are much smaller than the White Tail Deer of the rest of the eastern US. Two of which let us slowly move in very close. Later we went to a sea turtle hospital; turtle’s sick from digesting plastic or by being hit by a boat propeller are the most common cases. Some get released, many after losing a leg or two go to an aquarium and a few become a permanent resident at the hospital.
After a few days we made our way down to Key West just as Tropical Storm Andrea was closing in on us. Sure enough that evening we got hit by the edge of Andrea. A down pour with strong winds, we are stranded in a shop where the lady tried to sell us some cheap ponchos that probably wouldn’t have helped much.
The trip is rounded up by an amazing butterfly garden, more rain, even more disappointing dives (and aborted dives) and finally a wild bird recovery facility. Injured pelicans, ibis, egrets, herons and more are brought here to receive medical treatment. Here also some become permanent residence and some are released. But this trip wasn’t done with us yet, just as it was decided we were done filming there, the camera slides out of the tripod and crashes to the ground. Now we are done for the trip. We might have been done any ways but we were considering doing a little shooting in the morning before heading back to Miami, but not now. Sometime a trip just goes bad, this was one of those.