This was a nice and auspicious thing to see on the way to the beach this morning – a pelagic bird and a bottle. Thanks Coca Cola Corporation! You really DO unite the world! Had a nice morning swim and then headed out towards the Miami River to find a nice spot to toss a bottle.

Yes. Miami has a river. I’m going to post more in depth when I get back to New York because there is more to say about Miami. More than just Dave Barry and Carl Hiaasen can handle, that’s for sure. Every time I come back here I forget how truly weird this place is.

At any rate, Annie and I got a bit lost trying to find Jose Marti Park on the shore of the river, but we did eventually get there, and I tossed a bottle. Then we went and got excellent fish sandwiches. Damn, fish sandwiches can be good.

From there we headed towards RSMAS, the University of Miami marine science school. This is basically why I ended up going to the University Miami:

This is my view right at this moment. It is also the site where I got incredibly drunk on my 19th birthday with a bunch of way cool older kids. A couple of hours before (now, not then) I swam a bottle out into the channel beyond the ship. That’s Bear Cut, and there is always a strong current. And, I’ve heard, a fair number of sharks, including bull. Although I’ve never seen sharks there (except for maybe a nurse once and it was small) I have seen a lot out there, and today I found something very special washed up in the wrack. But I’ll get to that when I actually write properly about this trip. And I don’t have my card reader and I have a really awesome picture of it so what’s the point now if I can’t SHOW you what I found.

So, one more bottle tomorrow. I’m going to launch it right off of South Beach so it has a high likelihood of being snagged by a thong-festooned tourist.

Til then!