Islands Galore!

10 Aug 2013 Post By Randy Fishell

Check out these wonderful spots and see which island you’d like to visit!

A Honeymoon Island beach

I love Islands. I live five minutes from Honeymoon Island, a nature preserve in Florida, and an
hour from dozens of other islands. The ocean is about 100 feet from my front
door. This is the way I like it.

You might ask, “Why is an island so much better than just the coast?”

The coast—anywhere—is wonderful. But an island is all coast! Not only that, the
coastline on an island changes as you go around it. I know this to be true
because I’ve snorkeled around a good number of them. An island will have white, sandy shores and rocky
places, while the island’s backside may have mud-sand-mangrove areas. Every one
of these environments contains different creatures to discover. Who wants to
waste any time on plain land?

My first adventure on an island was our eighth grade trip to Catalina Island just
off Long Beach, California. We climbed aboard a ferry boat that skimmed over
the green water. (I remember that I did not get seasick!) After exploring the
island by jeep, I was hooked. Everywhere I looked, the ocean stretched out
beyond the land. I even thought that if someone removed all the central part of
the U.S.A. and filled it with the ocean, it would be even more spectacular than
it is.

I’ll never forget tiny Anacapa Island. This rocky spit of land sits far off the
shore of central California. I took a boat out to the island. The other
passengers and I climbed a ladder to the top of the cliff. I explored every
corner of the island. Waves crashed around rocks that encircled the land and seagulls
circled above me. Seals barked from a small sliver of beach far below. And the
wind howled the whole time. I loved every minute of it.

Later, when I graduated from college, I snorkeled off the Florida Keys, tiny islands
that lay like a string of pearls off the Florida mainland. As a diver I have
explored Cayman Island that sits south of Cuba, Hawaii, the Bahamas, and islands
in the South Pacific. I can’t tell you which island is my favorite. You can look at the photos and decide where
you would like to visit someday. Talk to God about your dreams. He knows how to
make them come true.