Key West Lobstering & Island Exploration

Catching your own spiny lobster is one of those things that sounds complicated and turns out to be enormously good fun. You freedive or snorkel down, find one wedged back under a ledge or sitting in the grass with just its antennae showing, coax it out with a tickle stick, and drop the net behind it. Rio teaches the technique on the way out and it clicks fast.

The limit is six per person per day, they have to measure at least three inches across the carapace, and — importantly — you don't need to buy your own license. Rio's charter credentials cover recreational lobstering for everyone on board, and he handles the measuring and the rules so nobody has to think about it.

The rest of the day is the part people don't expect to love as much as they do: wading sandbars, poking into mangrove creeks looking for wildlife, snorkelling the backcountry, and getting out onto little islands that you simply cannot reach without a boat and someone who knows where they are.