Florida Bay is the bay located between the southern end of the Florida mainland (the Florida Everglades) and the Florida Keys. Its area is variously stated to be 800 square miles (2,100 km2), or 850 square miles (2,200 km2), or 1,000 square miles (2,600 km2). Nearly all of Florida Bay is included in Everglades National Park. The southern edge, along the Florida Keys is in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The bay muds of portions of Florida Bay have been cored to develop insights on the paleontology of previous biota. It has basins with banks in between which are great fishing grounds. The fish caught there are mangrove snapper, mackerel, and various others.
It is considered the "waterspout capital of the world" as the area has as many as 500 waterspouts per year. They are most common from June to October, but can occur anytime of the year.
Famous quotes containing the words florida and/or bay:
“In Florida consider the flamingo,
Its color passion but its neck a question.”
—Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989)
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)