From Key West to Naples.
As I finished my last post I told you we were at Sugarloaf Key just north of Key West. We loved Key West so much on the bus tour that we decided to come back for a better look. What follows are some new pictures from Key West and the Lower Keys. These will then be followed by our latest (current) location, Naples.
I hope that you all can follow my blogging style of a bit of a story first followed by photos (supposedly in the same order). I presume this is okay for everyone as I haven’t heard differently. So for now I will continue this way starting with our 4 days in The Keys.
As expected the drive down was more spectacular than when we were in a bus trying to shoot pix over the drivers shoulder from 5 rows back. We wove our way through the everglades and down US Highway 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Highway ). Once we hit the official “Keys” we had multi-views of the Gulf of Mexico to our right and the Atlantic Ocean to our left interspersed with islands (or Keys). The road is around 100 miles long and in all you cross 42 bridges. The largest of these bridges is 7 Mile Bridge across the Moser Channel. Adding to the scenery are the weird and wonderful contraptions the some people here drive. From the fantastic Polaris Slingshot (https://slingshot.polaris.com/en-us/ ) cruising to Key West to ‘Bubba’ and his oversized dual rear wheel RAM that he had trouble keeping on the road this drive is never dull. Even on the long straight stretches it can be difficult to concentrate on the road and not the sights. When we got to our RV Park at Sugarloaf Key, RV’s like the one in the photos were all through the park. Even the Travel Trailers (caravans) were huge. The park manager at one time referred to ours as the ‘little cute one’. For goodness sake it’s 23’ foot long. That’s respectable where we come from!
Next day Shane and I wandered into Key West for a look at some things we’d seen last time but hadn’t time to visit. Higgs Beach became the first spot where there is a soulful story of the illegal slave trade and the fatalities from one such group. Next to this memorial is a little gem. Fort West Martello is a long abandoned Military Fort that is now in the caretakership of the Key West Garden Club. It has been partially restored and in a few short years (it was laid bare by several hurricanes in recent times) this Fort has become a wonderful oasis that is free to visit. Shane and I both rate this place very highly. From the back fence you can see Higgs Beach and the White Street fishing pier. Now I know you need a license to fish in Florida (yes governments all over the world will dig into your pockets for everything they can) but why people were fishing of the end only was beyond me. If you check out these pictures closely you’ll see lobster (we call them crayfish) all through the rocks against the side of the pier in 5 feet of water. In one picture I can count 6 within half a metre of each other but no-one was interested. There was a myriad of aquatic life and in my short walk to the end I saw a shark, an eel, 2 large pike, urchins, corals and heaps of large wrasse amongst thousands of other animals. Even the tern was so unfazed it let me get within arm’s length of it.
Key West is a fascinating and intriguing island. Here’s some more if the island architecture from the past and the present. Some are still being rebuilt after Hurricane Irma hit late last year. The last house here is actually on one of the Keys north of Key West (Big Pine Key I think). Land on the Keys reduce in price the further you get from Key West and still most properties have a canal front/back with boating facilities. We had gone for a drive to Big Pine and No Name Key to try to see the rare, endangered Key Deer. Well we certainly saw a few of these ‘rare’ animals. We even saw one roaming the carpark of Big Pine Supermarket.
After a short stop at the Blue Hole and a photo op with a green iguana we got home to see the sunset while enjoying a vino under our awning.
Before leaving Key West there was one more thing we just had to do and that was to dive on the famous Florida Keys reefs. For this we took the option of the “Sunset Rum & Reggae Snorkelling cruise”. We left Key West aboard a huge catamaran with 105 others and headed for an offshore reef. Looking back we could see the southern most part of the USA disappearing in the distance. We got ready as we closed in on the reef and as we moored to the buoy a rather large reef shark cruised by the starboard side. I will admit that this was the first time we’d dived so late in the day and this ‘sail past’ by a decent sized shark didn’t help. But I figured I had a 1 to 106 chance of being dinner if this ‘man in a grey suit’ was hungry. As it turned out it was curious and swam around us several times before departing into the deep. We snorkelled about for almost an hour and while the purple fan coral was pretty the reef as a whole was nothing on what we are used to at home. Nonetheless we had a great time. Back on board the skipper opened the bar after all swimmers were back on board and the booze flowed freely (I mean free-ly, it was complimentary). Rum punch was the main poison and Shane enjoyed several large glasses of champagne. We arrived back at the dock just after sunset all stoked up and happy with our first evening dive.
Shane and I walked to the car (helping work some of the rum out of my system) then drove back home for our last night at Sugarloaf Key. Next day we were headed to Naples on the Gulf (western) side of Florida State.
I’m falling behind in my postings. We’ve actually already left Naples for Tampa Bay so there should be another post following this one pretty soon. Keep watching.
Garry & Shane
Your story, your style, enjoying the whole shebang …Love the Dodge 1500 model arrives here in a month or 2 for about AU$70K , would suit towing my big rig very nicely as well I think……