Back up the Keys We Go, Day 2...

Tuesday, February 18th, we had one adventure. It required a drive a bit further north to Islamorada Key. The destination was a place called Robbie's. Oh my heavens, what a place it was. Very eclectic. We had to wait about an hour for our glass-bottomed boat tour. Not a problem. Covered seating and they had Eagles playing in the background. This place has a restaurant, a snack truck for all kinds of frozen beverages, and lots of water activities from fishing charters, snorkeling, parasailing, kayak & paddle board rentals, boat rentals, jet skiing, eco tours, and souvenir shopping. It looks like it was patched together a bit here and a bit there. Honestly, I told Claude I could not even imagine it surviving a hurricane.

Claude pointed out the name of their company. How clever is that!?

There was a manatee in the harbor.

And pelicans aplenty. 

We bought passage on a glass-bottomed boat tour to the coral reefs in the Atlantic just off the shores of the Florida Keys. 

Seated next to us was a couple from upstate New York and her mother from Quebec. They were orthodox Jews. The mother reminded me of traveling with Bonnie, Claude's mother. I was deeply touched as we waited for the final family to arrived, this sweet lady took out her book written in Hebrew and read with her lips moving as her marker when down the page. She would pause and close her eyes and her lips were still moving. I am sure she was saying her prayers. I loved this beginning to our tour. 

We left Robbie's and headed into the Atlantic Ocean. 

We stopped at a coral reef in the ocean. We saw lots of fish and coral. I was impressed with the fan coral which is soft coral that is sometimes brown and sometimes green. When it is green it is feeding. When it is brown it is resting. I think I have that right? 

After spending time here, we went to Alligator Reef Lighthouse. This is a shallow spot in the ocean. It is a great spot for snorkeling. It is common for lots of boats to be around this lighthouse to drop off guests to snorkel. Part of this area was exposed to too much heat from the sun and the coral is bleached or dead. They are replanting coral to get it to grow back again. It will take many years for this to happen.

We learned that, when a boat has a red flag with a white stripe on it, that mean that boat had a diver on board that is in the water. This alerts other boats to stay a safe distance away for the safety of the diver.

Some of the coral and fish we saw at the Alligator Reef Lighthouse.

Time to head back to Robbie's. Claude and I loved to stand and feel the ocean wind in our hair as the boat sped through the water. 

As we drove back to Florida City, we had our first rain storm while in south Florida and the Keys. It didn't last long and moved on. 

We got back to Florida City and decided to eat at Sonny's BBQ before returning to our hotel for the next two night. 

Our hotel was a Quality Inn. We stayed there for two nights previous to going to Key West. This time they gave us a room in their new building. We had room 323. When I checked us in, the lady was very particular to tell me not to walk all the way to the end of the hallway. Our room would be on the first floor but NOT at the end of the hallway. We were so happy to be on the first floor. We entered the building and walked all the way to the end of the hall looking for room 323. We did not see it. We slowly walked back to the middle of the hall and found room 323 between room 304 and 306. We could not figure out how they got the rooms numbered this way. It was a very nice room. But we also found it weird we were on the first floor in room 323.