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. 

Back up the Keys We Go, Day 1...

Monday, February 17th, we would leave Key West and start our journey back up the Ocean Highway to Florida City. We would spend one night in Marathon.

Here are pictures of our drive from Key West to Big Pine Key.

Our destination was the National Key Deer Refuge. We picked a couple of spots to visit in this Refuge hoping to site a Key Deer. These are the smallest sub-species of the Virginia white-tailed deer. We were told the population of key deer once got as low as 50. Now, it is estimated there are 800 of them. They are protected and endangered and you are not to feed them. Since we didn't see any, this was not an issue. 

We first found the Blue Hole. It is an abandoned rock quarry that was used for nearby road fills and Henry Flagler's Overseas Railroad. It is now the largest freshwater body in the Keys. It is a freshwater lens. The last picture shows how this works. It was planted with native vegetation all around the edge. This was a very pleasant visit. The wind gave a gentle breeze. Very relaxing. 

We drove a little way down the highway to Mannillo Nature Trail. Again, no sign of the Key Deer but we really weren't there the right time of day to see them. One of the things I learned in my preparation for this trip was the word 'hammock'. A hammock is a tropical hardwood forest. We would see bits of this on this trail. 

Our final activity for this day was to get to Pigeon Key. Here are pictures of the drive from Big Pine Key to Marathon.

To get to Pigeon Key you must go to Marathon and then walk, bicycle or ride the Pigeon Express out to Pigeon Key. The Ocean Highway goes right by it. A section of the Flagler Railroad bridge is in place from Marathon to Pigeon Key. It has been paved like a road and was used as a road for a while. We chose to ride the Pigeon Express from Marathon to Pigeon Key. 

We were dropped off on Pigeon Key and a tour guide was waiting for us. Lawn chairs were set up under a pavilion and we all sat while our guide explained the history of Pigeon Key. In a nutshell, Flagler owned a railroad that went down the east coast to Miami. He noticed a need to go to Key West for passengers and for commercial gain. He had LOTS of money and invested his own dollars in this venture. Pigeon Key would be a staging area for this operation. At that time there was no road down to Key West. The railroad was built and wealthy tourist would now travel from Miami to Key West and stay in that huge hotel I took the picture of. Pigeon Key would be a place for workers and supplies to stay. Flagler was good to his workers. 

After a thorough history of Pigeon Key, which included more that Flagler's use of Key, we would tour a couple of the buildings. The first of these was the barracks for the workers. It has been restored and is now used for school children coming for educational trips. When the students find a buoy that has washed up on shore, their class paints it and they hang it from the ceiling of the barracks building. The last picture of this group was taken when it was used as the barracks with bunk beds lining the walls. 

Outside, the seven mile bridge we traveled in the Pigeon Express could be seen from the Pigeon Key back to Marathon. It was constructed beautifully. 

We entered a building that is now the museum. There were several pictures on the walls of points in history with the bridge and the Key. The first old picture is what Pigeon Key looked like as the staging point for building Flagler's railroad. No vegetation as they have today. Several barracks buildings as well as tents for the works. The second old picture is the devastation of the hurricane to the railroad. It was a huge hurricane and destroyed the railway. The railway only operated for 23 years. Once it was destroyed, portions of it were paved over and used for cars (like this stretch from Marathon to Pigeon Key). It was extremely narrow and lots of rearview mirrors were lost in the passing of vehicles. No shoulders to pull off on either side. Eventually the Ocean Highway was built and that is what we use today. The third old picture is the place on the railway for the turning of the tracks to let ships pass through.  

Across from the museum is a path to the beach. Lots of people come with their snorkeling gear and spend their time in the water, not on the tour. 

This is the building that would have been the cooking building.

And this cute little building is the Honeymoon Cottage. Yes, someone was married and this was built for them to honeymoon in.

I talked to our guide for a bit and met some of the local wildlife.

It seemed like that two hour tour went really quickly. We journeyed back to Marathon Key on the Pigeon Key Express.

Claude saw a place called FL Keys Steak & Lobster so we headed there for our dinner. We each had a lobster po-boy. Yum. It was way to big to get your mouth around. But the food was delicious.

We would spend this night in Marathon at the Coconut Cay Resort and Marina. Our second most expensive hotel room of the trip.