Florida Keys, Day 4, really

Since Maria's friends left the night before, right after we had dinner, we really had no plan at all for the day. We had just figured there was bound to be something to do, and it seemed a waste to spend new year's eve driving home all day, so we went back to the guidebook.

Bahia Honda, for the win! We tried pretty aimlessly to find a place to eat breakfast, only to end up with McDonald's, since no breakfast places on Big Pine Key were open (3 had actually shut down recently, according to the crazy local guy who'd been living on his boat for 30 years).

So we tried to find some key deer since we were there. It was too hot, so we only saw one, hiding in the shade.





Then it was on to Bahia Honda State Park. If you read the earlier parts, I had said that we'd be standing on that section of bridge later. This is where that bridge was. This is a section of Flagler's railway that didn't need use for trains anymore, as they never rebuilt the railway after the 1935 hurricane. So they used it for the Overseas Highway. This bridge was so narrow, that passengers had to be told to keep their hands inside to avoid hitting the trusses. Not wide enough for 2 car lanes...so they built the road on top of the friggin' train trusses...the VERY TOP!









Now I'm sorry, but can I get a "HELL NO!!" to driving over the top of those rusty-ass steel train trusses put there almost a hundred years ago? THANK YOU for the new road!

Absolutely spectacular view from up here, though!







It's hard to see in the picture below, but there is a shark in the water, just above and parallel to the shadow of the bridge. The water here was a bit clouded today with some weather coming or something. Not only did we watch him swimming around for a bit, but about 30 feet to the left of that little breakwater wall sticking out to separate the lagoon from the channel, he TWICE jumped completely out of the water like those damn crazy Great Whites do in South Africa!?!?! We were like WTF?!?!? I know damn well it was no dolphin, and am 100% sure it was a shark, and that sumbitch breached the surface TWICE inside of 5 minutes. Not just poke his dorsal fin out of the water, but jumped, whole body out of the water about a foot, jumped!

It was amazing to see.



Then we saw a Spotted Ray swim toward us and out under the bridge. You see it real good when he was in the shadow.












So I decide to go snorkeling over in that lagoon down there. I went as far as the breakwater, but I still couldn't see too good in that water, and I knew there were sharks in the water, and the jellyfish were everywhere, too. So I didn't go out past the swim bouys or anything dumb(er) like that.









Then it was time to get gas and head back to the campground to clean up before going to Key West for New Year's Eve!



We had a Cheeseburger on the balcony overlooking Duvall Street as the sun was setting. The crowds were just starting to come out. Our waitress told us all the places to be, but it was still very early.





Since there was hardly anyone out yet, we decided to walk to the South end of Duvall, as we hadn't been there, yet. There was not much going on, so we walked over to the Southernmost marker again...just because I could see it a block away, so why not?!





They were practicing the lowering of the slipper (with a transvestite in it) with the CNN camera crew in front of the Bourbon Street Bar.



Walked back up to the North end of Duvall (hey, the island is only 2 miles x 4 miles LOL), saw where the original Sloppy Joe's was, a half a block from it's current location. Legend has it the owner told his customers to grab their stools one night, as they were moving, and they walked to the new place, over a rent increase dispute. Now it's Captain Tony's. According to Pirate John's guide (which I got the info about the barstools from!), Captain Tony is an interesting character in his own right! I must go back...too much to see!



Walked around a bit in the darker corners, and found a lot more cool stuff to check out. It was all closed, but even more reason to go back.





And on the back of the obelisk:



We went back over to the harbor to see the lit up boats. There were a LOT of VERY expensive yachts in town. By expensive, I mean multi-million dollar yachts that cost more than every house you've ever owned combined, expensive. They apparently lower a wench at this party.





We had more Key Lime pie to kill time until it was close to midnight, then we decided we'd be at Sloppy Joe's to watch the dropping of the Conch at midnight. Caught a few sets of beads for Maria, got a champagne overspray, but otherwise it was a good time to be able to say we'd done it. Neither of us likes crowds, and I don't even drink, but it was fun to say we'd done it once. And now I never have to do that crap again :-)













We had been finding good parking everywhere we went, and never paid for parking. This was no different, and we got out of town pretty quickly, despite the crowds.

The next day, we woke up to 2008 to break camp finally, and head out of town...The sky was beautiful as we got up early. We drove out of town, and off the keys, only stopping to gas up or go to the restroom. Weather was turning, as that cold front that had been threatening us down here finally decided to turn toward us. It rained on us as Maria took over the driving (first time she'd driven the truck), but we didn't care, as vacation was over...and we like the rain. When we saw the Skyway bridge, we knew we were close.

Just another beautiful day in paradise...

Florida Keys, Day 4

On the 4th day, we just wished we were still at the Dry Tortugas all day.

The end.

Florida Keys, Day 3

This was the day. The one day we came down here for. The one day we actually had anything "planned". The one day I'd been waiting for for months, now. We were going to the Dry Tortugas!!

Don't worry, I had never heard of them until recently, either. Maria has lived in Florida her whole life, and she learned about them from me. Look it up on Wikipedia. Try to find it on a map. Look 68 miles West of Key West. Only get there by boat or floatplane, yet has the largest masonry structure in the western hemisphere on it.

We took the trip with Sunny Days Catamarans, one of the tour companies. It was a well-done trip, providing food and drinks, and a fast way out there. Next time, we are definitely going to camp there for at least 3 days, if not a week or more. Even though it was very small, there was just too much to explore and do.

Key West is waaaaaaay back there, somewhere.



I went straight for the water. Didn't catch it on film, but I walked out to the cement ramp there and slipped. Fortunately my secret ninja training and catlike reflexes kicked in...and I landed flat on my back.





These are "Magnificent Frigatebirds" and just sat there riding the breeze the whole time, never flapping, never moving...



The inner courtyard of the Fort while on the very informative tour. After the tour, we got to wander pretty much where we pleased.


It was really expensive to bring water to the islands (they are called "Dry" Tortugas because there is no fresh water there). Being that they needed to bring water there for the workers building the place, they often chose to use seawater to mix the mortar instead of fresh water. That is why the walls all have this white coating on them in places. It's the salt bleeding out of the mortar.





I have a ton of pictures of the place. I could just post them all, or you could figure out where to sift through them on my photodumper site. But this is interesting: These boats here are called Chugs.



What they are is a mishmash of anything that can be found to make a boat or something like a boat. Then the boater buys a gps which already has the Dry Tortugas programmed into it. This is all done in Cuba, which isn't too far away. Then the Cuban refugees see if their chug can make it all the way to the Dry Tortugas.

Now why would they want to do that?? Well it's simple. While it may be further away than Key West, Key West Has an active Navy base and an active Coast Guard base. The current rules about Cuban refugees and the U.S. are that if they are able to set foot on American Soil, they are granted political asylum (because Cuba is run by a fucked-up commie dicktatorship and all that). If they are intercepted at sea, the Coast Guard sinks their boat, puts them on board their own ship, and deports them back to Cuba, where they will likely be imprisoned and tortured and all that fun shit that goes along with getting caught trying to defect from a fucked-up commie dicktatorship.

Anyway, the Dry Tortugas is American soil. But it is the most remote National Park we have, so all that is there are a handful of park rangers and some maintenance folk...not several active military bases. So the Rangers go running out (and they are VERY well-armed, by the way...Pirates do still exist, ya know...) and welcome the new American resident aliens ashore and make sure they aren't dying or anything. They get transported back to Key West to get their new ID's and stuff later.

They get 1200 of these landings in the Dry Tortugas every year. Not 1200 people...1200 boats. There weren't any on the day we were there, though there were 18 people made it there they day before.

Anyway, after the tour, we explored the fort a little bit, checking out each floor, and the different rooms and roof, and holes that went nowhere.









I've been to the edge...and there I stood lookin' down...



These next 3 show the areas we went snorkeling on the outside of the moat wall:







There was a good amount of sealife along the wall. I don't know if I got any good underwater shots, though. I had issue with my technology, so we'll see!





These were taken by Maria while she was standing on the wall, that's how clear the water is.









But we had to go back, eventually. Talked with a couple who had been camping there the past few days. They never even took their tent out, they just slept on the beach. They loved it.

We had 3-5 foot swells on the way back, and we ran over a floating rope that got caught in one of our props. The first mate had to go cut it off in the middle of nowhere. Other than that, it was a great ride back, and we ate at the first place that wasn't straight from Pirate John's guidebook, finally!