Cruising the Keys.

Two nights in Key Largo allowed us to have a second look at Route 1 and take in the sights.  Some sights!!

Feast of St. Valentine's Day, 

sponsored by The Upper Keys Sons & Daughters of Italy

Local Lodge #2843

Including the Grape Stomping Competition!

We left Key Largo on Sunday and headed further South into the Middle Keys.  From Tarpon Basin we traversed Grouper Creek into Buttonwood Sound.  Then Baker Cut into the Florida Bay proper and Everglades National Park.  Pretty skinny water with mostly 7’s and 8’s showing for depth.  Once we passed Tavernier and reached Cotton Key Basin though, we didn’t see 8 again until we turned off the ICW and headed to Islamorada.  Mostly in the 6’s for that hour or so.  Like most things, you get used to it.  Almost makes you wonder why we can’t just turn up onto a boat ramp and drive down US Route 1.

We rode bikes from Lorelei’s north to Whale Harbor Bridge, then south to Hooked on Books.  Great views on the Atlantic side.  Dead calm and glassy out to Hawk Channel.  Lots of fish in a little inlet we visited.  Makes me want to ride with a fishing pole.  (Tess has limits!  NO to bikes on Rt 1 with a fishing pole…he can go, I’ll stay aboard and write his obit!)

At Hooked on Books I half expected to see former Florida Republican Governor Crist at his book signing there.  It has been well advertised for the past week in every paper and on every poster we have seen.  A notice on the door said “Rescheduled to March”.  On inquiry, the store’s owner said that Crist wasn’t begging off (he is now running for Governor as a Democrat), the problem was that the weather in New England has affected shipment of his book “The Party’s Over”.  There are no copies in all of Florida.  As a result, until there is a Spring thaw, we all need to just relax in the Florida sun and wait till the folks up North get back to work.  We’ll do our best.

We skipped Happy Hour at Lorelei’s.  It does look like that Keysie crowd that just woke up and realized that it’s Happy Hour again.  We elected sundowners and a grander view from the deck of ENDURANCE.  Much nicer for our chi today, and we started a read aloud (our first on this trip).  We are reading “Naked Came the Manatee”, a novel written (one chapter each) by Carl Hiaasen, Dave Barry, Elmore Leonard and ten more of “Florida’s finest writers”.  It starts with a Saturday night riot in Coconut Grove.  We kind of feel like we’ve seen that.  [Photo insert:  reader’s pick…a gorgeous sunset, golden moonrise later in the evening, a perfect day moving through green water, construction on Route 1, satisfied smiles on Tony & Tess’ mugs…you imagine it, but it was better than that;)]

Islamorada Sunset.