Long Key SP, Marathon, FL

We are back in the FL Keys. Arrived March 5th and will be here until the 22nd. We will stay here a week, Curry Hammock a week and back to Pennekamp for a few days. From talking with a number of folks that have been here before (Southern FL) I think maybe we had better be thankful for the cold fronts and wind that has accompanied them because the insects have not been bad at all. We hear that the no-seeums can be really awful at times. I’ll take cooler weather thanks.

This is the view from our camper door here. Wow, every site in this park is on the ocean. That is super, but Rt 1 is again on our back door. The road noise is ever present but it is not as loud as we had it at Bahia Honda. This is tolerable. We are in site 24 but the first 15 are closer to the road and smaller. The sites are sand and some of the spots are pretty deep. Les had to use the 4W-drive to push the camper back in the site. Also, the hook ups are paired meaning that every other site has to use extensions to reach, the even site numbers. Two of the three bathhouses are new and all are clean. The ocean campsites are the draw to this park and there really isn’t a lot else. A little walking and you can ride your bike out side the park on a bike trail. We will take advantage of the proximity to the ocean and get in some beach time with our books. Pass the sunblock!

We rode our bikes down the road to this fishing bridge (2 mile bridge). It was a neat ride and as you can see, the water is so pretty. We saw dolphins in the water beside the bridge having much better luck at catching fish than the folks on the bridge.

Back to finish out Chokoloskee. Our last day the wind finally settled enough for us to do one more trip into the 10,000 Islands area. We enjoyed the kayaking and I did some shelling since it was low tide. We paddled through some of the islands and made it out where we wanted but realized that it would have been a lot smarter to have taken the GPS along to make sure we didn’t get turned around in the maze of mangrove trails.

Our last night we had a special dinner in that Rod and Gun Club I mentioned last post. This is a picture of their game area. The place was very interesting and had very good food. Thanks Lynn and Forrest for telling us about it.

Have I confused you enough? I’m back to Long Key now. This is a picture of the tangle that the mangroves create. We took advantage of the nature trail here, a 1 ½ mile trail by the ocean and through the hammock. Very nice walk.

We drove to Key West and took a biplane ride around the area. We saw the coral reef, islands, shipwrecks and lots of beautiful ocean. It sure was a neat experience. I purchased this for Les’s Christmas but found out that I could ride along. It was fun.


Another treat on our stay here was the full moon and clear skies. What lovely evenings watching the moon shimmer on the ocean. We even took a bike ride after dark with no lights because the moon was so bright. We leave for Curry Hammock, just 10 miles south, tomorrow and there will have a visit from Lori and Chris. That will be nice.