February 4-5, 2018 Marathon, Florida Keys

Another sunny, 80 degree and mostly clear day.

We toured Crane Point Hammock today. It was owned by the Cranes and they preserved the natural habitat of the keys. There is a natural history museum, nature trails, a butterfly meadow, two historic homes and a wild bird center. We went on a nature walk with a group. The only hurricane damage was this one area where trees were killed. This home belonged to a Bahamian immigrant George Adderley, built out of 'tabby; made from burnt seashells and sand in the early 1900's. 

The view from the Crane's home that was built in 1954. They bought the Adderley house and a bunch of surrounding area. Some native flowers, geiger tree, wild cotton, pink flower and beach sunflower. 

Sea lavender plant and flowers, an iguana see on the point. A roseate spoonbill with a sling on his wing at the wild bird center- they look like flamingos when they fly , a golden orb spider and a palm tree trunk.

John and I with a huge strangler fig. When we got back I paddled around on the gulf side of the island for awhile. The water is an incredible light blue.

John took this of me on the water. Birds I saw paddling. Anhingas, pelicans and a black skimmer. I took one of pelicans above me that looked like pterodactyls and a nice one in the sunset above me.

  I stayed on the water till after sunset. It was stunning. A pelican floating just above the surface of the water in sunset.  A panorama of the sunset. 

 

The docks at the RV park, they have these weird blue lights under the dock at night. Today was sunny, 83 and very little wind. We went snorkeling by Sombrero Reef in with Spirit in their  motorized catamaran.  Here are my feet as I rode out in the front of the boat. The color of the water is unbelievable.  

Looking down at the reef from above, tons of bright colored tropical fish. Last time we took our cameras snorkeling we ruined both. So I didn't take any photos under the water this time. This underwater one came from Trip Advisors site of someone snorkeling with Spirit here.  It was like that today.

These two shots I took in 2012  when we snorkeled here before the camera drowned, but it looked pretty much the same. Amazing.  

John and I on deck. I got queasy on the water. The nice first mate gave me this ginger ale to settle my stomach.  John took this nice shot of the Sombrero Lighthouse. When it was built it was on an island on dry ground. Now the island is under 8 feet of water. 

Yup, ginger ale and resting on the boat helped a lot. A pelican in the sunset from the dock at the RV park. Kind of like a shot I took last night, but with swirly clouds. I love these pelicans, such graceful flyers.  

The sunset just kept getting better. 

Jolly Roger RV park from the docks with their weird blue lights underneath.

February 2-3, 2018 Marathon, Florida Keys

70's and partly cloudy day.

We went to the Pigeon Key Art Festival in the city park today. Lots of very nice art. Fun to talk to the artists. I actually sold some of my jewelry to one of the artists. Didn't expect that. I loved the art car made from recycled pieces. On the hood is a kaleidoscope. The eye of the fish on the back panel is a glass pan lid with a CD behind it all on the gas cap. The rear back up light is a red glass mug.

Sunset looked different tonight, but when I look at the photo it looks just like last night's  sunset. Poor us to have this great view in today's front yard. John took me out to dinner at Burdine's Waterfront. We sat overlooking the water and listened to live music under a thatched tiki roof.

I finished the Froggy Bottom basket. It is 10 1/2 x 9 1/2 x 2 inches. It has some kind of stone frog on a lily pad in the center, frog and green glass beads and is made of pine needles. Came out cute. The restored and opened this part of Sombrero beach. It is lovely. I can't sit still long enough to sunbathe much any more. Plus the sun is longer nice to my skin. I like to walk on the beach and this is all of it, not very long.

But they are still working on restoring the rest after hurricane Irma. We went to Big Pine Key to see the key deer. They are a variant of white tail deer, only about half as big.  We walked around Blue Hole. It is an old quarry that has salt water in the bottom and a lense of freshwater on top. Lots of wildlife here drawn to the water. There is an alligator floating on the other side and we saw some turtles. 

Then we hiked in the Key Deer Preserve.  They call this habitat pine rockland, with a canopy of pines and a low understory. The palms are a bit ragged from the hurricane still.  The deer are about 24-26 inches tall and the fawns weight between 2-4 lbs when born. We did a fair amount of hiking but saw the deer on the road, many among the houses.  They are protected here and tolerate people. Pelicans are in the bay in front of our RV at camp.

Pine key is covered with poison tree, it is related to poison ivy, which I am wildly allergic to. My worst nightmare, poison ivy trees!! More birds from camp. An iguana at the beach-he did not know it was closed, a butterfly on a flower, a turtle hanging below the surface of Blue Hole and another one with it's shadow.

We went to No Name Key to hike some more. This is John in a hardwood hammock. Hammocks are on elevated ground above the wetlands. There are tropical trees, mostly gumbo limbo, pigeon plum, poisonwood and mahogany. Very dense and green. Closer to shore is hurricane damage, debris and sea grass and dried mud and trees stripped of leaves and maybe dead. 

Rainbow on the way back. giant bracken fern, a sea sponge in the hurricane debris. I love the Ichabod crane service and one of the Florida licence plate designs. On the way back we stopped at the No Name Pub, named after the island. It has been around since the 30's and kind of in the middle of no where. In front were key deer made from debris.

There is a nice outside patio at No Name, the inside plastered with $1 bills.  The menu said people from all over the world come for the world famous pizza and to put a $1 on the wall. A newspaper article on the wall says there are 65,000 to 75,000 bills on the wall. John thought the place was a fire trap and he kept his money in his pocket.  The old bridge by Bahia Honda State park in the evening light on the way back from the 7 mile bridge.

The clouds once again blocked sunset from our front yard but I managed to get a little color from my lawn chair. It has been 6 months since the hurricane came through but there is still damage to be seen. Most houses either have new roofs or tarps on them and lots of new construction. Some new houses going up-on stilts to protect against the storm surge in the next hurricane, a mangrove island with no leaves and probably dead trees. Stripped trees , damaged road and fences, piles of debris and this last is some storm damaged motor homes. Lots of people are living in new trailers while reconstruction takes place.

January 30-February 1, 2018 Everglades, Florida

It only got to 70 degrees today, sunny and windy. We hiked the Bay shore trail. It was very pleasant. John in a tree tunnel. Mangrove roots from the land side. Most of my photos have been from the water side. I love their prop roots.

Bumpy berries, some kind of critter home near the shore, pink  flowers. Red flowers, lantern seed heads, yellow pea flower, purple flowers.

Purple flowers, white spiky flowers, furled up moon flower, they bloom a tight, kind of collapse during the day. they have had the boil water notice in effect signs up for a couple days.  Looks like a water main broke down the line. We have a full water tank so have not been drinking theirs.  Snowy egrets along the shore. We have not seen as many birds here as before. We heard they still have not come back since hurricane Irma.

Sunset in camp. Our original reservation had us leaving yesterday. They won’t let you reserve any days here at camp on the electrical sites. Our next reservation is in the keys starting the first. So we had to move to a first come first serve non electrical site for today. We got this really nice site on the very corner. 

We rode our bikes to the visitors center and attended a ranger program on the tropical trees that are native here. Very interesting. John talking to Tim Taylor  the ranger giving the program.  A ropey buttonwood trunk and three stranger figs in different stages. They usually grow on palm trees, wrap around them and end up strangling the host plant.  The first on has almost engulfed the palm, the next two are still working on wrapping around the tree. 

A green and brown male sand fiddler crabs with one large pincer and one regular sized, the beach is covered in masses of these tiny shells. Poison tree leaves- they are a relative to poison ivy and just as nasty, mangrove flowers and a poster on the bathroom tonight. Join us at the amphitheater  to howl at the full moon. It faces east so you can watch the full moon rise over the bay. We chose to eat dinner and watch it rise over the campground and howl at it.  A gumbo limbo tree at sunset.  

We drove on  Hwy 1, the South Dixie Hwy out to the keys.  Just what I always wanted to do, feed hands to sharks, the speed limit sign in the RV park. We are in a no wake zone, I like that. The water is impossibly, beautifully turquoise. 

The bus on parked on the water (well the edge) at Jolly Roger Motel and RV park in Marathon, Florida. Really nice site and view, it is the most expensive site we have ever rented. $112 a night. Rv parking sites are drastically reduced since hurricane Irma and the ones left are full. It is the high season here. we were lucky to find this one.  Pelicans at the fish cleaning station. They seem to live there. People are cleaning fish all day. 

Not much sunset, clouds moved in. But some one blew a conch shell at sunset. Very key like.