Saturday - March 19, 2011

Got up early today so we could take Jill and Alex down to Key West. if you have never been there before, it is a unique experience as it is probably the most isolated city in the US other than in Alaska. This is spring break week for the colleges down here and the Key West is packed with people looking to party. It is about 1 1/2 hours from Marathon and as I said we left early in order to get a parking spot in the historical part of the City.

One big tarpon!


After we arrived we started walking along the docks and as we looked down in the water along side the dock, we saw two big tarpon just hanging out beside the dock in about 6 feet of water. One went after the other and caused the other the to jump which also caused Jill to jump. I thought she might go in the water and become fish food, these tarpons were pretty big - about 5 feet long.

As we walked further along the dock we saw some manatee drinking water along the dock from a dripping hose. There were three of them nuzzling up to the hose to suck in the water.

Sipping the fresh water


We went down to Duval Street which is the main street of Key West snd started walking. Lots of t-shirt shops with funny sayings printed on them including Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville restaurant and shop. Of course, I had to buy a t-shirt which will go along with one I picked up at concert several years ago. We walked down to Ernest Hemmingway's house - supposedly he lived there for a little while while he wrote "A Call to Arms". We did not go in as they were charging about $12.50 each which seemed to go up or down with the tourist season. As this was spring break, I suspect it was high. In any case, I could not see any reason to go in because all you were going to see was some old furniture. So we moved on back up the other side of Duval Street and stopped into a store selling Atocha items. For those of you who don't remember, Mel Fisher searched for about 18 years for the wreck of the Atocha,- a 17th century Spanish sailing vessel which along with a sister ship (the Santa Margarita) went down in a hurricane after leaving Cuba laden with treasure. He finally found it in the eighties, after losing a son and daugther-in-law and the treasure is immense. In fact they are still finding more treasure on the the location. If you want to read an interesting story, look up the story of the search for the Atocha. When then went to lunch at one of the many many restaurant/bars on Duval Street. After lunch the spring breakers were coming out and starting their drinking for the day. They were still celebrating St. Patrick's Day and bar hopping all along Duval Street.

Our wanderings took us to dock where cruise ships come in and then further along the docks when we all decided to rest. Jill and Alex spotted a place that sold chocolate covered key lime pie. Very good and very decadent. We all had a piece!

When then drifted back to the car and drove back to the boat.


Alex & Jill d