First Day in the Keys
After a nice, relaxing night of sleep, it was time to start our vacation. And in our typical fashion, we were up and out pretty quick. Before we passed out the night before, we made our plan for the day: get a good breakfast, go grocery and rum shopping, then off to do something familiar in an unfamiliar place… ocean kayaking at Bahia Honda State Park.
We had seen a few places south of our house the day before and decided to hit one we saw, The Wooden Spoon. It was a cool, little place… pretty much a diner. I had an omelette and Kacie had eggs and sausage which she made into a sandwich. She could’ve just ordered a sandwich, but she did it herself. Might have been cheaper that way, not sure. After knocking that out pretty quick, we headed for the Publix liquor store. We bought the old stand-by, Sailor Jerry, and new one to us, Tommy Bahama rum. Although we were right beside the Publix we hit the day before, we decided Publix is for rich people and went down the street to Winn-Dixie. Back when I lived down here it was the same deal, Publix was more expensive so I always shopping at Winn-Dixie. Turns out neither are cheap in the keys, although Publix probably was still more expensive. There we bought burgers, chicken, man n cheese, salad, soda, water, etc… We tend to go a little nuts when we stay at places with kitchens, and this time was no exception. Then back to the house to drop off our groceries and get dressed for kayaking.
To get to Bahia Honda from Marathon you need to drive over the Seven Mile Bridge. It’s a big tourist attraction if you look it up on the internet, but it’s a bridge. Granted, it’s a long bridge, but still just a bridge. It is cool to check out the ocean that surrounds you the whole way, but you’re in the keys, the ocean surrounds you no matter where you are.
There are a few high points on your way across the bridge though: Pigeon Key, the lonely tree, and of course various people doing various water sports all over the place. Pigeon Key is a tiny little island that has a little settlement on it that you can only reach by boat or seaplane. You can check out more about it here. We didn’t go there, but it might be cool to check out if you’ve already done everything else there is to do in the keys.
The lonely tree is another thing that you might come across if you look up the keys on the internet. Running the whole seven miles is the original bridge that was used up until the 70’s when the more modern one was built. They didn’t tear the old one down, but don’t maintain it. About three quarters of the way down heading south you’ll see a single tree that has grown up on the bridge, along with a bush or two. I would assume birds carried a few seeds as they flew up and down the bridge and one actually took root. It’s not very exciting, but people still like to mention it. And here I am writing a whole paragraph about it, so…
Once we got over the bridge we found the park entrance. In Florida, you have to pay for most state parks. Really, in Florida, you have to pay for most things. Since there’s no income tax down here, that’s how it works, you only pay for what you use. So the more popular the park, the more money they get for that park, and the nicer it is. Being in the Keys and having two beaches, this park is very popular, hence it’s also very nice and well kept. Parking was easy even though it was crowded, and we went right for the gift shop/rental desk.
The one thing we didn’t remember to bring was towels. Luckily the gift shop had them. And then we also proceeded to buy t-shirts and hats, we’re a little ridiculous. Before taking our booty back to the Bronco, we stopped by the rental spot and asked about the details. Renting a kayak would be nice and easy. So we headed back to the Bronco, dropped off our stuff, packed up our waterproof gear and slopped sunscreen all over ourselves. Down here Kacie and I need it. And so far we’ve done pretty good.
Back over to actually rent the kayaks and grab paddles and vests. Turns out it’s pretty cheap to rent kayaks in Florida and you don’t pay until you get back so you only pay for the time you use them. They have the kayak over on the beach, so you just walk over from the shop and pick them. It’s pretty cool because you really just put in right where others are sunbathing and swimming, no specific spot. So off we went.
We grabbed two kayaks, all of which are sit-on-top ocean kayaks and waded out a bit into the ocean before hopping on. This time we were just going to go straight out into the Atlantic, we’ll mess around inland later at another place. The water is very shallow around the keys, you have to get out pretty far before you can’t stand anymore. And truthfully, even though I assume we did, I don’t really know if we were ever in water that deep.
First thing we did after paddling away from the beach-goers was find a sandbar. Pretty easy since they’re everywhere. So we jumped right back out of our kayaks so that we could just stand in the middle of the ocean for a bit. It’s definitely unique to be that far off the beach and still be able to stand in ankle deep water. You do need to keep a hand on your kayak since the waves will snatch it from you quickly if you’re not careful. Here we also got our cameras out and starting shooting video.
We leisurely cruised up the coast for a while, taking it all in. It’s a whole different experience being in the middle of the water instead of looking at it from the shore. The water here is not exactly crystal clear, not really even close. The reason is that this is one of the places that waves still break down here, kicking sand up and mixing in with the water. We did get out to where it started to clear up a bit a few times, but that ended up being pretty far out. And then you’re into the seaweed, which is also everywhere.
We were out for an hour or two before heading back, probably covered a couple miles. Kayaking in the ocean current is a little different than what we’re used to, but we both were surprised that it didn’t tire us out any more than we usually would have been. Kacie assures me that fighting the Susquehanna current is much worse. We ended up heading in when we did because we were getting hammered by the sun. First day down here and the sun really hits you hard. But like I said, we’ve been pretty good with the sunscreen and didn’t get burned.
Once we got close to the beach, we hopped out on a sand bar and decided to walk the kayaks in the rest of the way. Basically for the sake of walking through the ocean, which again was pretty cool. We dumped the kayaks in their spot and headed back to drop off our paddles and pay. It only ended up being 37 bucks total for both kayaks… not too bad considering we had just spent 5 times that on hats and shirts. Then we bought another towel and a lemonade, told you we’re ridiculous.
We went back to the Bronco to drop off our personal gear and dry off. Instead of just standing there drying we decided to wonder up to the old bridge on the other side of the island from the 7 mile bridge. You can only walk a little way up it, but it gives you a nice, elevated view of the surrounding ocean and bay. You can really pick out the different shades of blue in the sea, along with the huge patches of seaweed dotting the seascape. There’s a word I don’t get to use much…
After coming back down off of the bridge, we hopped in the car and headed back over the big bridge to Marathon. Between ocean water, sweat and sunscreen, we were both looking forward to showering after our little adventure.
Once we got cleaned up I went out and fired up our grill to cook some burgers. The handmade burgers from Winn-Dixie are pretty good, although they fall apart a bit. I had two, Kacie had one. Then we started drinking. The new rum we had bought earlier, Tommy Bahama, was really good. It’s not as cheap as our usual rum, and we might be able to get it anywhere, but at least to us it was a special island rum and it was excellent. We sat out on our dock all night talking and drinking. The overnight low down here is about 75, so we didn’t finally go in to fall asleep because we got cold, we just finally were too tired to stay out anymore.
We decided the next day, Saturday, was going to be a chilling day in Marathon, so there was no reason to go to bed early or to get up early. And we had planned on making breakfast in the morning, so we knew we wouldn’t be in a rush to get up and go anywhere, which is not like us, but nice.
