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| Start the day right with a hearty breakfast! |
Our last day here in Key West was an adventure. The biggest discovery of this stop was that Key West is NOT about their beaches. Unless you like to walk on rock and fight surf. At least that was the case today. We had decided we wanted to get some use out of our snorkeling gear so we set out after a big breakfast toward Ft Zachary Taylor State Park where we were told there was some good snorkeling with some man made reefs just offshore. It was the sunniest day that we have had here in Key West but it also came with some pretty strong winds which kicked up the surf. This served to not only make it tough to swim off of the rock beach but also it stirred up the usually crystal clear waters anywhere near shore. We made the best of it for a short bit but it really was not worth the effort.
After touring Ft Taylor and our failed attempt at snorkeling we rode up toward the entrance to the park where we had passed a nice water splash park. It's cool waters were a nice way to rinse off the salt and sand and seaweed. We sat on a bench for a short while watching all of the small children playing while we dried off enough to use their restroom to change into our dry clothes.
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| When the snorkling didnt pan out as expected this splash park was a nice cool down....not just for kids you know! |
The upside to the park was that we did not realize that there was actually still the old fort in place to tour. The fort dates back to 1845, ironically enough the exact same time period that the Muskingum River locks were constructed on our home river. The fort offered great view of the Atlantic and the shipping channel coming in to the bay. Additionally, there are several very impressive Coast Guard and Navy ships parked in the bay that are usually open to tours but not today.
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Fort Zachary Taylor State Park
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| The Fort was pretty cool |
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| Nice sweeping views of the Atlantic from the top of the fort |
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| Blacksmith workshop at Ft Taylor Park |
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| Coast guard boat normally has tours but was not open today |
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| Navy shop across the bay from the park |
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| More Chicken anyone? |
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| Just thought this tree had cool squiggly branches...its the simple things in life lol |
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| Renee could maybe teach here? |
We rode on in toward Duval St and parked the bikes so that we could do some walking and people watching. Conveniently enough, we just HAPPENED to lock the bikes up right next to another Cuban Coffee Queen location. Being hot we enjoyed a couple more of their Cuban Frappes and purchased a pound of ground coffee to enjoy on the boat over the next couple of weeks. We then went into the room where they were preparing to roast the beans. A nice guy conversed with us about their beans and products. He gave us yet another small bag of coffee of a different roast and also let us sample the 'cold brew' that he was making currently. This takes him approximately 36 hours to brew.
We walked around and stopped into shops to browse and mostly enjoy their air conditioning periodically for a couple of hours which lead us up to 5pm when we were scheduled to meet our Emmaus friends Matt and Krysten from Zanesville again as well as our friends of Bill's, Ron and Kristen, who had just gotten down here from Columbus. We enjoyed the company over another tasty dinner at 'The Dirty Pig'. This time we thought we would be smart and split a sandwich platter rather than a rack of ribs so that we would FOR SURE have room for some of their excellent looking deserts. Hmmmm.....we still did not have room, BUT this time we did get a piece of the bourbon chocolate cake with butter icing and a salted caramel drizzle to go for later this evening :-)
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Met up with a good friend, Ron, and his girlfriend Kristen for dinner at The Dirty Pig
Was great to see him! |
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| Pretty Stained glass in an old church on Duval St |
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| There were several beautiful churches |
After dinner we decided we would head back to the marina and boat early this evening and get things prepped and ready for our planned voyage tomorrow. We loaded and secured the bikes back onto the bow of the boat. Then some time was spent enjoying a freshly brewed pot of our Cuban coffee and our decadent desert while we made our plans A & B for tomorrow. Depending how we are feeling and how the conditions are we will either:
a) travel about 60 miles to an anchorage around Islamorada where a couple we have been communicating with on through the AGLCA forum will be.
b) travel about 90 miles to an anchorage behind Key Largo which would set us up nicely to make it past Miami and to Ft Lauderdale on Tuesday.
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