Snorkeling, Kayaking and a Manatee – Watery Adventures on Ohio Key (March 6-17, 2020)

We cut our trip short and hurried home to self-quarantine and isolate ourselves from the coronavirus.  We never had a chance to blog about our watery adventures in the Keys.  Today is a cool, grey, rainy March day in Virginia, the perfect weather for reminiscing about the beautiful blue-green water, brilliant sunshine and incredible creatures of the Keys.

Beach walk on Bahia Honda during a kayak break 

We could see the marina from our campsite

We stayed at Sunshine Key RV Resort and Marina.  It is just south of the 7-mile bridge on Ohio Key.  Ohio Key is small, 2/3rds of it is the campground and the remaining 1/3^rd is wetland and bird sanctuary.  Across a narrow channel is the next key with gorgeous Bahia Honda State Park.  The locals call it “Baya Honda”.  We were there 12 days.

French Angelfish

A Parrotfish and some Tangs

Snorkeling

We chartered Captain Brian from Keys Boat Tours to take us out for a snorkel at Looes Key.  The undersea coral reef is a magical world with brightly colored fish, gently undulating soft coral purple sea fans, and the occasional ray and barracuda.  The day was windy and the sea surface was choppy, which cut our snorkel short.  What we did get to enjoy was very special.

Finally, a Manatee

Finally, a Manatee

If you have been reading our blog for a while, you know that our Florida trips are punctuated by near misses in Manatee sightings in the wild.  When we returned to the marina after our snorkel, a Manatee came by for a visit.  It was a huge, slow-moving animal, graceful in the water.

Here is a movie of our manatee

Manatees spend part of the year in fresh water and love to drink fresh water when they are living in salty water.  This one came over to the boat as our captain flushed his engine with fresh water and drank the water.  It gave us a chance to observe the manatee up close. 

Because the manatees can not get away from boat propellers quickly, and because marinas have a lot of boat traffic, it is unsafe to spray a hose of fresh water to attract a manatee in a marina.  You might put the animal at risk.  However, there are sources of fresh water in marinas, so the manatee wander in from time to time for that and other reasons known only to the manatee.  We were told that up to 4 manatee have been seen in this marina at one time.

Leaving the marina

Kayaking

Our own kayaks needed repairs, so we rented kayaks one day, and borrowed friend’s kayaks on another day to go out for paddles.  We circumnavigated tiny Ohio Key and paddled over to Bahia Honda where we walked on the beach.

Beautiful Bahia Honda

Mangrove

We observed a stingray and a nurse shark swimming through the water.  Ibis, herons and egrets stalked in the shallow water.  Pelicans swooped overhead, some so close we could hear their wings moving through the air as they passed us.  There were cormorants everywhere.  We poked the bows of our boats into the mangrove thickets. 

Magnificent Frigatebird - the white tells us it is a female

Magnificent Frigatebird

The Magnificent Frigatebird is an enormous animal, with a 7 foot wing span.  You can see its distinctive shape soaring high overhead when you are in the Keys.  They do not have waterproof feathers, so do not fish for food, instead they swoop down and steal food from other birds.  They also harass other birds until they regurgitate their meals and then the frigatebird catches the regurgitated food in mid-air.  Despite this revolting way of shopping for groceries, they are magnificent to watch gliding on the ocean thermals high overhead.  We’ve only ever seen them in the Keys, and we got to see several this trip as well.

Dana and a pelican friend

Got too close...

The Trip Home

Once we decided that we needed to return home instead of continuing our trip, we drove 1200 miles in 2 ½ days.  We decided not to stay in campgrounds on the way home, instead camping overnight in highway rest areas, along with other RVers and truckers.  We are self-contained so all we needed was a long place to park.  This was a new and pleasant experience for us.  We planned our gas stops when we were near empty, filling up 70+ gallons at a time.  Hearing that grocery stores had been slammed at home, we stopped at the Food Lion in tiny Micro NC to stock up on eggs, milk and fresh vegetables.  A very different trip than the meandering, relaxed way we usually travel.

Orange marking tells us this is a breeding male cormorant

Juvenile cormorants

Goodbye paradise

The Turtle Hospital, Marathon, Florida (Mile Marker 48.5) – March 9, 2020

Turtle medical technicians helping a sick turtle

If you were to find a sick or injured turtle on the beach in the Florida Keys, you would likely call the Turtle Hospital in Marathon.  They would dispatch an ambulance and professional turtle medical staff would rescue the turtle and bring it to the hospital where it might undergo medication, surgery and/or rehabilitation.  Some sick turtles might stay more than a year.  The healthy turtles are then released back into the ocean.  The few that can not survive in the wild either stay the hospital as permanent residents (there are 5), or are sent to live out their lives in zoos or aquaria.

The five sea turtles found in Florida

There are 7 species of sea turtles world-wide, five of which can be found in the waters off the coast of Florida.  Every one of these five species are considered either Threatened or Endangered.  The turtle population has dwindled in large part due to effects of man.  They have been over-hunted, hit by boat propellers, gotten caught in fishing line, drowned in fishing nets, had their nesting grounds taken away (they always return to the beach where they were hatched to lay their eggs), eat plastic debris found in the water which makes them sick, and they have tumors thought to be caused by pollutants absorbed by the grasses they eat.

This turtle has "bubble butt"

Many efforts have been made to save these majestic creatures.  One such is the Turtle Hospital in Marathon, the largest turtle hospital in the Keys.  You can take a 90-minute educational tour of the hospital.  A new one starts every hour, starting at 9 and ending at 6.  They encourage that you make a reservation, and we saw drop-ins turned away because the tour group was already full.

The former motel, now staff residence

The Turtle Hospital started as the Hidden Harbor Motel.  When Richie Moretti purchased it in 1980s it had a large salt water pool.  He built a fresh water pool for his guests and stocked the salt pool with fish so that his guests could learn about life in the ocean.  Eventually, he considered adding a sea turtle to his pool but found that they are protected, and were only held in captivity if you were rehabilitating sick or injured turtles.  Once he started taking care of injured turtles, the effort took on momentum.

One of the tank enclosures

 After sustaining damage in a hurricane, Richie decided to invest his insurance money in rebuilding the turtle hospital instead of the motel.  So now, the motel rooms are used to house hospital staff.

A recuperating turtle

 The tour starts with an introductory presentation about Leatherback, Kemp’s Ridley, Hawksbill, Green and Loggerhead turtles.  From there you walk past the operating room and the place where they take x-rays.  Outside there are covered pavilions with tanks of different sizes.  One large tank has three recuperating Green turtles and the one Kemp’s Ridley that is a permanent resident.  Further on, smaller tanks have individual or a few smaller/younger turtles.  One tank was filled with just a few inches of water so that the sick turtle only needed to raise its head to breathe, it was too sick to swim.  Finally, you get to the original saltwater pool where you can feed turtle food to the four other permanent residents and some other turtles who are finishing their convalescence.  Along the way, you see turtle rehab technicians caring for their patients. 

This turtle is named Pink during its stay at the hospital.

If you identify a turtle that needs rescuing, you get to give the turtle a name.  The name is painted on the shell so that the techs can tell the turtles apart.  At some point, a bunch of turtles came in unnamed, so the staff were able to name them.  They chose the names of Disney characters.

The whitish disks you see are the weights glued to this turtle's back to help it sink

 It was sad to see the turtles with flippers amputated because they had been caught in fishing line.  Several have a condition called “bubble butt” where gases released from internal organs when their shells were damaged by boat propellers, have created permanent pockets of gas under their shells, preventing them from diving below the surface of the water.  Weights are glued on to their shells to make them neutrally buoyant so that they can sink under water.

The Turtle Hospital tour is very informative and thoughtfully done, and the work they are doing with the turtles is amazing. 

The surgery

The ambulance

Walking Among Coral Fossils -Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park, Islamorada, Florida (mile marker 84.9) – March 7, 2020

Fossilized brain coral

If we were to ask you what formed the chain of islands that we know as the Florida Keys, you would say that it was probably old coral reefs that have been exposed as the ocean receded.  And you would be right, in a way.  In fact, those coral reefs over time were formed into limestone.  Just like the limestone in other places, the submerged sea creatures left behind calcium, in this case from the coral polyp exoskeletons, that was compressed into limestone.  Some of the limestone in the Keys still bears the fossil remains of recognizable coral formations that grow on the reefs today. 

Fossilized star coral.

In the early 1900’s, Henry Flagler extended his railroad that already ran along the east coast of Florida, beyond Miami to Key West.  Stimulated by a very cold winter and wanting to expand his range of warm destinations, and the possibility of importing goods from Cuba by way of Key West, Flagler started building a railway along the Keys, connecting them to the mainland. 

Aren't the fossils pretty?
The vertical cut is left from the process of cutting blocks of stone. 

In some situations, he needed fill stone to build land between closely adjacent Keys, and in other situations he built bridges to cross longer distances between the islands.  To obtain gravel for the land fill and the railway bed, he purchased quarry land on Windley (then called Umbrella) Key for a whopping $852.80. 

The red stain is from African dust blown across the ocean
that rinsed into a cavity created by natural acids.

The blast walls of Flagler Quarry

There are three quarries on the site, two of which are recognizable as quarries.  The gravel was dynamited from the ground in the Flagler Quarry.  These quarry walls are crenelated with the bores and blasts from the dynamite. 

A cut block of keystone that was never used.

The relatively smooth walls of Windley Quarry with cut marks

The stone was cut into blocks from the Windley Quarry, so the walls are mostly smooth with regularly spaced cut marks.  The stone was considered so beautiful that it was used as decorative building stone around the country.  The name of Key Largo Limestone was shortened to Keystone.  This quarry continued to work into the 1960s and rusting quarry machinery can still be seen there.

Machinery traveled along a track cutting ever deepening grooves in the stone.

What is remarkable about these quarries is that as you walk along the exposed limestone walls, you can recognize brain coral, star coral and other coral shapes fossilized into the stone.  These are cross sections of ancient coral reefs formed nearly 125,000 years ago.  There are holes in the walls that once housed clam-like animals and other creatures that burrowed into the living reef.  

Coral fossils in gravel underfoot

The state park was established in 1999 to provide geologists and visitors the rare opportunity to view and study these 8-foot tall cross sections of the ancient coral.  The park also includes 5 trails that highlight the fauna, history and geology of the park.  The park ranger will loan you an extensive book for a self-guided tour, or you can take one of the twice daily ranger-led tours.  Now that we are aware of these fossils, we found them in gravel on paths in the state park, and stones set decoratively on the side of the road in our campground.

Could this be a fossilized sea fan?

Flagler’s Overseas Railroad operated from 1912 to 1935 when it was partially destroyed by a major storm called the Labor Day Hurricane.  The railway bed built by Flagler using, in part, this limestone gravel, is now the bed for US Route 1, the main automotive thoroughfare connecting the Keys.

Spring Training with the Nats! - Fitteam Ballpark, West Palm Beach, Florida – March 3, 2020

Ready for some Spring Training baseball

Being in Florida in March, it seemed like a good idea to make our way to West Palm Beach for a Spring Training baseball game – World Series Champions Washington Nationals vs the Baltimore Orioles.

The team outside their training building

 The Nationals share the Fitteam Ballpark training facility with the Houston Astros.  It is a huge complex with a stadium and buildings in the middle, and 12 practice ball fields of various sizes around the outside.  Each team uses 6 of the fields.  The facility is roughly divided in half with the Nats practicing on one side and the Astros on the other.  There is a paved parking lot for players, staff and press.  There is an enormous grass parking lot for fans attending the games.

All those practice fields

The stadium is small and intimate, seating 6,500 people.  For about the price of an outfield seat in Nationals Stadium, we had seats peering through the safety net on the first base line, very near home plate, four rows back from the Nationals dugout.  We were right at the stairs into the dugout, so we could see the faces of the players when they returned at the end of the innings. We could hear the crack of the bat and the smack of the baseball into the catcher's mitt. 

Nice small stadium

It is safe to say there isn’t really a bad seat in the stadium.  If you want, you can purchase inexpensive tickets and sit on the grass berm under the palm trees in the outfield.  We saw several families with school-aged children there – the parents watching the game and the kids running up and down the hill. 

Lest anyone forget who won the 2019 World Series

All around the stadium are photogenic spots with Nationals World Series iconography:  a huge replica of the trophy, a large sign you can stand in front of, etc.  There is some representation of the Astros World Series victory in a previous year, but that had been relegated to a side wall.

The “Team Store” sells both Nats and Astros fan-clothes as well as Grapefruit League shirts and hats.  There are the usual abundance of stadium food eateries and beer joints, and guys hawking water and beer.  One guy shouting,“Cold beer and water here,” and another responding, “Colder beer and water here.”

The end of the President's Race - think maybe Herbie won ?.?.? not sure who won.

There was a President's Race between Herbie Hoover, Bill Taft and Cal Coolidge.
  

Scherzer pitching

It was a picture, perfect South Florida day, 80 degrees, cloudless blue sky, light breeze. 

The line-up

As we entered the stadium, we saw the hand written starting line-up posted on the wall, and Scherzer was pitching!  During the first few innings we saw familiar players like Scherzer, Suzuki,Trea Turner, Cabrera, Juan Soto.  We saw Michael Taylor make an amazing catch in the outfield.  In the third inning, Soto doubled with the bases loaded which would bring in the first two of five runs that inning. 

It's a Soto swing...

... and a double

Later in the game, we saw a new pitcher each inning, and many unfamiliar faces/names in the field and at bat.  That is what Spring Training is all about, though.  A chance to try out new players and give everyone experience working/playing together again.

Another Curly W for the team

The final score, Washington 5, Orioles 3.  It was a pleasant and relaxed way to enjoy baseball.