Getting Awfully Laid Back Here

Sunday & Monday November 9 & 10, 2015                                     Most Recent Post:
Curry Hammock State Park                                                            The Hand Off and Tiny Key Deer
Marathon, Florida

 

A Lazy Sunday

 

There is a lovely sunrise.

 

 

There is a delicious breakfast – oatmeal pancakes with chocolate chips and fruit compote.

 

There is a pastel sunset

 

There is a big dinner. Dagwood sandwich with garlic hummus, roasted red pepper, cucumber, spinach leaves, sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions, fresh tomato, and grilled pineapple.

 

 

So big you can hardly get your mouth around it.

 

 

Monday

 

I must have had an intuition to bring my chair along for sunrise.  Usually I just walk out to the water at dawn and walk along the shore .  Today the light moves very slowly around the sky before settling in for a really nice sunrise.  So I settle in to watch it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With that fabulous show, morning has broken.  The sky is full of color all around.  Winnona has pink puffy clouds above her as we head back to get our bikes.

 

 

 

We are taking the bike path along Highway 1 to investigate one of the two local swimming beaches we’ve been told about.  This one is Coco Plum Beach.

 

 

It’s about a 4 mile ride, the last piece of which is down Coco Plum Drive where there is a mix of small business near the intersection and tropic colored houses and condo construction further down.   There is a “bike path” if the cars aren’t parked on it.

 

 

Coco Plum beach has several very nice information signs on the sea turtles who nest on the beaches here.

 

 

Although when we see the beach, we can’t figure out where the would want to nest unless they are willing at medium and high tides to have their eggs under water.

 

 

 

We arrive just in time for the “beach raker” to come in and attempt to pick up the detritus.  I just laugh at him driving through the water.  You’d think he’d know when high tide is.  Not much sense in raking if there is no beach.

 

 

 

 

Well I guess there is less detritus for all the future beach goers than there was before he came

 

We take a stroll on what beach there is and meet up with a couple of local people.  We ask them if this is ever a swimming beach and they tell us it used to be before the city spent millions of dollars planting trees and grasses which took up the high beach which you can see on the right side of this lower picture.  They were pretty irritated that now the sand was actually washing away and filling in beaches further down along the shore.

 

 

There may be no beach but there is illegal parking. This boat has a bright orange sign afixed to it dated October 17, 2015 and saying it is illegally parked and must be moved within 5 days. Guess this shows what happens if you don’t comply. Close inspection of the boat shows there is no way it can be moved under its own power with several holes in the hull.

 

 

Well scratch that beach.  There is another and larger beach further west so we’ll check that one on another day.

 

Back at the campground our neighbors have gathered in the road around our site and in the foliage on its edge.  The largest of the group will not stay out for pictures or come out if we’re outside.  So these are the other four who reside nearby.

Meet Horace, Gertrude, Alfonse and Myrtle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is the first day I’ve seen anyone in the water here.  I saw them earlier today and they are still here when I walk down at 5:00 for the sunset.  They all have blow up mats and they float around in the shallow water.  

 

 

 

Another sunset closes another laid back day in the Keys.

 

 

 

 

As you can see, we aren’t hustling around down here in the Keys.
But then we’ll be down here until the end of December so we have plenty of time.
Kayaking, snorkeling and trips to Key West will all happen.