Key West’s great vibe, pretty beaches and compact historic downtown has a lot to offer if you book a few things in advance (Key West post with information and tips linked here), but if you have the time, there are a lot of other great Key islands to explore!
The Overseas Highway runs the length of the Florida Keys. Marathon is situated in the middle of the Keys island chain.
We spent the 2022 holidays in Key West and rang in the New Year there with the “drop” of a drag queen named Sushi who sits in a ruby. red slipper until the clock strikes midnight.
We had so much fun that we weren’t in a hurry to leave the Keys and got extremely lucky finding a last minute spot in an RV Park in Marathon. It had a lovely view of the water that provided us with stunning sunsets and boat access. Additionally, some local iguanas at our campsite were amusing to watch. Staying this extra week gave us some time to relax and do some 2023 trip planning!
From this location, Doug cycled south to Pigeon Key to see the Old Seven Bridge.
Our Marathon RV park was also close to two other sites we wanted to check out – the Turtle Hospital and the Dolphin Research Center.
The Turtle Hospital is a rescue and rehab center that provides a rare opportunity to learn about and view sea turtles. Many of the sea turtles at this hospital are there due to boat strikes. For some of them, the boat strike damages the shell in a manner that prevents the turtle from diving, they just float to the top of the water. It’s called Positive Buoyance Disorder and to treat it, the hospital adds just enough weight to the outer layer of turtle’s shell (the outer layer is called “scutes”) to allow the turtle to dive and come to the surface for air on its own accord. These turtles, however, have to constantly have the weights adjusted as the scutes are shed during growth spurts and weight amounts have to be reassessed so they don’t start floating again. They became lifetime members at the hospital and/or the hospital finds forever homes for them. It was great fun to feed these forever members.
Others are there to recover from boat strike injuries to things like flippers and a benign turtle tumor disease called fibro papillomatosis that is probably caused by biotoxins and contaminants. Many of these turtles can eventually be released into the wild.
So what can we do to help? Slow down your boat, use a motor guard, wear polarized lenses when boating to look for animals, stop pollution, and donate to the turtle hospital (or go visit, your ticket price helps). You can donate here (www.turtlehospital.org/collections-donations/).
Similarly, the Dolphin Research Center cares for rescued and captivity-born dolphins. For a fee on top of your ticket price, you can “swim” with the dolphins, sit on a trainer platform to interact with them, or even have the dolphins paint a canvas. We didn’t do any of these but did enjoy learning about the dolphins and watching their training demonstrations. There were some parrots and tortoises at this center as well. For more information or donations click (www.dolphins.org)
We spent one day at Bahia Honda State Park. We had hoped to camp here in the Keys, but as we noted in our prior Key West blog post, we couldn’t get a spot even though we tried to book it 8 months in advance! The small beach was fairly crowded but it was a nice day and people were friendly. There were warning signs about some kind of bacteria in the water, but this didn’t stop people from swimming or letting their small children play in the water, which we both thought was strange.
Despite how difficult we’d found it 8 months earlier to book a place to stay, once in the Keys we had no trouble getting into restaurants or attractions. We got tickets to the Turtle Hospital and the Dolphin Research Center the day before online.
If you have limited time in the area, definitely head to Key West, but with just a couple of extra days dedicated to the middle of the Keys, you can have a lot of fun!
