January 28, 2004 - Bushnell, FL - 2

Islamorada, FL.  Still on the Keys.  Another "quaint little drinking town with a fishing problem," as the T-shirt says.  Gee, I wonder what that means.  What with cars like this running around and all.  Actually, we'd come here at the request of my younger son, Rick, who lives with his wife and our newest granddaughter Lexi (short for Alexandria) in Sacramento, CA.  During part of his misspent youth, he was a submariner in the Navy, and one of his liberties was spent in this little town.  He'd lost his T-shirt with the recipe for Rum Runners on the back, and as a dutiful father, I simply had to get him a replacement.  Actually, Barb got the shirt while I was in a never-ending line for the restroom!  Rick (the submariner son) used to like to tease me that there were two kinds of "boats" in the Navy--submarines and targets.  I, of course, had spent my time in the Navy on one of those "targets."

And what fun it was to see so much money tied up in the pursuit of fish.  I really liked this one boat with the gold (probably actually brass) rod holders.  I had to back way off to get the entire tower too.  It had to be at least 20 feet from the deck to the top.  You can see Barb poking her head out by the boat I'm talking about.

Mostly charter boats in here.  Both the big offshore boats, and the smaller skiffs used in the "flats" as the shallow water is called.  Couldn't pass up this egret perched on one of the smaller boat's platforms.

These small boats are all hoisted up out of the water....for reasons I couldn't be sure of.  And how 'bout that Tarpon?  Too bad it was fiberglass and worse yet, too bad I hadn't caught it!  Tarpon aren't good to eat but they are fierce fighters.  Very strong for their size.  When caught, the tourist-fisherman takes a picture of it before releasing it, and then a fiberglass model of it is made so it can be mounted. 

All kinds of activities going on.  This kite skiing thing looks to me like just way too much fun.  And hard work, too!  I'd have had to figure out a way to try it if we were going to be spending any amount of time in this area.  Most of these pictures were taken while we were poking around the Holiday Isle Resort.  The mermaid didn't have much to say.  Must have been Barb's fault she was so silent.

On the way back, we spotted one of my favorite stores.  A Pro Bass store.  Under the name of World Wide Sportsman.  Barb had been looking for another pair of shorts, and what the heck, since I'm such a dutiful husband, I just had to pull over and let her look around for a pair here.  Do you think the parking lot stripes indicate that fishing is a big deal around here?  Pilar belonged to Hemmingway.  Margot's grandfather, you know, Earnest.  It was inside the store.

Fun store, eh?  With its own lounge up here on the second deck to boot.  The boat is 43 feet long, twin powered, and lots of Marlin caught from it.  Pretty sparse down below decks, obviously a pure fishing machine.  And to make matters even better, Barb found a pair of shorts she liked.

Pretty decent storefront, eh?  And that's the back of the place!--facing the water and the marina that is attached to the store.  Lots of charter and party boats in the marina.  The four of us toasting you all the night a neighbor brought us some fish to sample.  Tough life, this full-time RV'ing.  You really should consider it.  Oh, by the way, see that storage shed behind us?  The folks are from Michigan.  Barb and I think that half the state's population is in Florida this year.

We're at a bird sanctuary.  "Donation accepted" is the admission fee.  Barb wanted to look at birds up close and personal, and I wanted to know what the heck a bird sanctuary was.  Crested cormorants, great egrets, pelicans, etc., etc.  Some wounded ones in cages being cared for by a staff of volunteers.  Those outside of the cages were freeloaders, snagging a meal whenever they could from the volunteer staff.

The feet of a cormorant.  Webbed, but not much like a duck.  I know duck feet from raising them as a kid (good eating) and they can't really grip like this.  I'd seen these guys sitting on smaller limbs than this, and even on wires and wondered how they did it.  This shows how they can do that.  And Barb's over there making sure she's not in the line of fire.  When a pelican gets rid of its used food, it's noticeable, believe me.

First bird cemetery I've ever seen.  Hope it's the last.  I can almost understand pet cemeteries, but a wild bird cemetery?  C'mon, gimme a break.  Most immature birds are mottled, and that white heron is no exception (woops, editor thinks it's an egret, not heron).  And a fish-eye view of a brown pelican.  I'm curious about their neck structure.  They hit the water in a dive that hurts me to watch.  I'd really like to know what the cartilage in their neck is like to withstand that kind of impact over an over again.  I'm envious, obviously.  And those pelicans sitting on and around those floats are waiting for feeding time.  The staff feeds not only the cripples in cages, they feed the wild ones as well.  Something about this whole place disturbed me.

The snowy egret with his galoshes on.  I just love those bright yellow feet on the ends of those long black legs.  These two are beginning to show their mating plumage.   And the sign under the pelicans, who seem to be discussing politics or religion with their gullets full, tells us that feeding time is an hour away.  We'll be out of here before then, you can bet.

When I look carefully at this bird (white heron - smaller than its relative, the great blue heron), it makes me think something is wrong with it.  The neck isn't a smooth gentle curve, it's got a kink in it, and the back looks like it's got osteoporosis with its "dowagers hump."  Yet it's just fine.  Very healthy and a very lethal fish killer.  We got within a couple of feet of it before it moved away slowly.  All those signs are the names of people who have donated money or time or both to this place.  And these signs are all over the place.  Hundreds of them!  Now I ask you.  Why put all this effort into keeping a wounded, disabled, sick/dying non-threatened bird alive for a bit longer?  I didn't take any pictures of those, by the way.  The only birds shown here are healthy moochers.  When I think of the money spent on this activity, albeit private donations only, and how it might be spent on people instead, it bothered me.  We know there are people who have to live without medical care because they can't afford it, and yet, here are many thousands of dollars being spent on birds that are living in captivity that will never return to the wild.  One of the staff members told another visitor that less than 5% ever regain enough health to be released back into the wild.  I must be missing something here.

And off to happier more interesting things.  A quarry--better known as the Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park.  This Key is the highest (altitude-wide) in the chain of Florida Keys formed out of Key Largo limestone.  This quarry was last active in the 60's and today is preserved as a geological treasure, especially because of its many fossils of a variety of coral animals as seen in the next pictures.  My toes are just out of the picture of this little lizard.  It just sat there pretending to be invisible until the camera clicked, and then it did its disappearing act into the brush nearby.  I was tempted to reach down and poke it to see if for sure it was alive.  In the early days of developing the Florida Keys, this was where the road building materials and building blocks for structures were quarried.

The patterns of the shells and the coral encased in this limestone is incredible.  This piece of machinery was left to rust when the place shut down.  And try as I might, I couldn't figure out exactly what it did.  It had the appearance of a huge band saw.

These walls show how the material was drilled and broken off.  A small tree has taken root in one of the cuts.  This facility was not large by quarry standards, and the material is quite dense in spite of its appearance.  Hard to imagine we're standing on what used to be at the bottom of the ocean.

The blocks were a pretty good size, too.  And the variety of patterns from the coral is incredible!

Acorn snails, eating who knows what.  Couldn't talk any of them into coming out for their portrait, however.

Driving around in Bahia Honda State Park, I dodged what I thought was maybe a funny leaf moving slowly across the road.  Turned out to be a hermit crab.  We were sore tempted to put this poor guy back in the water where he belonged (we thought), but the water was a bit too far away.  Good thing, too, cause we found out later that this guy's a land crab.   Going into the water may have really confused the old boy as water time is mating time!  We did put it back in the bushes, and maybe it'll live for another day, out of the traffic.  And then under SR 1, the highway from Miami to Key West.  Camping in this park is either on the "gulf side" or the "bay side," and at the moment we're at the junction of those two bodies of water.