Random fun photos and places we have been….

I had a few photos that weren’t really related to each other. Each, on its own, didn’t seem to be enough to warrant a full blog entry.  I thought I’d share these together with a little note about what each one is.

image
The Lobster Crawl bar at the Fiesta Key RV park in Long Key / Layton, FL

 

image
Dunnie’s Sauce !!

This is a great hot sauce.  It is sold at Dunn’s Ocean View resort (aka the OV)and restaurant/bar in Islamaorada, Florida (mile marker 84.5).  It is a Datil Pepper sauce that has a hint of sweetness to it and isn’t so hot you can enjoy it AND your food.  The owner Gary Dunn, who is a super nice guy, played for the Pittsburgh Steelers 1976 to 1987.

image
The nice bartender at Dunn’s Ocean View aka The OV modeling the bottle of hot sauce for the blog

 

image

Fun things we find wrapped around the prop….this was an old crab pot line….not fun to remove….

image

Me snorkeling….well….sort of snorkeling anyway….

image

Kim taking an important call from Jimmy Buffett…..

Spotted Eagle Rays At Looe Key Reef

In mid April we arrived in Marathon.  We picked up my sister, Jo, at the Fort Lauderdale airport and she accompanied us for the next few days as we travelled from Marathon to Key West with a stopover at Looe Key Reef.

Looe Key Reef, like many of the reef areas in the Keys has several permanent mooring balls.  (A mooring ball is a floating buoy that is connected to the bottom or a large concrete, or other heavy material, anchor that has been placed on the bottom) boats are permitted to spend the day and/or the night on most of these mooring balls, so we decided to stay at Looe Key. My he eather was perfectly calm and the snorkeling was great.  It’s pretty nice when you can just hang on the swim platform, or near it, and see sharks, Rays, Goliath Grouper, Parrotfish and a large variety of other sea life without snorkeling over a larger area.  It also made a perfect place for a stopover since it is almost exactly halfway between Marathon and KW.  The Stars were amazing that night, the water was as flat as glass all night and the entire next day. The only small issue was….no wind….so we had to motor from Looe Key to Key West but it was well worth the trade off!!!

image
Looe Key in relation to Marathon and Key West

 

image
Looe Key Reef closer satellite image

You can get to Looe Key Reef even if you don’t own a boat.  It is a very popular destination for the local dive and snorkel operations.  We highly recommend it.

image

IMG_0355  <——this is the link to the Spotted Eagle Ray Video…..

 

Goliath Grouper

IMG_0351

this link is for a video of the Goliath Grouper that was under Kitty Hawk the morning of our departure from Looe Key Reef……

 

image

A Visit to Windley Key Fossil Park

While we were traveling West down the Keys, we stopped over for a week near Islamorada.  Now, I never imagined that I’d find a coral fossil park to be interesting but this place was pretty cool.  It’s located near MM85 in Islamorada.

The land was formed of Key Largo limestone, fossilized coral, dating back to approximately 100,000 years ago.  The land was sold to the Florida East Coast Railroad, which used the stone to build Henry Flagler’s Overseas Railroad in the early 1900s. After the railroad was built, the quarry was used until the 1960s to produce exquisite pieces of decorative stone called “Keystone”. The limestone was used on many historic buildings such as the St. Louis Post Office, an altar in a chapel in NYC, a courthouse in Miami and the nearby Hurricane Monument in Islamorada.  After that, it was designated as an historic and geologically significant area and has been maintained by the Florida Park Services.

 

image
The machines would cut vertically and then horizontally to allow workers to remove slabs of the coral.

image

 

image

 

Aw…..!!! Sea Turtles !!!

IMG_0341

The above link is a short video of a Sea Turtle at the Marathon Sea Turtle Hospital.  You may have seen it on Facebook but I thought it was also worth posting here since they are so cute.

image
A Sea Turtle in the wild….

 

Bond….James Bond…..

There has been a lot of moving lately and not much reliable wifi, especially during our trip to the Dry Tortugas where there was nothing for five days.  So, there will be a blitz of posts once we get more consistent connectivity.

I thought I’d post this as a little teaser of our lower Keys adventures….can anyone name this Bond movie ? Hint: filmed partially on location in Key West.

 

Timothy Dalton as James Bind in front of the Bikini Barrelhead Bar
Timothy Dalton as James Bond in front of the Bimini Barrelhead Bar

 

Me as....well....me in front of the Bimini Barrelhead Bar
Me as….well….me in front of the Bimini Barrelhead Bar

Sadly, the Bimini Barrelhead is no more and is now the Thai Island Restaurant.  It’s a good place to eat, but hasn’t been in a Bond Movie.  Who knows how long the sign will last now that the business has changed themes.

Lionfish…poisonous …but….who knew they were delicious??

While we were in Tavernier we were fortunate enough  to make some great new friends.  Among these were Jeff and Patti.  They are hilarious and generous to a fault.  They not only let us, but insisted, we use their fishing boat multiple times  while we were there to take our visitors on tours of the local area.  Thanks  guys !!!

We also had a fun weekend excursion with Jeff and Patti.  We drove down to the Sunset Grill at the west end of Marathon for lunch and a dip in their salt water pool.  They had the best hogfish sandwich I’ve had so far!!

When we were headed back we saw some goings on at the docks near Postcard Inn so we stopped in.  A bunch of our other new friends were there for the results of the “Lionfish Derby”.  Here’s a quick explanation of that…..

image

 

It seems Lionfish are very invasive and they can be harvested at any time in any number.

After the derby they bring in volunteers to prepare the Lionfish and teach the attendees how to do so safely.  They also made an awesome Lionfish ceviche and flash fried Lionfish….I may have had seconds …..(and tenths)

image
Here’s Steve cleaning a Lionfish and explaining the process….I don’t recall if the PBR was crucial…
image
The finished process……
image
Patti, Sue, Fran, Molly-gan (inside joke) and Kim at the Lionfish Derby Party (L-R)

They just keep getting bigger ……

image
A four pound lobster…..

Lobster – Palooza……or this guy caught a huge lobster and then THIS happened…

I’m not sure what the lobster season has been like offshore near the reefs but if it’s been anything like it has been on our little part of the bay it must have been great so far. I was hesitant to spend the $25 for the five year license initially but at $12 or $13 per pound (even at the places that buy them straight off of the boats) it paid for itself in about the first day.   The season runs from August to the end of March and there are two “mini-seasons” that are two days each in the summer time.

image
Does that size 11 shoe make my lobster look big ??? Haha

 

 

image
That’s a heavy lobster ….

 

and what happened next ??? He ate it….

New fender covers……(I know many of you are asking yourselves ‘what’s that?’)

Here on Kitty Hawk we have 8 boat fenders that we use to protect our topsides (the part of the boat between the waterline and the deck) when docked or tied up (rafting up) with any other vessel.  We have four shiny, new, white fenders that are 10″x26″ and four old cruddy looking fenders that need to be covered. Kim found a brilliant idea for how to make them all match….which is key to safety at sea….if all your gear isn’t color coordinated you’re in big trouble….

Kim ordered four pairs of XXXXL sweatpants and cut the legs off. She then inserted the fenders into the legs and sewed a gather into the open end.  They turned out amazingly.

New fender covers with marine vinyl abrasion guards
New fender covers with marine vinyl abrasion guards

She then used grey marine grade vinyl to make a protective sleeve for each fender to prevent the material from being snagged on concrete or wooden docks. Those attach with Velcro so they can be adjusted up or down as needed. I’m trying to talk her into selling them for $25 a piece. The commercial ones sell for $40 and don’t have the abrasion guard…..!!