Beaches

On Tuesday, January 17th, a bright, sunny day (the temperature eventually reached the upper 70s), we got up late and walked over to Chad's Bakery and Deli for breakfast--bagels and fruit, very good. Then we headed southwest down Highway 1 again toward Bahia (pronounced "BAY-a") Honda State Park.

Many people go to Florida for the many wonderful beaches. Few of those beaches are in the Keys. Most of the sand piled up by the Atlantic is apparently caught by the Bahamas to the east. The one major exception is on Bahia Honda Key, at Mile Marker 37, where one large, sandy oceanside beach and two smaller beaches (ocanside and bayside) have led to the entire key being made into a state park.

But on the way we stopped for lunch in Marathon, at the Keys Fisheries Market and Marina. This is a fish market and food stand right on Florida Bay, with outdoor seating on the dock. You make your order at a window, giving them the name of a wild animal. When they call your animal's name over the loudspeaker, you go pick up your food. We were Giraffe. Their house specialty, which they apparently invented (we saw one on another restaurant's menu), is the Lobster Reuben sandwich (lobster, sauerkraut, cheese and sauce). On a whiteboard they announced how many had been sold so far this month: over 160,000. There is a contest to guess how many would be sold in the whole month. The winner will get a free Lobster Reuben and a Lobster Reuben tee-shirt.

Though we weren't exactly excited by the idea of lobster with sauerkraut, we felt that we had to sample this local cuisine, so we got one to share. Not bad, but not a life-changing culinary experience.

We went on to Bahia Honda. There we parked in one of the lots by Sandspur Beach, the longest and best-known. First, we walked the Silver Palm Trail, a quarter-mile nature trail. Mary Joy had been looking for an opportunity for a long walk, and was feeling frustrated about not finding one. We didn't find it here.

Sandspur Beach was crowded, narrow (the tide must have been in) and largely covered with washed-in seagrass. A signboard elsewhere pointed out the wonders of washed-ashore seagrass--how great it is for the ecology of the island. But if you are looking for the stereotypical sandy tropical beach, it's a little offputting. In the end, we drove down to Loggerhead Beach, at the far end of the island, which is much smaller, but less crowded, and a nice place to sit in the sun and read, which we did (Mary Joy reading Olivier Bellamy's biography of the pianist Martha Argerich, in French--a gift from our German friend, Marika--while I was reading George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons).

Then we walked out onto the old Bahia Honda Bridge, now an observation platform, since the new bridge was built in the 70s. Nice views.

At this point, we were only 37 miles from Key West (originally Cayo Hueso--"Bone Island"), but Mary Joy wasn't interested in going there, especially on a daytrip, and I'd already been there with my brothers, driving down from Naples and returning the next day, in October 1987.

A woman we'd met on the beach had told us that another good beach was Sombrero Beach, a city park in Marathon. So, on the way back, we stopped there. The sand, I think, was trucked in, but it was indeed a pleasant place, with outcrops of old coral rock and surrounded by coconut palms. A woman was stalking an egret to take its picture, and I also photographed it, but when we tried to get closer it flew off.

We went on, and after sunset we stopped for dinner at Marker 88 Restaurant in Islamorada, sitting outside in a gazebo near the water. I don't remember what we ate, but I do remember that it was very good, the best meal of the trip.

When we got back to Island Bay, we walked to the dock. Someone pointed out to us an egret that had just caught a large fish. It took a while to swallow it, whole, then resumed its patient wait for other prey.