Beach combing

Wednesday, March 7, 2012 MARATHON, FL – Today is our last full day in the Keys, so we wanted to see one of the state parks and the beach areas before leaving. The skies looked a bit threatening and it was still quite windy, but that just meant we had the beaches mostly to ourselves. At the Dolphin Research Center yesterday, the young lady who gave the educational presentations said she had seen manatees at Sombrero Beach, so that’s where we headed first. The road to the beach took us through some residential areas, where many of the homes are built of concrete and set up on columns, with the car parked underneath and the living quarters on the second level. They look good and sturdy, and ready for any hurricanes that might blow through. It was lovely on Sombrero Beach, with a wide expanse of sand and gentle waves washing foam up around our feet. The sky was quite dark out to sea, but the water at the horizon was a bright turquoise, and there were stripes of aqua and brown as the water’s surface hinted at the shoals and depths it was hiding. No one was swimming, and only a few people were strolling on the shore, so it almost felt like a private beach! Unfortunately, the manatees did not show up today, so we’ll have to keep looking. (Yesterday, Val spotted a dolphin in the snorkeling area of the RV park, which was kind of exciting. Apparently, manatees and sharks have also been sighted off the dock here, but not when we were around.) After stopping for gas and a few groceries, we headed back toward the RV park, turning off when we reached Curry Hammock State Park, also on the ocean side of the Keys. “Curry” is a person’s name, and “hammock” refers to a rise of land where larger trees can grow. These often appear in the Everglades, where wet land predominates, but patches of dry land, or hammocks, provide environments for other types of plants and wildlife. A bright array of wind surfer’s sails was laid out on the shore where they’d just been pulled in. The wind had proven too much for the surfers, so we just missed seeing them perform. Yesterday from the window of the restaurant where we had dinner, we could see wind surfers in the distance, pulled way up above the water by the stiff wind that filled their curved sails. It looked pretty scary to me! Plus they must have had their arms pulled out of the sockets trying to hold on to their equipment. Back at the RV park, we started some of the wrapping up chores for our departure in the morning. We really wanted to wash off all the salt that the wind storm had plastered onto the RV walls, even though the park rules say we can’t. Mother Nature obliged, just after supper, by sending a quick dousing of rain to spare us from possible eviction! After supper, we headed over to the pavilion where a wine tasting party was taking place for the guests. People were invited to bring a bottle of wine and something to nibble, so we had a chance to meet some of the other campers. It’s always fun to compare notes with other travelers at events like these; we’ve never left such an event without learning something new about the area or about interesting things to see in other places. NOTE: We may not have internet connections at our next stop, so stay tuned for our next entry.