Jan 2008

Shortly after we headed out this morning, I spied a Toyota Dealership on the right side of the road with a really tall service entrance door! I've had the RV serviced several times during the trip, but have generally had to use a generic quick lube type places. For some reason, the Toyota dealers in the northeast do not like to service RV's. However I prefer to go to a dealership on occasion so they can check for odds and ends that a generic service place wouldn't know to check. Since I hadn't had the oil changed since Delaware, we pulled in. They fit us in and didn't complain about the height or weight of the rig (as a previous dealer had done), and got us back on the road again for much less then I'd expected. We should be good to go now for another trip around! (just kidding)

With the rig properly serviced, we got back on Hwy 1 heading north. I figured we weren't going to see any water or scenery on Hwy 1, so attempted to head east again to Hwy A1A - but found another unscheduled route change instead (our term for getting lost). A few traffic circles and zig zags later, we were back on Hwy 1 going north. Not one to learn my lessons quickly, I took yet another road to try to go East. It didn't take us to Hwy A1A, but did run into Hwy 707 which follows the waterway that separates the barrier islands from the mainland. I finally found what I was looking for in Florida - an undeveloped section of waterway (it won't be for long, they're putting in new homes along there also).

This was a lovely drive even after we got back to homes lining the road. At least they were single family homes rather then condo's. There might have been some more expensive ones as we approached the town of Port Saint Lucie, but were more old style high end homes rather then the over the top mansions we'd seen further south. There is a nice 1913 fixer (complete rebuild actually) for sale for $850,000 if you're interested? No? Well then we'll move on to Fort Pierce.

Fort Pierce was established in 1837 on the Indian River Lagoon and named after it's first Commander, Col. Benjamin K. Pierce (President Franklin Pierces older brother). However, the homesteaders who first tried to settle in the area moved to St. Augustine after an altercation with the local Seminole Indians. Homesteaders didn't return again until the 1860's, making Florida one of the last frontier territories to be developed.

For our purposes, Mom just wanted to visit the Manatee Center, which is located in Fort Pierce. This does not keep manatee's in tanks, but is a place where they can be frequently seen and had exhibits and information about them, including an excellant video. It is located at the outlet of a creek where the power plant discharges slightly warm water. When it's cold, the manatee's like to hang out there because of the warmer water. The day we visited was quite warm and sunny and no manatee's had been spotted in the harbor all day. They prefer the open bay when the water's warm enough. But we went through the center and enjoyed learning about the 'sea cows'.

While we didn't see any manatee's, we did see some rather odd looking fish. The volunteer said they are needle fish and quite common in this area.

Across from the Manatee Center is the Visitors Center for Fort Pierce. This is located in the 1905 Seven Gables House, one of the earliest homes in the county. (The original did not have glass doors, those were added for the Visitors Center).

The folks at the visitors center were kind enough to straighten me out from going completely around in circles. It seems there are two separate barrier islands across the "Indian River", North and South Hutchenson Islands. There are separate bridges to each one - and if I'd gone the route I was planning (to the bridge I could see), it would have taken me to the South Island and back southwards again. They gave me directions to the North Bridge, which we took. Both bridges are draw bridges and the span I was on was open when we got there. I had just enough time to hop out and take a picture of the South Bridge (Identical, just goes to a different island). I'm sure the cars behind me were scratching their heads... Tourists!

Eventually all the boats passed under and I had to get back in the RV, which I managed to do before the draw span closed. Shortly after arriving on the other side, we saw signs for a Seal Museum. We weren't sure what this was exactly, but it was still early so I decided to check it out. (The earlier brown signs didn't have as much information as this.)

Yes, this is a museum about the U.S. Navy Seal's, or Frogmen. The program was started in WWII to provide troops skilled at underwater demolition and water-reconnaissance. This is an example of a WWII Frogman's equipment:

There are exhibits showing more information about how the unit was formed, the types of equipment and weapons used (and also used against them). They are organized by era, WWII, Post WWII, Vietnam, and modern. Outside are some standing exhibits of the types of craft used.

While the museum was built just to be a museum, it is located at the site where the units originally trained - the beach at Fort Pierce. This is now a county park and the beach is open to the public.

Take a close look at the bottom of this sign. I believe this will be my new catch phrase -Dept. of Leisure Services!

Anyway, we're in Florida to experience the Country, so of course we had to spend some time on at least one more beach...

ps - I did find out what these birds are finally, they are Royal Terns.

In the dune plants along the walk back to the RV, I did manage to snag another butterfly.

So with a little beach time in, we decided to head north about 40 miles to a State Park and see if they had any camping sites left. We drove along a stretch where the road was close to the water (Indian River, the portion of the Atlantic between the islands and the mainland) and saw quite a few Heron, Egrets, Ibis, and Brown Pelicans. Although I was tempted, this time I didn't stop for pictures. We got to the State Park and fortunately they did not have any spaces available. And why was this fortunate, you might ask?

The State Park suggested we try a county park two miles farther up the road. The county park is Long Point and they did have space available right on the water at a very reasonable rate. They also have lots, and lots of birds - Wood Storks, Heron, Great Egrets, Ibis and many others. The birds seem to have gotten accustomed to people being in their park and the county has set aside special areas for them, including a wildlife pond and Scout Island (which you can walk around, but not camp on).

A lot of folks who stay here like to fish and the birds have figured out that if they hang out where the fish cleaning is done, they can get a cheap meal - including the camper next to us. We've had wood storks hanging out by our RV all day - also Ibis and a Great Heron. And yes, we stayed an extra day here. It is such a nice spot and I really had to get some work done (4th qtr est. taxes due, add more screws to the door, among other things). These are the pic's from the first night.

Disclaimer: ALL of the pictures from here down were taked from within 25 feet of the RV!

Here are some pic's from today (Thursday). BTW - this is just a small sample...

And finally, while we were eating lunch I spotted a fin out on the water. I grabbed the camera (of course) and think I captured a dolphin swimming near a brown pelican. Mom thinks it's a shark, but we're not sure. I took some video also (not uploaded) where it shows three separate fin's (dolphin's again, I think. They didn't swim like dolphin's however?). Actually, now that I'm editing the pictures and can zoom in a bit more, it looks more like an Orca?

(This isn't really a bird or any sort of wildlife in the normal sense, but he flew overhead while Mom & I were outside for a few minutes and I just couldn't resist taking a shot at capturing the flight. Nothing special, just capturing some ambiance from today.)

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 81
Camped at Long Point County Park

ps - thought I'd move this to the end, gets you into the meat of the blog sooner. Also, since Travellerspoint puts the weather in automatically, not sure why I was also doing it except to help the C vs F impaired (such as myself). Let me know if you want it changed back.

Well, we're in South Eastern Florida so it seemed to me we ought to spend some time at a beach or at least driving along the shore. Surprise, surprise - the beaches in south eastern Florida are lined with Condo's, hotels and mansions.

We continued driving north along Hwy A1A, the road that goes up the barrier islands separated from the mainland by the Intercoastal Waterway (or maybe they're not even islands, I'm not sure). Generally this is as close to the shoreline as you can drive (either Atlantic Ocean or Intercoastal Waterway). Some parts of the road ran right along water. It was also interesting seeing so many mansions - there's quite a bit of money in SE FL!

We could see beaches on occasion, but the parking areas had big signs - No RV's. It didn't matter how big or small, nor how much space was open - No RV's. Fort Lauderdale has a beautiful beach and had parking available (it was fairly early in the morning), but again big signs saying - No RV's. We kept driving and and finally found a county park just south of Palm Beach that didn't have any signs outlawing RV's! It was a nice park also. There was a small flock of Ibises were wandering around the picnic area - including both adults (white) and juveniles (brown).

(Thumbnail alert - on small photo's, you can click to enlarge).

Across the highway was a nice beach.

The flags indicated moderate hazard surf (yellow) and dangerous marine life (Portuguese Man O' War & Jellyfish I suspect). Here's a Man O' War that had washed up on the beach, very toxic and dangerous.

We didn't want to get stung by these things, but got out and enjoyed the water a bit anyway.

Lovely beach, much more like I was expecting for eastern Florida. OK - I expected the Condo's and development (I have been here before), but not the lack of access (I have not been here before in an RV). So now I'm wondering why everyone goes so far south - why not just stop in mid FL? Oh well, maybe they like it hot, humid and crowded. That's probably not fair of me, most people who just fly use a rental car, or drive and stay in hotels or drive a big rig and two a small car behind should do fine. Can't expect the whole world to cater to my travel preferences (but I can ask, right?)

Anyway, since we're on a trip to travel - not just to sit on beaches (I think), we got back on the road and continued North. Having done some beach sitting, I decided to switch to the Interstate (I-95) for awhile and really make some tracks. We did make pretty good time too, at least until we saw a brown sign just a little north of Palm Beach for a place called Jupiter. Jupiter, it seems, has a Light House and a Florida History Musuem.

Disclaimer: No, I am not a Lighthouse fan particularly, nor a Butterfly collector, nor a bird watcher, nor a... Or at least I was none of these things before we left on this trip! It's just that if we see something of interest, we stop. Since we've been following the coast down from Maine, we've passed a lot of lighthouses and stopped at several. Maybe I just find a lot of things of interest?

So we stopped at Jupiter. I had to get off the freeway anyway since Mom had an important phone call appointment to straighten out her Social Security benefits (which she was able to do successfully BTW). While she completed her phone interview, I checked out the museum grounds. This is located on a channel & river with an outlet to the ocean so it must be a place where fish concentrate. There were quite a few different shore birds at the waters edge. I've posted pic's before of these same types of birds, but still thought these were cool because of the mix of birds together in the shots.

OK - enough of the birds (maybe you think I've gone to the birds?) Mom got off the phone and we went through the museum. This is in a building that was built for US Army as married mens quarters at the beginning of WWII. The Army needed to establish a station to try to find German U-Boats that were torpedoing ships off the Florida coast. Since Mom was also born and raised on the west coast, all this U-Boat activity off the east coast surprised her as much as it did me.

After the museum, Mom went back to the RV to relax while I decided to climb the Lighthouse (of course). George Meade also designed this structure (seems he was a pretty good engineer even if he wasn't the best Civil War General). The Lighthouse was located at the top of a small (46') hill so the brick structure wouldn't have to be as tall to still get the light high enough.

The reason the lighthouse was needed is that the Gulf Stream is closer to the Florida coast here than any other place. There were no Americans in the area nor any community except for the Seminole's, but there were a lot of wrecks along the coast here due to the proximity of the Gulf Stream. The Lighthouse was the first structure built in what is now Palm Beach County and for many years was the only presence of white men (& the keeper's families) in the area. The area was thick with Mosquitoes and was quite unhealthy. This was in 1855 - 1859, when the lighthouse was built, so this section of Florida was populated fairly late.

There are 105 steps to the top (plus 50 or so up the hill, so the total climb is a bit longer then some). The steps at the top are fairly narrow, but at least are connected to the walls.

At the top is a first order Fresnel lens. The windows in the tower were for air flow to help keep the flames burning (they didn't have electricity in 1860 when this was first lit.) Whale Oil was too expensive so in the 1800's the lanturns burned lard. This was switched to Kerosene in 1910, the electricity in 1928. The lighthouse building was restored in 2000, which was a very expensive undertaking. At least two local celebraties bought bricks to assist with the cost, Perry Como and Jimmy Buffett (who has also apparently written a novel based in part on the Lighthouse). During the restoration, the glass in the Fresnel Lens had to be individually removed, restored and replaced. There are at least 25 separate pieces of glass in each of the four side panels. If a piece of glass gets broken, they just keep it or fix it in place the best that they can. The formula to make the glass has been lost and Fresnel Lens glass cannot be replaced.

The exterior glass also has an interesting shape. The triangle sections make it easier to curve the housing around the lens.

Of course, the view from the top was great. BTW - the house on the left in the top shot of Jupiter Island is (or was) Perry Como's. The second shot shows more of the inlet & ocean. Some 11 lucky Coast Guard families live in these houses on the grounds (it is still an active USCG station, but only used for the residences at this time).

It was still pretty early at this point, but I was tired (from playing with the video editing software too late), so we pulled into a State Park across the street and, surprisingly, they had space! We hadn't plugged in for the last two nights - and had managed to spill the better part of a box of cereal in the rig, to say nothing about beach sand, so I spent the rest of the remaining daylight vacuming - but the campground was nice and we enjoyed it. Mom gathered some scrap twigs and pine cones and actually started a pretty nice little campfire!

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 88
Camped at Jonathan Dickinson State Park near Jupiter, FL

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 108
Weather - Warm & Muggy, Light Breezes (e.g. Shorts & Swimsuits)
Camped at Hallandale Walmart (Between Miami & Fort Lauderdale)

Musings:

Mom is in no hurry to leave South Florida, she was pointing out Trailer Parks today where I could buy her a unit if I was so inclined. Hopefully, by the time we start moving west again the cold snap up north will have passed and she'll forget all about it. Maybe I'll haul out the shots we took at Flamingo and remind her how cold it got down here?

Narrative:

Long Key State Park, where we stayed last night, is the only SP in Florida where all the campsites are on the water. It is so popular, people book it up as soon as they start taking reservations (11 months in advance) - at least for December & January. The ranger said there is usually space available in other months. We just got lucky and happened to stop by after someone cancelled!

Checkout time is 1 PM, so we stayed as long as we reasonably could and didn't get much travelling in today. But we did get a full morning of relaxing on the beach! Mom actually managed to catch me in action:

I decided to spend some time picking up shells (mostly it was an excuse to putter around in the water), this beach had some little, tiny spiral type shells that I thought would be fun to bring back and share with folks. Of course, it takes a whole lot of little tiny shells to fill a small cup... Anyway, while I was playing around and standing in about six inch deep water, I heard a splashing sound close by. A few feet further down the beach was a stingray!

Of course, the first thing I did was jump out of the water. The second thing I did was grab the camera and called Mom. A few other folks from another campsite came over and we all enjoyed a rare treat. My hunch is this one may not have been too well - I don't think you're supposed to see ribs, he was also missing his tail although it didn't appear to be a recent wound. I'm not sure they normally come up to the edge of the water like that, but maybe they do, I don't know much about these animals. He seemed to be keeping an eye on us and hung out on the edge of the beach like this for five or ten minutes, then took off.

Somehow we did manage to hit the road again just before Checkout, but here are just a few more shots of this special place to remember it by...

We stopped for gas a couple of Keys later, I couldn't resist taking a picture of the side of the convenience store building. This is what they use for stone down here. The Keys are the tops of ancient coral reefs that are now hard and turned to stone (fosselized?). This makes their rocks most unusual.

In Islamorada, near the end of our Keys journey, is a Memorial to the victims of the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane (9/2/35). The town suffered sustained winds of 200 mph for an extended period. The fancy 1912 Railroad was destroyed as well as some of the bridges that had been built between islands (Hwy 1 was not completed until later, so the RR was the only link between Key West and the mainland other than by boat).

We did succumb to one more tourist trap, but a tasty one? We found a Key Lime store that was open, and indulged in some more pie slices as well as a few other treats that may or may not make it home...

Finally, we made it back to the mainland and drove up Hwy 1 at least into South Miami. The traffic started to stall, so I decided to take I-95 and bypass downtown Miami. Mom wanted to do some more sightseeing (Biscayne Bay) but I think we need to start heading north and eventually west. Like all the other states we've been in so far, we won't see everything we want here, but we have also still seen a lot!

The freeway wasn't much better than Hwy 1 - it just didn't have stopsigns. After crawling along for another couple of hours we finally made it to a place called Hallandale, a few miles shy of Fort Lauderdale. The local RV campground is booked up until next April, so we found a Wal-mart and will continue our journey in the morning. Who knows, we might even find something interesting?

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 81
Weather - Sunny, Pleasantly Cool (high of 72 by late afternoon)
Camped at Long Key State Park, about mid way in the Florida Keys

Narratives:

While there are undoubtedly more things we could find to do in Key West, we had visited the places that were important to us and were ready to move on. I stayed up late writing that long blog entry (we did a lot of things yesterday), so got moving a little slowly this morning - but we finally got back on Hwy 1 heading towards the mainland again.

Since we'd rushed a bit to get down to Key West to our campground reservation, we wanted to head back up the Keys a little slower and see some of the other places along the way. The first of these was the Key Deer NWR on Pine Key. We tried going to the Visitors Center, but they're closed on weekends so we just drove up Key Deer Ln. Key Deer are the smallest subspecies of Virgina White Tailed deer and were amost extinct at one point. They are making a comeback now that they're protected and it is estimated there are between 600 and 700 animals in total, mostly on Pine and No Name Key's. We did see two but weren't able to get a picture.

While trying to find them, we stopped at a place called the blue hole. This is a former limestone quarry that filled with rainwater and now provides habitat for various wildlife species. A volunteer ranger was at the site to assist visitors, so I asked some of the questions that were on my list. One thing we learned is that a lot of the birds we've been calling Great Egrets may not be Egrets at all but Great White Heron, which is just a morph of a Great Blue Heron. We also learned the the smaller white birds we've been seeing in fields a lot are Cattle Egrets, which are not a native species to America but are doing just fine now that they're here.

We also found this rock formed from ancient coral on No Name Key, which is similar to the types of coral blocks used to build the Hemingway house and lighthouse on Key West.

Scientists believe that the Florida Key's started forming about 200,000 years ago when the Earth was in a warmer period. Coral Reefs grew in the warm waters on the Florida Platform along the Continental Shelf. When the climate cooled during the later ice ages, the sea levels dropped and exposed the reef and much of the shallow plateau, killing the coral and exposing a great deal of dry land. Beginning about 15,000 years ago the planet warmed up again and the ice receded, sea levels rose and flooded much of the exposed reef. The small Florida Keys are the hightest elevations of the once exposed coral reef.

There aren't very many beaches on the Key's but there are some. We found one of the nicer ones on Bahia Honda Key State Park and decided to eat lunch there.

There is also a section of old road extending out from the SP, I still don't understand why they leave this thing up but I guess they are very proud of it. They have even had this bridge listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The State Park also has a Butterfly garden. These critters are terribly hard to photograph, I think they just like to tease - sit still until you get the camera turned on, then flitter about madly so you can't ever focus on them again. There was a large, red/orange butterfly I never did capture. These are the ones I could.

On the east end of Bahia Honda Key is the famous "Seven Mile Bridge". I pulled over in a small "Veterans Park" just before the bridge to get some pictures of it, but found it to be a nice little park in it's own right. We loved the little grass roofed picnic shelters. The water was very still here today however, no waves at all, not even little ones.

Then of course, the bridge. It's not as long or scary as I'd expected. You drive across at 55 mph and are across in about 10 minutes.

Now see what you can do if you don't care about sleep... While we drove across the bridge, I set the camera to movie and asked Mom to just point and shoot. Tonight, I tried adding a couple of titles and replaced the wind & road noise with some Windows sample music (after finally figuring out how to do this - yes, I will try to take the tutorial someday), and it's not too shabby (or maybe I'm biased)

We stopped again at Home Depot to get screws to add to the door in between the existing screws. So far, the second patch job is holding but I figure it wouldn't hurt to add a few more preventive steps.

As we drove across Long Key, we saw another State Park. So far, every SP we've checked has been full as far as campsites. In the Key's, folks make reservations for SP Campsites as much as a year in advance. Most are booked up for months, especially for the popular season (Dec - Jan). But just for fun, I stopped at the ranger station here and asked. The Ranger laughed and said that something must have gone wrong, since when he went to lunch there were not sites available - but now there was one site open. It was still a little early to stop for the night but I grabbed it. Then while I was filling out the registration form somebody else stopped in to inquire about a campsite. The ranger promptly informed him that their sites have been booked for months. Perhaps, but if people cancel and you just happen to stop by at the right time, you might get lucky like this also.

(No that's not an optical illusion, the ocean is only about 15 feet from where Mom is sitting).

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 13 (RT)
Weather - Sunny, mid to high 60's and warming
Camped at Boyds RV park again

Musings:

It's hard to believe this is the half way point of our trip! In many ways, it feels like we're just getting underway. In others, I'm also anxious to get home. Odd stuff that. Mom and I were really enjoying the sunshine and beach at lunch and got to discussing Key West vs Everglades: both at southern end of Florida and the US, both very beautiful but in totally different ways. In fact, they're both so different they're hard to compare - but while we're enjoying Key West a lot, we both liked the quiet and solitude of the Everglades better. Guess we're hopelessly not jet-setters.

Narrative:

My plan is to spend today in Key West, then start heading back up Hwy 1 Sunday, maybe taking a little more time to stop along the way and visit some of the other Key's. So I wanted to get as much sightseeing in as possible. I think we succeeded.

We started off driving on the SE side to the Island. Key West is about 4 miles long and 2 miles wide, not very large but maybe larger than some of the other Key's we've driven across. There were no beaches along most of the route, just a seawall. Some folks were out walking or jogging however and it was a lovely drive with the morning sun on the water.

Then we went to the monument to the Southern Most point in the continential US. I'm not sure why this qualifies, since Key West is an Island, but maybe since it's on the Continental Shelf or connected to the continent by Hwy 1, they can make this claim? But this was one of the major targets of our trip - and here we are:

BTW - there was a short line of people waiting to get their pictures taken by the monument, so we each just took turns taking pictures for the next group, then posing ourselves. Later in the day the line was half a block long! It turns out that Dec - Jan are the most popular (crowded) times to visit Key West, since folks want to avoid the really hot, humid months and also the bugs. The worst part of that period is the Christmas/New Years break - when lots of folks are off from work or school.

But it also seems that many folks like to sleep in late when they're on vacation, so between 9 AM and 10 AM, we still found some parking and breathing room downtown. After that, good luck (well, sort of anyway). Most folks rent bikes, scooters or electric carts - which I'd highly recommend (not sure where they park the carts tho).

Anyway, after some circling around I finally found a handicapped spot a couple of blocks away from the home Ernest Hemingway lived in during some of his most prolific years, so we put the RV there for the rest of the day and headed off to tour the Hemingway house.

Actually, this may be misnamed a bit because the house was built by Asa Tift - the richest 'wrecker' in Key West during the 1800's, but more on that later. After "A Farewell to Arms" was published and became a big success, Ernest Hemingway bought the property in 1931 and lived there with his second wife, Pauline, until their divorce in 1939. The house and furnishings are all pretty much as they were when the Hemingways lived there.

Hemingway built a room to write in above a converted carriage house. The museum leaves it set up with his typewriter, table and chairs just as he worked in it.

Of course, throughout the property are cats, 47 of them at present. They are decended from Hemingway's original six toed tomcat. The six toes are a genetic trait, polydactyl, and about half of the museums cats carry this trait. Regardless of how many toes they have, the cats are very well treated.

There is even a special watering trough for the cats. This was actually the urinal at one of Hemingway's favorite bars. Pauline objected to having it in the yard and her gardener tried to hide it's original function by adding tiles and a urn fountian, but the tour guides are happy to share the real secret.

Across the street from the Hemingway home is the Key West Lighthouse - a handy location for someone who often tended to stay out drinking too late. (Just follow the bright light home!)

This isn't the largest or most spectacular lighthouses we've seen - but has one very interesting feature. In addition to the Third Order Fresnel Lens in the lighthouse itself are a First Order, Fourth Order and Fifth Order lens in the Museum - with all their glass pieces intact!

Of course I climbed the ninty or so steps to the top, but even though this wasn't as tall as other lighthouses - the steps were detached from the walls a couple of feet, so were very narrow and almost freestanding - and more scary than most. The views from the top were pretty good however.

Mom didn't climb the lighthouse of course, but enjoyed the sunshine and finding a banana tree in the yard. We also enjoyed finding so many beautiful flowers in bloom in early January down here! She's asked me to print some hard copies of the flower shot for her friends (I may cheat and use a photo printing machine...)

By now it was about time for lunch, so we walked the 4 blocks or so back to the Southernmost area to a cafe we'd seen earlier. The "Southernmost Cafe" is on a small beach and open on the sides so you can enjoy the sea air and carribean ambiance. We somehow got seated right along the open beach side and had a wonderful lunch. We also ordered two slices of Key Lime Pie that were just too good (they make their own)

While we were eating, several things flew by including a biplane. (A helicopter and sailboat also passed by, but I'll spare you pictures of everything we saw, honest!)

Of course, after all that walking Mom was pretty tired - so we ordered a cab to take us to the north side of the island. The NW corner is where the historic waterfront & town were located. The tourist brochures indicated there was a Shipwreck museum there, which I thought might be interesting. As we approached the museum (they call it a "Historeum"), Mom heard music and found her second wind.

However, she also decided that there were too many stairs for her in the Historeum didn't go through it. Maybe there were also too many shops in the area she wanted to visit while I went through the Historeum as she spent the wad for January while I was inside!

It turns out that there were so many shipwrecks along the Florida reefs (in spite of the lighthouses) that in the mid 1800's Key West had the highest per capita wealth in the US! "Wreckers" made their living salvaging goods from shipwrecks. Asa Tift, who built the house later made famous when Hemingway lived there, was the most successful and wealthy "wrecker". The historeum is located in his warehouse, although the tower is a replica. Wreckers built towers and hired folks to watch for ships to founder ("Wreck Ashore"!). The first captain to get his ship to the sight got the salvage rights and could decide which other ships & wreckers to use in the operation. Wreckers also rescued passengers and crew and often risked their own lives. It was such a dangerous occupation that nobody would insure the wreckers vessels, which were almost always sloops.

Asa Tifts also made money in other enterprises. Across the square from his wreckers warehouse was his ice house (now a shell store, the pink building below). His ships brought Ice down from Maine for sale in the Key's as late as 1890.

It was an interesting thing to tour, the exhibits were mostly of items that had been on shipwrecks, so weren't in pristine condition. I think it was more interesting learning a little more about the colorful past than the exhibits themselves. (Who knew there were people who made a legitimate living off of shipwrecks, and a good one at that?)

Anyway, Mom was really worn out after spending all that money (and dancing), so we took a bicycle ride back to the RV for her. Our driver, Sebastian, is actually planning a bicycle tour around the US shortly so was very interested in our trip. I gave him a card of course.

I was also getting pretty tired, but had seen one more museum in the old waterfront area that I had to visit, so after Mom was comfortable back in the rig, I hoofed it the mile back to the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum.

Mel Fisher is a treasure hunter. He and his company have been finding shipwrecks for years and had searched for many, many years for the 'mother load', Spanish Galleons that had sunk during a hurricane in 1622 carrying tons of treasure. In 1980, he found the first one, the Margarita. Then in 1985, they found the flagship - the Nuestra Senora de Atocha. This was carrying 40 tons of treasure, including 24 tons of silver bars and about 200,000 silver coins as well as copper, gold and emeralds. The treasure today is worth about $450 Million dollars. But it is not hidden away in some vault somewhere (at least not all of it). The Fisher's have set up a non profit organization to display some of the treasure and other artifacts in this musuem!

Not only do they display some of the treasure in a museum, they allow you to take pictures (not commercially of course). Here are a picture of one of the wood boxes and silver coins they found. Following that are a couple of the gold bars.

The museum also houses items recovered from other shipwrecks. They don't always yeild treasures in the traditional sense, but offer glimpses into lives from centuries ago which yields a different sort of treasure. These are some crossbows from the 1564 wreck of the Santa Clara.

These are some items from the Henrietta Marie, a slave ship. The cauldron was used to cook a gruel or soup from whatever stock was on hand to feed the 250 slaves on board. Shackles were used mostly on men and when the ship was near enough to shore to worry about rebellion, but some of the pairs Fisher's team found were smaller so may have been used on children or women.

After adding to the treasure haul by visiting the gift shop, I finally headed back to the RV also (another walk across the island). Along the way, I took more pictures of historic homes and things we hadn't taken the time to tour, but that might still be of interest. I'll post these for you to peruse at your leisure (or not as you prefer).

Tomorrow, we'll leave this lovely (but expensive) place and start up Hwy 1 again, and slowly towards home (OK - maybe in 3 or 4 months?)