Drove from NY to Key West in February of 2006 - paddled along the way. Highlights were Apalachicola River, St. Vincent Island, Everglades 10,000 Island and the Keys. Pintail offered a little less freeboard than I would have liked on the Apalachicola with alligators diving into the water (and under my boat) at every turn of a narrow tributary.
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| Put-in on Apalachicola |
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| Pintail and Mangroves |
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| Tarpon and Pelican |
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| Canal on Keys carved through Limestone/Coral |
Photo of canal (bottom left) carved in the fossil coral joining Largo and Blackwater Sounds. Up close you can see the remnants of brain coral and coral fan shapes in the retaining wall. Ah yes, almost run over by a motor boat in the mangroves minutes prior to this.
Biggest take-home message from this trip to the Keys was the density of development on such a narrow strip of land. Some beautiful places to paddle still, yet much of the Keys suffer from the strip-mall syndrome of stoplights, multiple curb cuts, and lack of open space. Sewage and untreated stormwater runoff rapidly destroying the only coral reef ecosystem in the continental U.S. Had a snorkel at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park - it's still alive but by all accounts doing poorly. Big barracuda I saw didn't seem to mind, but there was certainly evidence of coral bleaching all around.
Interesting Factoids - 1. The Florida Keys receives the bulk of its drinking water via a 130-mile long pipeline from the mainland. 2.The first desalination plant in the United States was built in the 1840s in Key West to serve troops at Fort Zachary Taylor. 3. After extending the railroad through Florida and giving birth to what would become the city of Miami, guilded-age oil baron Henry Flagler built the "over-sea railway" to Key West, which functioned for about 20 years until the Hurricane of 1935.
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