Middle Keys – Marathon Key

The object of the day on February 10 was to go to Marathon Key and find a beach or 2 to collect shells for our collections.

The day started out good…The weather was going to be great…We ate breakfast at home and decided to eat lunch and dinner out somewhere…Since it has been a while since I have wanted to write about the Marathon Key trip, I hope that my memory helps me out so that I can write a good blog for this day…

Our drive towards one of the middle keys was a pleasant drive…Not much traffic…As we drive down Route 1 towards the Keys, we are always amazed at all the mangroves and vast openness of the areas…You can drive for about 20 miles from the time one passes the entrance to the Keys down to Mile Marker 107…The entrance to Key Largo…As we drive down Route 1 and go past Mile Marker after Mile Marker, which is how you are told where things are, we are deciding on where we are going to eat for lunch…Going down Route 1 there are lots of interesting buildings, trees, boats with 3 motors or 4 motors…There are places to visit, lots of divers dens, restaurants, and boats…

Today we have decided to go to a beach and walk along the water and collect some neat seashells or coral…The first place to stop is the Chamber of Commerce in Marathon Key to pick up some maps and gather some information about any beaches or places to visit…While in the Chamber of Commerce, a lady told us about Sombrero Beach where you can walk out to the water and collect shells…That is where we decided to go…

We get back in the truck and head to Sombrero Beach which is around Mile Marker 50 or so…However, we drove right past the road that leads to Sombrero Beach and kept on driving…

Before long we were going across the Seven Mile Bridge which leads in to Big Pine Key…At this point, we knew that we missed the road and was heading in the wrong direction but as luck would have it, as we came off of Seven Mile Bridge, there was a park/beach on the left side of the road…

We pulled in to the park and collected our cameras and baggie for  shells and off we went to walk the beach…

As you can see Richard has collected a shell for our collection…Richard and I went our separate ways to take our pictures and collect shells…The stuff you can see on the sand is sea grass…

 

The shells to left contained living creatures in their homes that were moving around…It was pretty cool to just stoop and watch them crawl around and over each other…I was able to gather several shells that were this little and wild looking to keep for my collection…The coral to the right is everywhere on the beaches…It comes in little pieces or big chunks of rocks…

and then along the walk, I found these 2 living shells…The one on the left I turned over to really see the little creature that lived in the shell and I turned over the little shell and found little legs that stuck out…I turned his home back over and put him back in the sand…It was pretty wild to see these shells…

The Atlantic Ocean was so beautiful…

I just couldn’t resist taking a picture of my feet standing on the beach…

After were done with this beach, we headed to Sombrero Beach…

The entrance to Sombrero Beach is beautiful…There are pavilions to sit and picnic at or have a party…There is a tennis court and lots of places to put your beach chair in the sand and put an umbrella in the sand to protect you from the sun…The water was gorgeous and walking along the sand was absolutely wonderful….Of course, we are still on the Atlantic Coast side…

Richard and I go our separate ways and start taking our pictures of what we want to keep…As I was taking pictures, I was also collecting myshells…There were all types of shells and coral…

      

What is Richard looking at?

And then we come across a very large piece of Coral…The lower part of Florida is mostly made of coral…In the coral were lots of different shells that were lodged in the little cavities and large holes from where all ocean waters have gone over and over the coral…It has been the neatest thing to see…

As you look out over the grasses is the very beautiful Atlantic Ocean…The time of day is around 4pm..The sky is gorgeous and the ocean is blue and green…As we are heading out of the park, we take more pictures and head towards home…It was a wonderful, beautiful day…