Drive Time - Florida Keys, USA

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Wahoo!

I am back behind the wheel of a car – even if they drive on the wrong side of the road.

Our first big road trip of the vacation was down to Key West. Luckily Alamo Car Rentals had upgraded us to a Camry; comfy on long straight US roads.

Wow, what a drive, cruising on the highway at 70 – 80 mph. The trip from Miami to Key West has a spectacular series of bridges and Islands.

In Key West we tried “lime pie”, looked at Ernest Hemmingway’s house, and the southernmost point of continental USA. This claim seemed somewhat dubious to me because we were on an island.

We had dinner at a local institution, “Sloppy Joe’s”, where the live band played some great tunes. While eating dinner, we witnessed two middle aged drunk couples swap partners for some rather lewd behaviour. The surrounding diners and wait staff were clearly uncomfortable but, surprisingly, the behaviour went unchallenged. Next we headed to the waterfront to watch the sunset and the evening buskers.

On our way back we were caught in a heavy downpour so we took shelter in another great bar and had a drink.

On the way out of Key West we called into the “Turtle Hospital” in Marathon. We heard about how they rescue, rehabilitate, and release sea turtles back into the wild. They had several different species and sizes of turtles in the hospital during our visit.

The turtles are treated for a variety of problems such as injuries due to “boat strike”, tumours, swallowed objects, materials caught around limbs and necks, infections, and viruses.

Turtles which survive “boat strike” present at the hospital with injuries ranging from limb and shell grazes, to amputation of a limb, to “bubble back” which is where air is caught under the turtle’s damaged shell.

Turtles with amputation injuries can be released if they are able to swim well enough to feed. Unfortunately, “bubble backs” cannot be released as they have too much buoyancy to dive and feed in the wild. After treatment, these turtles have weights added to their shell which helps them swim and breathe easily and then they become permanent residents in larger pools.

We were very impressed with the work of this organisation.

If you are interested, they have a regularly up-dated website at http://www.turtlehospital.org

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