Day 8 - Key West

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When I woke I was greeted with the rise of the sun, which over the surrounding water, made for a wonderful sight. I’m glad I’m able to experience something so wonderful, especially with what had happened earlier in the night.
When the sun fully rises, I notice that one of the many small boats in the water seems to have half sunk, presumably from the storm, but no one remembers if it was like that yesterday. The fact that there hasn’t been any commotion or rescue crew presence at anytime maybe proves that it has been there a while already.

Anyway, today there isn’t any rush to get our tents down and ready to set off again, as we have our first two nighter of the trip. Every one eventually wakes and breakfasts, whilst others get some laundry done or even take in one of the early World Cup games of the day. Today we have a full day to ourselves in Key West.

When we finally do leave camp, we head into town, and when we park opposite the Key West branch of Ron Jon’s, and after having a quick look around, Zoe, Kylie, Scott and I go off on our own to explore the nearby streets. In fact we seem to explore every shop along the street, all of which seem to be t-shirt shops, all selling the same shirts.
In one of the first shops we go into, I find some Hawaiian shirts, but I'm quickly dragged away by the others before I can think about buying them. We carry on but after cruising the rest of the long street, and having found some much needed shade, air con and food, we head back to that shop and I get those Hawaiian shirts – 5 in all, with the 5th being free!

Quite happy with my slightly expensive purchases we met up with some of the others and found a suitable, in which I mean an England fan dominated, bar and managed to score the ‘VIP’ section at the back with a projector screen to watch the England-USA game on.
Idiot I am, I forgot to bring my passport with me for ID, so I couldn't have any beer. This perhaps was a good thing as Graham and G had more than their fair share for everyone! By the time the game had reached half time, they were so far gone, that Graham is just shouting more than anything!
Sadly the game ended 1-1, which I suppose is a good thing, as it was enough to get Todd hooked on the whole World Cup thing. If they had lost, I’m sure it would have been all different, so thank god for Rob Green’s blunder!

Slightly disappointed, but still positive enough to think that we haven’t actually lost, we all headed on a wander for a fish and chip joint that Todd had been told about, and with some of the food kitty, had ourselves a fish and chip dinner. Afterwards we headed back down the street, towards our meeting point by Ron Jon’s, and after eventually meeting up with everyone again, headed over to one of the various booze cruise companies operating by the harbour.
We had booked tickets for an all-you-can-drink booze cruise, where the catamaran would head out of the harbour, around one of the small islands near by, and head further out into the Gulf of Mexico, but one thing put pay to those plans today – a nearby thunderstorm.
There were 2 or 3 other companies out and about and heading in the same direction as us, but our Captain announced soon after getting out into the open water that we would be heading back towards the harbour, just in case that storm actually hit.
Again, because I didn’t have my passport for ID, I wasn't allowed any beer, but Todd and Scott get me a couple of beers with their coupons. It felt pretty awesome riding the waves on the catamaran, just standing in the middle of the deck at the front, determined to keep our balance. In the end, I think some of us either find refuge sitting on the deck itself or holding on the railings at the side. Some of us even got the privilege in helping with raising the main sail as we set off to leave. It definitely was a team effort of the 6 or 7 people standing in a line pulling the main rope as quickly and as long as possible to raise the sail. Needless to say we had a right laugh in doing so, finally getting the job done.

Thank goodness the Captain did turn back when he did, because by the time we entered the harbour again, the cloud scattered blue sky had been replaced by big, dark clouds, and the heavens seemed to open on us just like that. To be fair, in the time we headed back to shore, we could clearly see the rain falling in the distance, as it got closer and closer.
As soon as we docked, we left the cover we had to find on the boat, and headed very quickly onto the pier and back onto concrete ground.

Sadly, we had discovered only on the way towards the booze cruise that I seemed to have gained fat feet. I had woken up this morning with a slight ache on my right foot, but didn’t think too much about it. Looking down at my own feet, I really couldn’t see how big they had become, and of course after all that walking during the day and severe lack of fluids during the day, seemed to cause my feet to almost double in size.
So with my enlarged feet and still getting use to wearing flip-flops all the time, running from the boat along the pier and onto solid ground isn’t that easy! In fact I called out just how hard it is to run with swollen feet and flip flops!
Very quickly though we find cover under the nearby shops canopies and wait for the storm to pass.
It didn’t take long for us to realise that Graham was missing from our group, and having all stepped back out in the quite glorious rain calling out and looking for Graham, Todd headed back to the boat to find that he had stayed with some other guests on the boat itself.
Anyway, Kylie and Zoe have got bored very quickly of standing under cover, and had decided to strip off down to their bikinis and began their own version of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’. Because I love this song as one of the campfire songs on our cub camps, I had to follow suit (not stripping off to my bikini!) but joining in with the singing in the rain. We had reached the conclusion that we are already soaked, and because the water isn’t at all cold, what’s the harm in getting a little wetter.
You should have seen the looks we’re getting from everyone else seeking shelter. They just can’t seem to understand what we’re doing.

When the storm disappeared and Graham rejoined us, we headed back to meet the others who didn’t come on the cruise, and headed back to the van. On reaching the van, we found Graham having a toilet break up against the side door of the van! Despite this, we all climbed in and headed back to base, but not before stopping off at a nearby Burger King, where Kylie and Scott took their time ordering for them and others.
As I was sitting right by the side door, I just stood by the open doors waiting for them to return. Good thing really, because as I looked on at Kylie and Scott in the restaurant, G decided he couldn’t hold on anymore, and jumped out of his seat, across whoever was in his way, and made it outside to throw up right next to me. I turned back in time to see him projectile, and I backed up as much as I can to the door.
He now seemed to feel better after this and soon headed back into his seat. When Kylie and Scott finally returned, we headed back to base, and when we got there, I was ordered to my tent to rest up.
My feet had really got bad, so much so, that Tanya, the Aussie ER nurse, said I may need to go to hospital and have crutches it was that bad. There was talk of it possibly being a spider’s bite instead of swelling. Either way it really was hurting now and I just wanted to take the pressure off my feet and rest.
The delegation that is me, Tanya, Todd and a couple of others thought about this and finally decided to rest up and see how I felt after that.
As I was helped into my tent, everyone else was now starting to panic about where their washing and other clothes that they left out that morning had disappeared to. Some think that they may have blown away in the storm, but some other campers who had spent the day crashing and recovering on their site hade been kind enough to gather it all up and throw it in a tent – my tent! So I had to wait for everyone to get their stuff out of my tent first before finally lying down.
When I finally got into my tent, I was quickly left alone and fell asleep very quickly.

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