Islands in the Sun: Florida Keys

When my husband and I were children, we used to love watching a TV show about a tame dolphin called Flipper and his friend Sandy, whose father was a marine ranger at the fictional Coral Key Park. As children, we dreamed of visiting the exotic little coral islands where the fictional Coral Key Park was located — the Florida Keys.

The Florida Keys are the southernmost part of the continental United States, stretching southwest from the tip of Florida, just south of Miami. The last key in the chain is Key West, which is just 90 miles from Cuba.

The climate is mild year-round, generally ranging from 24–32°C (75–90°F). However, the region is prone to hurricanes during the summer and early autumn, and signs for hurricane shelters are a common sight.

We flew into Orlando, picked up a hire car along with a book of hotel discount vouchers, and set off down the east coast of Florida for an adventure! We spent three days driving, with frequent breaks to explore, and booked into a different hotel each night. Our route took us through Cape Canaveral, Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami.

Eventually, we reached Key Largo, the first of the Florida Keys and famous as the setting for the 1948 classic film Key Largo, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

Keen to do some snorkelling, we booked ourselves onto a diving boat trip, which took us five miles out to sea, around a coral reef. We followed our guide’s advice and removed any gold jewellery, as barracuda are attracted to anything shiny.
“Don’t worry if you see one,” we were told. “Just look the other way and count to five. When you look back, it will be gone.”
Wrong… when I looked back, there were about a dozen. Oh dear!
Luckily, I didn’t see the friendly 7-foot reef shark that the crew mentioned often makes an appearance — I would’ve panicked. JAWS!

We continued island-hopping from key to key, spending a total of six nights in the Keys. On Marathon Key, roughly halfway down the island chain, I tried fishing for the very first time in my life. We had checked into a bungalow by the edge of the ocean, borrowed some fishing rods from friendly locals, and settled into our deckchairs with a bag of shrimp for bait — and the essential cold beers.

Within a few minutes, I had caught my first fish. Then another. And another. Our bungalow even had a filleting table and a barbecue, so we cooked some of what we caught that evening.

Fishing is probably the most popular pastime in the Keys. There’s water all along the roadsides, and people often stop their cars, get out, and fish right from the bridges. However, fishing is prohibited in many inland lakes and ponds, as alligators live in them — and if humans take all the fish, the gators might go looking for food elsewhere!

We heard that Bahia Honda Key had an award-winning beach, so we thought we’d check it out. We expected a manicured stretch of white sand but were surprised to find it strewn with seaweed and washed-up jellyfish. Then we noticed the incredible abundance of wildlife — birds of every description were feeding off the “rubbish,” and we were captivated by the variety and activity of the residents of Bahia Honda State Park. It really is a beautiful beach — just not in the postcard-perfect way we expected.

Each key we stopped at had its own character. A few are home to an endangered species of small deer known as Key Deer, which can only be found in the lower Keys, especially Big Pine Key.

On No Name Key, we found the No Name Pub, which looks just like a big wooden garden shed from the outside. Inside, every visitor signs a dollar bill and pins it to the walls — and when those filled up, they started pinning them on top of each other. It must be worth a fortune now!

Next, we headed for Key West, the final island in the chain. One of its most famous former residents was Ernest Hemingway, who wrote part of A Farewell to Arms while living there. His home is now a historic site and museum, famously home to dozens of polydactyl (six-toed) cats, descended from Hemingway’s own pets. There is an annual Ernest Hemingway festival with a Hemingway lookalike competition!

Since the 1960s, both locals and visitors have gathered each evening at Mallory Square to watch the spectacular pink and gold sunset. Street entertainers, musicians, clowns and jugglers perform for the crowd as everyone gets ready to toast the sun’s descent with a glass of champagne. When it finally dips below the horizon, a great cheer goes up. It’s a wonderful experience — the atmosphere is magical.

Eventually, we had to tear ourselves away from the Florida Keys, as there were still plenty of places we wanted to visit before leaving Florida: The Everglades, Sanibel Island, and a bit of Orlando, too. I had hoped to get as far as New Orleans, but the Keys had captivated us for longer than we expected.

It’s easy to think of Florida as just Disney and theme parks, but there’s so much more to see. The beautiful little coral islands known as the Florida Keys are definitely worth a visit — if only to recover from the exhaustion of a few days in Orlando!