Sightseeing at WSP, or how we spent our days...

Tom and I spent an embarrassingly large amount of each day driving over the Seven Mile Bridge to Marathon and its K-Mart and various restaurants.  We both brought snorkeling gear, and opted to try our hand at the Bahia Honda state park.  We snorkeled at least one mile in the ocean, and didn't see a SINGLE fish!

Sometimes we did drive south, though, to Big Pine Key and beyond.  At Big Pine Key we stumbled onto "Blue Hole", a water filled quarry that is home to a pair of alligators.  Here are a couple of pictures of the courting male, taken from a dozen feet above him on an observation deck. 

We saw a number of the Key Deer, and endangered species (with ~600 specimens total) of dwarf White Tail deer located primarily on Big Pine Key.  We came as close 15 feet to one in our car.

Another attraction of Big Pine Key was the "No Name Pub", a famous out of the way eatery festooned in graffiti-covered dollar bills.  Good food, and a part of the Keys experience!  At the Big Pine visitors center I relayed our wretched luck with the snorkeling at Bahia Honda, and the resident volunteer suggested trying a little manmade pool/lagoon at the north end of West Summerland Key itself.  She said there was an ambulance or airplane (the stories varied) submerged in the middle of the lagoon at a depth of 25-30 feet.  On a lark, I drove to the site.  It was not visually impressive-- three coral/rock walls enclosing a ~50 x 100 yard area. 

Then we walked to the water's edge, and saw a profusion of marine life.  More colorful tropical fish than I've seen outside of a pet store, barracuda swimming in the shallows (see below), and in the depths of the pool itself some 2 to 3 foot long grouper gnawing on the coral with a noise like celery being crunched in front of a giant microphone.  Swimming among all of this sea life was a "Jacques Cousteau" moment.  And to think it was located a scant half-mile from the WSP site. 

We also made the obligatory pilgrimage to Key West, to stand on the southernmost point of the Continental U.S.

We also saw other interesting sights in Key West, including as can be seen in the picture below, a living riddle --"why did the chicken cross the road".  (I know this is actually a co... err, rooster, but given that this was Key West the associated joke would be a bit too risque for this web site...)

All in all the sightseeing was good-- but if I go to WSP again, I'll probably content myself with daily snorkel sessions in the artificial lagoon on our very own West Summerland Key.  It's even close enough to the camp site to walk to!