Ahhhh.  Another day in paradise.  The sun rises into a clear bright blue sky as we peek out the window from the Authors Guesthouse.   We’ve got another play day planned.   No trike riding today.  Today we will go kayaking  in the mangrove jungles that surround Key West.

Like yesterday, we forego the pitiful breakfast offered up at the guesthouse.  We always ask for advice from locals and other travelers about the best restaurants wherever we happen to be.  This trip is no different and we have received a ton of suggestions and recommendations about great restaurants here in Key West.

One of the places our friends mention most often is a restaurant called Blue Heaven.  At least 5 or 6 different people told us this was a place we needed to check out, so we decided to pay attention.  We find the restaurant just a short cab ride from the B&B in the  historic Bahama Village section of Key West.

The place is a hoot!  Everything about this place screams Key West.  We sat outside in the courtyard.  Big banyan trees provide shade and atmosphere.  There are cats and roosters wandering among the tables.  It’s worth coming to this place just to look at the courtyard.

The menu is pretty amazing.  The original owner managed to persuade his brother to come be the chef here.  His brother is a formally trained chef from the   Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, N.C.  I’m not sure if we ever ate his food while we were living in Raleigh, but after Blue Heaven, I wish I had.  They feature some sumptuous sounding dishes for breakfast.  Most famous is the ‘BLT’ (Bacon, Lobster and Tomato) Benedict.  I had blueberry pancakes, which I had no trouble polishing off.    Nancy will be writing a more complete review soon, but we like this place as lot.

After our breakfast, its time to meet the driver from the kayak tour agency.  He meets us with a big van at the guesthouse, and drives us and the other six members of our kayaking group, to their marina on nearby Stock Island.   Once at the marina, we are fitted with kayaks, introduced to our tour guide, and paddle out into the Boca Chicha Channel.

Nancy and I have kayaked a few times in the past – enough to know how to paddle, and to steer the boat,  and more or less get it where we want to go.  It’s clear that some of the other members of our party don’t know what they heck they are doing.  There is a fairly stiff headwind and the water is a little choppy.  We all paddle slowly and somewhat erratically across the channel – this takes maybe 30-40 minutes.

One of the people in our group – let’s call him “Bubba” – is obviously struggling .  Bubba is a large man – he had difficulty fitting into his kayak – and is clearly not very fit.  By the time we get across the channel, he is winded.  “How much longer does this thing go on for?” he asks our tour guide.  He doesn’t seem pleased to know we still have 2-3 hours to go.

Bubba has come on this tour with his two friends – we’ll call them ‘Thelma’ and ‘Louise’.  They seem a little more adept at kayaking, and agree to help their friend Bubba with the rest of the tour.  They tie a rope from Bubba’s boat to one of theirs and help to tow him across the rest of the channel.

On the far side of the channel we reach the mangrove forest.  Very cool.  Much of southern Florida and the Florida Keys are made up of mangroves.    Mangrove trees will die out if exposed to frost, so southern Florida is about the coldest climate they can tolerate.

They grow in salt water .  Their leaves are succulent. They store salt water in them. This gives them time to process it into fresh water through the process of osmosis. They actually pressurize the salt water to get the fresh water out. They can also store fresh water in their leaves. They expel the  salt from the osmosis process through the arched roots of the plant. The roots need to be out of the salt water each day to enable this to take place. This happens at low tide.

Many reef fish depend on the root system as a protective nursery. Most all fish you’ll catch in the Florida Keys have spent some part of their life in or near this habitat. They also give a protected breeding and nursery area for water birds. Cormorants, white and blue herons, night herons, egrets, pelicans, roseate spoonbills, and frigate all raise their young in this tangle of roots and branches.

The maze of roots protects the shoreline from erosion caused by wind and waves.  The only enemy to these trees other than hurricanes and tropical storms is man. Coastal development has been responsible for many acres of these trees disappearing. In 1985 the Mangrove Protection Act made it illegal to destroy or damage them in the State of Florida. They’ve been designated a species of special concern. You need a permit just to trim them back.

Our guide leads us into the mangrove rivers along the shore.  Here  the trees block the breeze and keep the chop to a minimum.  It’s shady and quiet and we can glide through the tunnels with the tall trees surrounding us on all sides.  It’s really beautiful, and a lot of fun.

At least it was fun for Nancy and I.  Bubba’s  experience is different.    Bubba still has his boat tied to Thelma’s.  This worked OK in the channel, but here in the rivers it’s a different story.  It’s very close in here.  Sometimes it’s impossible to paddle,  instead we pull ourselves along by grabbing at tree branches and roots.  There are sharp corners, and branches sticking out into the stream.  The rope between Bubba and Telma’s boats gets constantly tangled in the branches, and Thelma’s movements pull at Bubba boat as he is attempting to get the rope untangled.  There is some cursing and shouting and finally a large SPLASH.

I look over my shoulder to see Budda in the water next to an upside down kayak.  Now the water here is only 10-12 inches deep, so there is no real danger involved.  But it’s clear the Bubba is none to happy.  He chooses this moment to let the group know that he does no know how to swim.

It takes a while, but Bubba and his kayak are eventually reunited.    We continue to paddle about inside the mangroves for a few more hours.  Bubba continues to struggle, so Nancy and I left him  in the capable hands of Thelma and Louise.  It took him a LONG time to get through the rivers and back to the channel, but as far as we know he stayed in his kayak the entire time.

The channel crossing is easier this way across.  The wind is at our back and helps to push us across the channel back towards the marina.

About half way back to the marina Bubba announces he’s “done”, he “cant’ go on”.  Our tour guide is at a loss – “You’re in the middle of he channel here – what else are you going to do?”.  But no, Bubba has decided it’s time to quit.   So Bubba, Thelma, and Louise get a tow to the closest dock somewhere in the channel.  The tour guide promises to come get them later.  That’s the last we saw of them.  They were alive when we last saw them…..

The rest of us return to the marina, and catch the van ride back to our hotels.  All-in-all it was a pretty darn good day,  but I surely could have done without Bubba’s drama and disruption.

After a shower and getting ourselves cleaned up, we decided it was time for an early dinner.  Another often recommended place on our list is Santiago’s Bodego on Petronia Street.    Like the Blue Heaven this morning for breakfast, this place is found  in the Bahama Village part of Key West,  in the Old Town area.  It is named after many of the original residents that were of a Bahamian ancestry.

We were pretty early, so we got a chance to sample the restaurant’s early bird menu.  Drinks were good, and very cheap.  There we also a couple of appetizers that were cheap, but not so good.  The food we ordered off the regular menu was better, but even some of that was disappointing.  There were one or two items we thought were great, the rest not as good.  I really wanted to like this place, but overall I gotta say it was mediocre.

We decided to skip desert at Santiago’s Bordego, and instead opted to try dessert at a restaurant we had noticed the day before while riding around on the trikes.  Better Than Sex Desert Restaurant is a pretty funny place.  All they serve are decadent deserts and drinks.  Most of the drinks are available plain, or in chocolate and/or caramel rimmed glasses.  The desserts were tasty, but the real appeal of this place is just the atmosphere and setting.  The menu is tongue-in-cheek and pretty funny.

It wasn’t the best food I’ve ever had, but if you go with the expectation that it’s about the setting, you won’t be disappointed.

 

This seems a fitting end for our last evening in Key West.  Tomorrow, we are back on the bikes and riding north toward home.  We still have a couple of days of vacation left, but I can feel the end getting close.  We’ll need to make the most of the next few days…..