Cruising the Florida Keys: Second Edition

To my dear friend and ace research assistant, Bob Home. If only more of us had his perseverance and unflappability, this world would be a nicer place.

—CLAIBORNE

For Jill and Diane.

—MORGAN

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I want to thank my firstrate first mate, Karen Ann, without whose help as an experienced navigator, photographer, and research assistant none of my books would have been possible. A very special thanks goes to my research assistant, Bob Home. Without his many selfless hours spent with this writer during on-the-water research, the first edition of this guide would have been ever so much more difficult. A very special thanks goes to Capt. Milt Baker and first mate Judy Baker, founders and former owners of Bluewater Books and Charts, for all their help and encouragement and particularly their aid and assistance in tracking down once and for all the navigational situation on Angelfish Creek. I would additionally like to recognize the contributions of Ms. Carrie Duvall, who worked on the many grayscale chart snippets that appear in this guidebook. I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the many dockmasters and marina managers throughout the Florida Keys who gave so much of their time and wisdom to us during our research. While they are too numerous to mention, their input was invaluable. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Milburn Calhoun, Nancy Calhoun, Kathleen Calhoun Nettleton, Nina Kooij, and the rest of the staff at Pelican Publishing Company. Once again, it has been a genuine pleasure to work with the Pelican Bunch, and we hope our relationship will continue for many years to come.

Claiborne

My contribution to this book would not exist in the form that it does without the generous and accurate input of the countless people who live and work in the Florida Keys. The people I interviewed all gave willingly of their time and expertise, and I am most grateful for the insights their perspectives furnished. They know the lay of the land, the secrets at which transients such as Claiborne and I can only guess. People who call the Keys home are different. They have an independence of spirit that reminds me of what the history books tell us of the people who used to populate the western frontiers of this country. When you think about it, the Florida Keys are still a frontier of sorts, strung as they are out across the water, subject to storms and the regular clogging of the only vehicular artery, U.S. 1, by traffic accidents.

It is not easy being a Conch. Gas prices are stratospherically high in the Keys. The price of living is as expensive as rubies. Some of the amenities the rest of us take for granted just don't exist in these islands. In some places in the Keys, particularly Key West, finding an empty parking space can be the subject of prayers offered up to heaven.

On the other hand, the Keys offer slices of life that many people in this country only can dream about, and probably do. The fishing is without peer (without pier?). On the good days, the Keys could be a movie setting from the South Pacific. The clarity of the water takes your breath away. The small islands beg to be photographed. SCUBA diving is a huge industry here because of the diversity of the underwater environment. If the Conchs jealously guard their paradise, don't fault them. Witless vacationers leave behind environmental scars that take decades to heal, and Keys residents must live for a long while with what the clueless leave behind.

Over time, my attitude about life on some of the Keys has changed. What I did not much care for before, I rather admire now. I know a little more, I think, and am less inclined to be critical. In addition, people like Bruce Popham, the owner of the Marathon Boatyard, have smartened me up some. Popham has put in countless hours as a force for good in Marathon. He may be the tip of the iceberg because good things do not happen unless a number of civic-minded people are involved also. Most importantly, I have seen Boot Key Harbor, once a cesspool of unsanitary water, unclean living, and certifiably gnarly people, get cleaned up, with order restored where anarchy once reigned. Popham is one of the activists who worked hard to bring order out of chaos at Boot Key Harbor. Years ago he was a little like Babe Ruth pointing presciently toward the left field wall before knocking one out of the park. Popham told me what must happen and how it was going to happen. Then he helped make it happen. Part of that task involved getting more than 100 sunken boats up off the harbor's bottom. Popham and his delightful coterie of coworkers make a good living from what they do, to be sure, but they have the courage and the intelligence to give something back at the same time.

Morgan

Introduction

The Florida Keys, strung as they are like a jeweled necklace southwestward from mainland Florida, could arguably be called the precious stones of Florida cruising. They are serenely tropical. Ubiquitous coconut palms dot the islands. The water is clear as gin. The weather picture is nearly always perfect (except perhaps during hurricane season), with vistas that stretch away to the horizon. The fishing is just this side of a sure thing, every time. And the anchorages you find off the beaten path will make you want to linger until your holding tank is full and your water tank is empty.

Dawdling could get to be a habit down here, because the Florida Keys can be—and probably should be—explored at a leisurely pace. Most cruisers can readily adapt to this languid lifestyle. Chill out!

The Keys themselves are as diverse as opinions from the Supreme Court. However, the one aspect they all share is that they are lowlying islands. Some of the Keys have an exciting array of flora and fauna while others are not much more than rock, marl, and mangrove. Where facilities that cruisers need—grocery stores, marine repair yards, restaurants, etc.— are plentiful, it is a sure sign that the islands have long-held allure for human habitation. You will note this in particular from Key Biscayne to Marathon. From Marathon to Key West, the number of stopping-off places with amenities thins out considerably. It is a function of landscape, not of economics. Key West, of course, has everything any cruiser might need . . . and a slew of things most cruisers have never thought of or seen before.

The 2005 Hurricane Season

Few living or cruising in the Florida Keys will ever forget the 2005 hurricane season. This was the year the entire nomenclature of hurricane names was exhausted, and the Greek alaphabet had to be used for the first time to designate hurricanes late in the season. The year 2005 was also when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Mississippi coastline and breached the Lake Pontchartrain levees, resulting in catastrophic flooding for much of New Orleans.

Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma all affected the Florida Keys to a greater or lesser extent. This guide's coauthors struggled with what to do about the damaging effects of these storms, particularly in regards to marina and repair yard facilities. This second edition of Cruising the Florida Keys was already in production by the time Hurricane Wilma made its less-than-welcome call on these storied isles.

Nevertheless, we decided that to keep faith with you, our readers, we could not simply ignore the aftermath of these three great storms. So, in December 2005, both of this guide's authors undertook an extensive, onsite survey of hurricane damage to pleasurecraft facilities from Key West to Key Largo and Jewfish Creek.

We have chosen to present this hurricane data in a special chapter at the end of the guidebook. This approach has two advantages. First, it will allow you to quickly check on damage at your intended destination. Perhaps more importantly, as time goes forward and the damage from the three hurricanes is repaired, cruisers can refer to the special hurricane section less and less frequently. If this same data were presented in the regular portion of this guide, readers would have to wade through this dated information at every reading.

Florida Keys Geography, Cruising Routes, Anchorages, and Facilities

For many years now, coastal mariners have noted that when they are (for instance) traveling south to north on the Atlantic ICW, the coverage in our guides often runs in the contrary direction, north to south. Thus, they must, in a sense, read backwards. There is really no help for this in a typical coastal setting, unless we had one version of a particular guide running north to south and another south to north—an impractical suggestion at best.

In this guidebook, however, we have made an extra effort to overcome this problem, at least in regards to those readily navigable routes that connect the outside, Hawk Channel passage, with the inside, Florida Bay-ICW route. By the way, readily navigable route, as used here, is defined as a reasonably wellmarked channel, either crossed by no bridge at all or spanned by a high-rise bridge or an opening bridge. Thus, if a passage is crossed by a 12-foot fixed span, it does not fit our criteria.

What we have done (again, for instance) is to cover such routes as Snake Creek in our ICW section, from its northern inception, hard by the Waterway's track, to its terminus in the offshore waters near Hawk Channel. Then, in our Hawk Channel section, we AGAIN cover Snake Creek, except this time our account follows Snake Creek from Hawk Channel to the ICW.

Gentle reader, you will appreciate that this two-way coverage means you will note some sections repeated (in some cases word for word) in both the ICW and Hawk Channel accounts of these waters. Don't worry, we haven't lost our minds. We did not want to force you to refer back to a previous section to find all the information you might need about any of these important links between the Keys' inland and offshore waters.

As referred to briefly above, the Keys have a unique geography, both from the land and water. For one thing, by the time you reach Islamorada, the Keys begin to run on an eastto-west, instead of a north-to-south, axis. Thus, southbound becomes westbound, and northbound becomes eastbound. It can be a bit confusing at times, but we'll do our best to play the part of interpreters as we make our way through this guide.

There are two fundamentally different routes that one might choose to cruise from Miami to Key West: the ICW or Hawk Channel. The inside-Intracoastal Waterway (ICW or the Waterway) passage runs south down Biscayne Bay, skips through Little Card Sound, then Card Sound, and finally passes through Jewfish Creek and under the one and only bridge that crosses the ICW's direct path between Key Largo and Key West.

South of Jewfish Creek, the Waterway cuts south and eventually west along the inner face of the Florida Keys. To the west and north, the shoal waters of Florida Bay seem to stretch away endlessly into the sunset and call longingly to the heart of any explorer. Just remember that these waters are very, very shallow, and as we shall learn below, running aground in the Florida Keys can be a very expensive proposition indeed.

A host of streams connect the ICW and the offshore Hawk Channel route, beginning on southerly Biscayne Bay and running all the way to the Moser Channel, just west of Marathon. Many of these passages are shallow, and some are crossed by low-level, fixed bridges that bar passage for all but small craft. Between Coconut Grove and Big Pine Key, only Angelfish Creek, Snake Creek, Channel Five, and the Moser Channel offer a reliable means for larger vessels to move from one route to the other.

West (and you might want to think of that as south) of Marathon, many believe that the ICW ends at Moser Channel. Not so, at least for those who pilot vessels drawing 4 feet or less. In fact, one of the most fascinating cruising possibilities in all of the Florida Keys can be accessed by following the Waterway north through Big Spanish Channel and then west as the ICW skips along the northerly tips of a series of wholly undeveloped Keys all the way to Key West. Some of the Keys' best backwater anchorages are found along this stretch, though none are without at least a bit of a navigational challenge. This is a unique part of the Florida Keys not to be missed.

The Florida Keys version of the ICW is well marked and fairly simple to navigate during daylight and in fair weather. Shallow water certainly abuts the channel here and there, but navigators who pay attention to business should be able to keep to the good water. At night or with foul weather in the offing, things aren't so easy.

The number one disadvantage of the ICW passage between Key Largo and Key West will be felt most keenly by deep-draft vessels. At times, low-water depths of as little as 5 feet can be experienced, even when following the centerline of the channel directly between the various markers. Clearly, this route is best situated for mariners who pilot vessels 45 feet and smaller, and most importantly, that draw 4 V2 feet or preferably less.

Another drawback of the ICW route is the paucity of marinas that cater to cruising-sized craft. Currently, only a handful of facilities along the inside route between Jewfish Creek and Marathon offer reliable dockage for larger vessels, and even here transient slips are becoming a precious commodity. To be sure, there are other marinas along this watery ribbon, but these are generally geared towards smaller power vessels.

Conversely, the ICW teems with anchorages of all descriptions. If you are one of those cruisers who prefers to spend your evenings swinging on the hook rather than tucked snugly into a slip, then by all means consider following the Waterway as opposed to Hawk Channel. Just remember the size and draft requirements outlined above.

The other approach is Hawk Channel. This wide passage runs the gap between the Keys' eastern (and eventually southern) face and a series of offshore reefs. These shallows do tend to shelter Hawk Channel from the very worst of the offshore swells, but when the wind gets its dander up, this can be a very dusty crossing from time to time.

The Hawk Channel passage boasts the best marinas by far for cruising craft in the Florida Keys. While the gaps between Key Biscayne and Key Largo, and between Bahia Honda Key and Stock Island, are exceptions, cruisers will otherwise find reliable pleasure-craft facilities within an hour's run, at the most.

In a mirror image of the ICW route, anchorages are few and far between off Hawk Channel. There are a couple of good stops between Bahia Honda Key and Key West; otherwise, don't count on being able to drop the hook very often while following the Hawk.

Successful navigation of Hawk Channel can be a bit of a challenge. The various aids to navigation along the way are mostly skeletal, steel structures, but they are widely spaced—at times, VERY widely spaced. And it's important to carefully note all these various aids to navigation and pass them on the proper side. More than a few of these markers denote shallow water, sometimes stretched over coral reefs, and running aground in the Keys can be a quick study in dollar disposal.

For the most part, depths along the course of Hawk Channel run in the 15+-foot range. For this reason, coupled with the presence of fairly numerous cruising-craft-oriented marinas, captains of most larger vessels choose this passage over its ICW counterpart. That's not a bad plan of action, particularly if your vessel exceeds 45 feet in length and draws more than 472 feet.

During our marina research for this second edition of Cruising the Florida Keys, we noted, with a frequency as dolorous and ominous as the mournful cadence of a bass drum in a funeral march, the disappearance of exactly what we were supposed to be quantifying. Some facilities have already disappeared, bought out by real-estate interests and shut down. Others are still operating as marinas, but under the ownership of real-estate developers. The handwriting is on the wall. The truth of the matter lies in simple economics; marinas, with their footprints right on the water, offer an irresistible location. People who owned marinas received offers that they simply could not refuse. And they took them. Some of the marinas that have been lost were not much to begin with, particularly from a transient's point of view. So, the diminution of the marina base is not all bad. On the other hand, when the waterfront land itself is worth much more than what a marina owner can reasonably expect to make as a living from his marine operation, the incentive to sell out and get the hell out will always have a cachet as attractive as the smell of magnolias in the springtime.

The upstart of all this change taking place at the various Florida Keys marinas is a net loss in available transient dockage space. While visitor's slips can still be found, it now takes a bit more looking. The best remedy to this problem is to take more care than ever before to secure overnight berth reservations well in advance of your arrival!

In the past, we have always shied away from any listing of overnight transient dockage rates for marinas. These sorts of charges change at such dizzying speed that any such tabulation would be long out of date by the time the ink in this book was dry on the paper. However, for the first time in this new edition, we are going to institute a very simple transient dockage fee rating system. All marinas that provide overnight transient berths will be rated, Above Average, Average, or Below Average. Hopefully, this simple system will give you at least some idea of what to expect when it comes time to pony up your overnight dockage bill.

Let's now take a look at the geography of the Florida Keys from the land side. For general purposes of orientation, the Florida Keys start with Key Largo, a large island that hasn't quite decided if it's mainland or more gnarly Keys. Close enough to Miami and Fort Lauderdale to be influenced (but NOT dominated) by the urban milieu, Key Largo carries some vestiges of big-city life. Several large hotel chains are represented on this island, and you can avail yourself of the amenities there and never feel that you have broken with your past ... or the mainland.

For auto travelers, there are two ways onto Key Largo. The Card Sound Road and (toll) bridge is the northern and less-traveled route. The other route, U.S. 1, cuts into Key Largo a few miles farther south and west. It crosses over Jewfish Creek as a two-lane road and doesn't become four lanes until one gets to Key Largo proper.

Also part of Key Largo, but at the southern end, is Tavernier, which has its own community identity and an array of shops and services. Aesthetically different from Key Largo proper, Tavernier is newer and not quite as commercial.

When one crosses the Tavernier Creek Bridge from Tavernier to Plantation Key, things become even more laid back. Plantation Key is mostly residential, and many of those residents are out of sight. There is a great deal of money on Plantation Key, we have been told; but it is old money and not in any way flashy. The best homes are somewhat off the beaten track and do not attract attention.

After Plantation Key comes Windley Key, which is actually several small islands that have been conjoined to make one bigger one—which is still not very big. Windley Key has a geological site that will be of interest to visitors who want to see how the rock that has been used in various Keys construction projects was quarried locally.

Whale Harbor Channel constitutes the dividing line between Windley Key and Upper Matecumbe Key. Both Upper Matecumbe Key and its next of kin, Lower Matecumbe Key, are parts of the municipality of Islamorada. In fact, Plantation Key and Windley Key are also part of this melange. Islamorada ends with the very lower extremity of Lower Matecumbe Key. Between the two islands are Lignumvitae Key and Indian Key, both state parks without any extras, except mosquitoes. The former is botanical and the latter is historical.

Once off Lower Matecumbe Key, you'll be on a bridge over what is called Channel Five. This is one of the main transition points from Hawk Channel to the ICW for boats that need a full 65 feet of vertical clearance. Continuing west, you'll touch briefly on Fiesta Key and then go over another bridge and be on Long Key for a short while. Then the Long Key Viaduct will carry you over more water. Feet dry at Conch Keys for a half-minute or so, you then go on to Duck Key. Duck Key will show up on your left. It's both commercial and private, the commercial part being the luxurious Hawk's Cay Resort.

A short bridge connects Duck Key to Grassy Key, and then the highway continues onto Vaca Key and into Marathon. Marathon is commercial in the real sense of the word. It's mid-Keys and not much different from the mainland, particularly close to the highway. Marathon is not without its unique charm, but much of it does not come easily to view. You have to look for it.

After Marathon comes the Seven Mile Bridge, which spans Moser Channel and is another cut-through passage for sailing vessels that can fit underneath its 63-foot vertical clearance. This bridge perches briefly on Pigeon Key along its lengthy transit. This isle is a lovely historical site (and sight). It has been left pretty much as it was when Henry Flagler was building his railroad through here.

The Seven Mile Bridge ends on Little Duck Key; then the roadway touches on Missouri and Ohio Keys before setting down for a spell on Bahia Honda Key and passing Bahia Honda State Park. This is the place in the Florida Keys for beaching it. There's real sand here and the setting is just plain lovely, picture-book-like.

Pressing onward, we come next to Spanish Harbor Keys (which include West Summerland Key, which is miles east of Summerland Key) and then to Big Pine Key, one of the larger islands. The road jogs to the northwest here, then straightens itself out again and heads west. Big Pine Key is home to many of the endangered Key deer, and the speed limits lower smartly. Woe betide the motorist who runs down a Key deer.

To the east of Big Pine Key is No Name Key, which was once the western terminus for ferry boats that connected Marathon with the Lower Keys before the highway was completed in 1938.

In the back country, to the north and west of Big Pine Key, are some outlying Keys, probably known to skiff fisherman more than to others. They are Annette Key, Howe Key, Cutoe Key (now, how do you think this island got its name?), Content Keys, Big Spanish Key, Water Keys, and more.

On the highway again, you'll pass over Little Torch Key—Middle Torch and Big Torch are farther north—then Ramrod Key, Summerland Key, and Cudjoe Key. At Cudjoe Key the government maintains a couple of blimps that they let up into the air on tethers to (a) broadcast TV Marti signals to Cuba and (b) keep an eye over the horizon for smugglers of both narcotics and people. If the weather is good, you may see the blimp(s) off to your north. When the weather turns nasty, the personnel at this secure base bring the blimp(s) down to keep them from blowing away. They are not always successful.

Across the bridge from Cudjoe Key, heading west, is Sugarloaf Key, home to a lasting monument to both man's folly and resourcefulness, the Bat Tower. See other references in this tome to the Bat Tower; it is a good tale.

In the back country to the north lie Johnston Key, Snipe Keys, Sawyer Key, Riding Key, Raccoon Key, Budd Keys, Tarpon Belly Keys, Barracuda Keys, Marvin Keys, and many others.

The road crosses Saddlebunch Keys next and then connects with Boca Chica Key, home of the Key West Naval Air Station. Most of this island is not open to the public, but you can see some exotic military aircraft coming and going from this area at most any time of day.

Upon arriving on the shores of Stock Island, you are nearly to Key West. Stock Island is industrial, for the most part, and colorful beyond measure. Exploring the nether reaches of Stock Island is worth the time, but do it in the daylight. That way, you will be able to remember the faces and names of the interesting characters you come across. After dark, it could get a little scary.

The end of the line is Key West. This city is a carnival ride that never stops. You hop on, hold on, and take a deep breath. It will be over when it is over, cost you what it costs, and leave you with memories that in your dotage you can resuscitate in living color and smile at all over again. Nothing in the Florida Keys is quite like Key West. Come to think of it, nothing in the world is quite like Key West. For so many, it is the end of the trip and the beginning of an adventure that may last for days or weeks or years. You never know how it will actually go down in Key West, but it will be an experience you will always remember.

Finally, for those intrepid cruisers who are ready to cross many miles of open waters, there are the Dry Tortugas. These small, remote isles offer two good anchorages, a historic fort, and the opportunity to visit what was once the most feared federal prison in America. They also boast some sensational fishing.

Florida Keys' Natural and Man-Made History

The Florida Keys are far more than bridges and islands and gas stations and T-shirt shops, though the hordes of tourists who regularly descend upon the Keys for relaxation and recreation via U.S. 1 (the principal vehicular avenue of arrival) may believe that the 43 bridges that link 38 of the major islands in the Keys are the most significant structures. They are not.

The most imposing structures in the Florida Keys are the microscopic skeletal remains of coral. Without them and the associated skeletons of other inhabitants of the shallow marine environment that once existed here, there would be no Florida Keys. Geologically, the Florida Platform is made up of 20,000 feet of sedimentary rock that was formed, geologists tell us, 100,000 years ago. At that time, much of peninsular Florida was under 25 feet of seawater. Real-estate agents had not yet arrived to tout an unobstructed waterfront view and sandy beaches. What is now Orlando was above water, as were parts of Hillsborough and Polk Counties to the east of Tampa Bay. The rest of what is now southern Florida was inundated. What much later became Miami, Palm Beach, and Fort Lauderdale was covered with primordial ooze and slime.

The waters covering Florida disappeared during the last large glaciation period, the Wisconsin, when the sea level dropped 350 feet lower than it is today. To get a feeling of how far the Florida coastline stretched out laterally, particularly to the west, find a chart where the water depths show 350 feet and you'll get an idea. The southern shoreline in the Keys was about 10 miles south of where one finds it today. Florida Bay was dry land.

The sea level remained low until 15,000 years ago, when it began to rise as the climate warmed. As the warming trend continued, water captured by the polar icecaps was released and the rise in the water levels continued, sometimes amounting to as much as a foot every 14 years. Were that to happen today, many of the residents of south Florida would find real estate in, say, the Superstition Mountains of Arizona very attractive.

The geology of the Upper Keys is comprised of Key Largo limestone. You can identify Key Largo limestone from the presence of fossil corals in the rock. The Islamorada Hurricane Monument is built of this limestone; it was also used in the facade of the St. Louis Post Office, the Miami Post Office, and the Key West Post Office. The Vizcaya Estate in Miami is faced with Key Largo limestone. Surprisingly, the limestone was still being quarried in the Keys into the 1960s.

In the Lower Keys, west of and including Big Pine Key, the limestone is overlain by Miami oolite, a sand formed by the precipitation of dissolved calcium carbonate out of water. The carbonate accumulates on the sand particle in layers—as the secretion of lubricants accumulate onto an irritating grain of sand inside an oyster, causing the grain of sand to develop into a pearl.

Human habitation began in the Florida Keys about 800 A.D. by aboriginal Indians. There is no record of the Indians opening dive shops or selling souvenirs to Europeans, though Indians did kill or take captive crew members of Spanish ships that wrecked on the off-lying reefs in the Keys. The Native Americans also helped themselves to whatever they could salvage from the wrecks. The Spanish ships that foundered here were often full of plundered wealth from the Incas and Aztecs. It was an example of early trickle-down economics, or recycling. Pick one. Hundreds of years later, when the Keys began filling up with citizens of the newly minted United States, salvaging wrecks became a profession and a way of life in the Keys.

Contact between the Indians in the Keys and the white newcomers had the same devastating effect on Native American life as similar contacts in colder climes. Some Indians ended up as slaves. Others died from diseases the whites had brought with them—influenza, smallpox, measles—diseases to which the Indians carried no immunity.

The Indians lived off the sea and what they could kill on land. There is no evidence of prehistoric agriculture in the Keys, so the Indians here were hunter/gatherers. If one thinks about how abundant edible fish are today in the Florida Keys, then imagine what it was like when the population in the Keys numbered only a few hundred. There must have been a Florida lobster under every rock, in every crack. Turtles, crabs, clams, and conchs were part of the diet, too. Now, the conch is protected after being fished out, and the conch fritters that one gets in the Keys are made with imported conch from other places.

There are identified former Indian village sites on Key Largo, Upper Matecumbe Key, Indian Key, Windley Key, Big Pine Key, Sugarloaf Key, and Stock Island.

When Europeans moved into the Keys in the early 1800s, it was by boat, and Key West was the main lure that brought them. Also high on their list was the abundance of sea life. They ate what they needed and sold the rest. It was not an easy life, though. The heat, mosquitoes, lack of fresh water, little sanitation, isolation, and hurricanes put their lives in peril. There were no cheeseburgers. It was not paradise.

As Key West grew because of its proximity to the reefs and to Cuba, the other Keys lagged far behind. For example, in 1950 Key West had a measured population of 26,433. The remainder of the Keys boasted only 3,524 souls. And this is after the building of Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway Extension and the opening of U.S. Highway 1 to Key West (see below).

Today, of course, the Keys are modern and up-to-date. Fresh water is piped down from Dade County, so cisterns are not needed for water catchment now. Electricity runs air-conditioning systems. The highway brings in streams of tourists. Huge cruise ships dock at Key West and disgorge passengers by the thousands. There is scheduled air service in Key West and Marathon. But the interesting past of the Florida Keys is still there for examination, off the beaten path, at a quiet, unhurried pace, by boat.

The Indians and the original settlers came here via the water, and even today there is no better way to enjoy the Florida Keys than by boat.

One person, more than any other influence, was responsible for the opening up of the Florida Keys. That person was Henry Morrison Flagler, and without his vision—some say greed—the Florida Keys might have languished in the backwater of time for decades, caught up in an eddy of indifference. Flagler, who built the Florida East Coast Railway Extension—the line that ran from Miami to Key West—had guts and drive and smarts. He also had a pile of money; he had been in on the ground floor of what became Standard Oil, and he was in partnership with John D. Rockefeller. When Flagler was 54 years old, he was one of the richest men in the world.

It was at this stage of his life, in 1884, that he turned to building railroads. The state of Florida was offering generous incentives to railroad builders then, huge concessions in the form of land along the railroad right of way. It was sort of a you build it and we'll grant you what you need kind of deal. The state needed railroads, so incentive to build them was easily conveyed. Swamp land? Who wants it? You just build right on through there. Build one and you'd also get a whole bunch of land along the right of way, free.

Flagler knew he was onto something, and— because other tycoons couldn't see the sense of building railroads in Florida—he had the field to himself. Flagler got his start when he purchased the Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and Halifax River Railroad.

Henry Flagler had briefly been in St. Augustine before with his ailing wife, Mary, in hopes that the warmer weather would help her health. It did not. And the local amenities were so tawdry that the Flaglers returned to New York, where the first Mrs. Flagler (there were two subsequent wives) passed away in 1881.

Flagler married her nurse, Ida Alice Shrouds. Ida Alice never lived up to the promises of life that awaited her. She went bonkers and became certain that she would eventually marry the Czar of Russia. Flagler had her committed. Later, the New York Supreme Court adjudicated her insane.

At the age of 70, Flagler met Mary Lily Kenan, 24 years old and a singer and pianist. They wanted to get married, but Henry already had a wife. She was nuts, but she was still legally his wife. Ever the innovator, Flagler changed his residence from New York to St. Augustine and had friends in the Florida legislature draft a new law that permitted divorce on the grounds of insanity. With pesky legal details conveniently taken care of, Flagler married Mary Lily Kenan in 1901.

All during this period, he had been busy pushing his railroad ever farther to the south. After standardizing the track, Flagler extended his railroad to St. Augustine. In 1888, he completed the opulent Hotel Ponce de Leon in that city. Flagler had a certain genius, because he also built destination resorts to give people majestic places to go when they used his railroad. By 1892 he had extended the tracks south to Palm Beach. Four years later, at the instigation of Julia Turtle of Miami, who offered him half her real-estate holdings if he would build his railroad down to Miami, Flagler had laid tracks to Miami, a hotel was being built, and surveyors were at work laying out streets.

Flagler already had his sights on Key West. The technological wherewithal, however, was beyond his grasp at the time. The SpanishAmerican War had come and gone, with Tampa getting the lion's share of the military shipping business, something that Flagler coveted.

By 1903, however, technology had caught up with Flagler's vision. The Panama Canal was a work in progress. Key West had a deep harbor and was close to Cuba and the Caribbean. All that was needed to link it to the rest of the country was a railroad.

If he had the only rail line between Miami and Key West, Flagler surmised he would also gain access to all the shipping of goods over his rail line to the rest of the United States and back again. It was a staggering thought, almost monopolistic.

Henry Flagler took the step, and even though the setbacks were legion, and building a railroad through inhospitable locations and over water was a daunting undertaking— especially since it was private capital that paved the way—Flagler never wavered. The money went out in buckets. Lives were lost along the way. The engineering feats surpassed the believable. Storms caused long setbacks. But the railroad stretched out toward Key West with unrelenting purpose, mile after tortuous mile. And then it was done.

In 1912, 20 days after his 82nd birthday, Henry Flagler rode in his private railway car, Rambler, to Key West on the very first train to reach that island city. He received a hero's welcome. He deserved one.

Flagler didn't have much time left, and he knew it. He died in May 1913 and is buried in the St. Augustine Memorial Presbyterian Church. Mary remarried but died shortly after. She is buried with Henry Flagler in St. Augustine.

Flagler's second wife, Ida Alice, was left with $2 million from Flagler's will. Though Ida Alice never got back in touch with reality, she lived comfortably until 1930, ready to inform anyone with a few minutes' extra time about how she was going to marry the Czar of Russia. It is possible no one had the heart to tell her that she had outlived the Czar of Russia, who was killed during the Russian Revolution.

Flagler's railroad, while a marvel of engineering, tenacity, and foresight, never made money. Having so many miles of track over water took a great deal of upkeep. Maintenance men walked the entire 156-mile route, inspecting every aspect of the system—ties, rails, spikes, and bolts. Hard-hat divers checked the bridges' foundations every two years.

Neither was the railroad particularly fast nor did it run on time. Trains ran the bridges at 15 miles an hour. When the winds blew hard in the Keys, the trains stopped and waited for them to subside. For these and other reasons, a Florida East Coast Railway Extension timetable wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

The Great Depression and the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 finished off the railroad that went to sea. During the Depression, what remained of the Key West Extension was sold to the state of Florida for $640,000. The extension had been appraised for more than $27 million when it was operating. It could have been repaired for $1.5 million. Had he been alive, Henry Flagler undoubtedly would have repaired it.

Florida Keys Lighthouses

The lighthouses, which even today warn mariners of the perils of the jagged reefs in the Florida Keys, are an integral part of the beauty of this region. From shore, where they are easily seen, they stand like sentinels against the dark, blinking out their lighted messages: There is danger here.

In olden days, the reefs along the Atlantic side of the Keys seemed to attract ships like a magnet. There are tricky currents here, and a storm from the south makes the entire Keys chain a lee shore, a 150-mile-long trap. Some vessels were laden with treasure when they hit the reef, and the treasure went down with the boat. Spanish pieces of eight, emeralds, and gold doubloons went to the bottom only to be recovered later by enterprising, and smart, treasure salvagers, Mel Fisher of Key West being the most notable. Interestingly, some old ships were salvaged by their owners shortly after wrecking, and the salvagers recovered more gold and silver than had been recorded on the ship's manifest. That meant that some smuggling was going on or that the waters of the Florida Keys had created treasure on their own. You can easily figure the conundrum out, unless you are a believer in alchemy.

The reefs, and the fact that shipping blundered onto them, created an industry of opportunity in Key West in the 1 800s. It was called wrecking, and it made Key West one of the most prosperous cities in the state for some time. Wrecking, as practiced in Key West, was a licensed occupation with strict rules and protocols. Though the appellation itself may remind one of synonyms like plunder, pillage, ravage, and theft, wrecking was basically an attempt to help ships that had grounded on reefs save their crew and cargo—and even the vessel itself. The rewards could be large or small, depending on the value of the service rendered and the risk that the wreckers faced when assisting stricken vessels.

It wasn't only sailing ships that were snagged by the reefs when the navigation on board was poor; steamers, too, hit the coral. Today the reefs continue to trap unwary vessels even though lighthouses are stationed to warn shipping away and satellites circle the earth to help give ships an exact fix on their position. Navigational incompetence knows no era, no season, no locale, no nationality.

We'll detail in this book one of those experiences, which occurred in 2003. In a strange twist of coincidence, one of the two men on the sailboat that came to grief and was totaled on the Carysfort Reef had gone to high school with Morgan and succeeded—the year was 1954—in giving Morgan the most thorough pasting he has ever gotten in his life, when the two were (unevenly) paired in an intramural boxing match. Morgan was TKO-ed, and he has never forgotten the drubbing he took.

The first lighthouses in the Keys were constructed beginning in 1825. They were positioned on Key Biscayne, Key West, Sands Key, and on Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas. The original lighthouses were built of brick and mortar, like the lighthouses of New England, which usually stood on high ground. The Keys lighthouses had no such promontories to perch upon, so when large storms hit the area—most particularly the hurricane of 1846, which raged ashore at Key West—the lighthouses could not endure the pounding waves. Both the Sands Key Light and the Key West Light fell during this storm.

Realizing that the current lighthouse design did not work in the Keys because of differing conditions and low terrain, the U.S. Lighthouse Service rebuilt the Key West Light but located it several blocks farther inland. However, at Sands Key, which was in an exposed location west of Key West, the Lighthouse Service came up with a brilliant new concept called an iron screw pile lighthouse design.

The iron screw pile was a threaded piece of steel piling that was actually screwed down into the living coral reef. After the main support piles had been put into the reef, cross bracing was added for stability and support, and the structure was built tall enough so that a light keeper could live on it. The steel pilings allowed waves to flow under the structure and presented little resistance for storms to batter with their power. The plan of the Sands Key Light proved to be so effective that other lights of like design were added at points along the reef where shipping had proved most vulnerable to grounding.

The Key Biscayne Light (Cape Florida) and the Key West Light have been abandoned. Garden Key Light is also no longer in operation, but Loggerhead Key Light exists close by in the Dry Tortugas and Pulaski Shoal light is functioning to the east, delineating the western edge of the passage between Rebecca Shoals and the Dry Tortugas.

From Miami southward and westward the lights that mark the reefs now are (in order):

• Fowey Rocks Light—

25 35.42 North/080 05.77 West

• Carysfort Reef Light—

25 13.34 North/080 12.71 West

• Molasses Reef Light—

25 00.79 North/080 22.59 West

• Alligator Reef Light—

24 51.15 North/080 37.08 West

• Sombrero Key Light—

24 37.67 North/081 06.66 West

• American Shoal Light—

24 31.50 North/081 31.14 West

• Sands Key Light—

24 27.24 North/081 52.52 West

• Cosgrove Shoal Light—

24 27.45 North/082 11.07 West

• Rebecca Shoal Light—

24 34.74 North/082 35.13 West

• Loggerhead Key Light—

24 38.00 North/082 55.21 West

All the lights have different characteristics, so each is unique and identifiable.

Florida Keys Navigation, Anchoring, and Environmental Considerations

In this guide we have endeavored to include all the information waterborne visitors may need so that they may take full advantage of the Florida Keys' tremendous cruising potential. We have paid particular attention to anchorages, marina facilities, and danger areas. All the navigational information necessary for a successful cruise has been included. These data have been set apart in their own subsections and screened in gray for ready identification.

Each body of water has been personally visited and sounded for the latest depth information. However, remember that bottom configurations do change. Dockside depths at marinas seem to be particularly subject to rapid variation. Cruising navigators should always be equipped with the latest charts and Notice to Mariners before leaving the dock.

This guide is not a navigational primer and it assumes that you have a working knowledge of piloting, coastal navigation, and electronic navigation. If you don't, you should acquire these skills before tackling the Keys' waters.

All navigators should have a well-functioning depth sounder on board before leaving the dock. This is one of the most basic safety instruments when one cruises in the Keys. To not have a functioning, calibrated depth sounder that you know you can rely on is folly.

The modern miracle of satellite-controlled GPS (Global Positioning System), particularly a GPS chartplotter, or a GPS interfaced with a laptop computer loaded with the latest digitized nautical charts, is yet another powerful navigational aid. As we will discover below, these electronic marvels can be of immense value when cruising the complicated waters of the Florida Keys.

Florida Keys navigators will find it most advantageous to keep the current chart and a pair of good binoculars in the cockpit or on the fly bridge at all times. With these aids readily available, a cautious hand on the throttle, and a knowledge of what shallow water and reefs look like, questions one may have can be quickly resolved before you run out of navigable water.

In this guide, lighted daybeacons are always called flashing daybeacons. We believe this is a more descriptive term than the officially correct designation, light, or the more colloquial expression, flasher. Also, to avoid confusion, daybeacons without lights are always referred to as unlighted daybeacons. Similarly, lighted buoys are called flashing buoys.

The sketch maps contained within this guide have been included to help locate anchorages, marinas, and other points of interest. They are NOT intended for, and should NOT be used for, navigation!

Cruising and navigating the Florida Keys bring on unique challenges. The first two that come to mind are staying off the bottom and anchoring properly. If you do run aground, it's not just a matter of paying for a tow and then replacing underwater hardware. Oh no, the state of Florida and the federal government have something a little more stringent in mind. The Florida Keys are, for the most part, a national marine sanctuary, so designated by the United States Congress in 1990. One of the catalysts to making the Keys a sanctuary was the frequent grounding of vessels along the offshore reefs despite modern navigational equipment and a series of large and easily identifiable lights on the reef itself, which is 150 miles long and extends from Key Biscayne to the Dry Tortugas. The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary abuts Everglades National Park on peninsular Florida, so almost every square mile of both Hawk Channel and Florida Bay is included in this sanctuary.

This is an ecologically diverse part of our country, but it is also fragile. Sea grass flats bear the scars of intrusion by motor craft for years after the craft have gone. A living coral reef can die if even so much as touched, so you can imagine the impact of an anchor landing on it, much less the keel of a boat.

The beauty of the Keys can be enjoyed by you because others who were here before you took the extra precautions necessary to leave no trace of their presence. Careful consideration of your surroundings will make the Keys a better place to savor for those who come after you.

There are many Keys caveats that might not make much difference to you back in your home waters, but they are taken very seriously here.

• A single gallon of spilled fuel can contaminate more than a million gallons of water. The cumulative impact of many small spills can have a detrimental impact on coastal waters miles from where the spills occurred. It isn't hard to keep from spilling fuel into the water while refueling. It takes simple vigilance. But discharging fuel into the water is a violation of both state and federal regulations. Using detergents to clean up fuel spills is also against the law. You'd be adding insult to injury. Pay attention to what you are doing when adding fuel.

• Cleaning a boat's hull in the water by using chemicals is prohibited. Bleach is outlawed. So are scouring powders, chrome cleaners, window cleaners, and the like. Baking soda and salt will work in place of harsh chemicals, and it is cheaper, too. Lemon juice and salt will clean mildew.

• Boat propellers are a huge source of degradation of the environment in the Keys. They scar and destroy sea grass beds and kill manatees and turtles. Most of these accidents come about because someone was not paying attention. They are errors of omission more than errors of commission, but they maim and kill nevertheless. If you know where you are and know where you need to go, you will not be party to these kind of accidents. Successful navigation of the Florida Keys demands that one wear polarized sunglasses for better visibility in the glare. Know what the advisory signs mean and pay attention to them. If you have run aground in shallow water, turn the motor off. If it's an outboard, trim it up so that the prop is out of the water. If you can, walk your boat off the flats. If you cannot, wait for the tide to come in so that you are able to get the boat off. You are required by law to report the grounding to either the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (1-800-dial-fmp) or to the United States Coast Guard on VHF channel 16. If you don't and someone else does, expect a huge hassle. Bring your wallet, too.

• If you are a diver, do not stand on a coral reef or near a coral reef.

• The discharge of solid waste—plastics and the like—is strictly prohibited in the Keys. Beer cans, for example, take decades to degrade. Newspapers, aluminum, plastic, batteries, oil containers, glass bottles, and similar items all need to be dropped in an appropriate receptacle and not over the side. Any litter thrown from a boat is the boat owner's responsibility and the boat operator's responsibility. There are both state and federal laws that can come down on a transgressor with the weight of a dynamited apartment building. If you litter, you can bet your bottom dollar that someone who sees you will rat you out and feel good about doing it. Don't litter.

• Hazardous materials also get special recognition in the Keys. Well, they should. Old flares, paint waste, solvents, used motor oil, and switches that contain mercury all fall into this category. They must be disposed of in a proper manner. Auto parts stores may have the facility you'll need to get rid of this refuse.

• Discharge of raw sewerage is prohibited from being dumped within nine nautical miles of shore on the Gulf (Florida Bay) side and within three nautical miles of shore on the Atlantic side. If you have any doubts, visit a marina with pump-out facilities. There are large tracts in the Keys where the discharge of any sewerage, whether treated or untreated, is entirely prohibited. To make it easy on yourself, consider all of the Florida

Keys, including the Dry Tortugas, a NO DISCHARGE ZONE.

• Where you can tie up to a mooring buoy, do so. Mooring buoys are available in many locations in the Keys. Reef mooring buoys are distinctively marked, white with a blue horizontal stripe. The yellow buoys are sanctuary-preservation-area boundary buoys and are not to be used for mooring. Anchoring over coral is just not allowed and can bring you some major unhappiness and loss of money should your doing so come to the attention of people who can do something about it. Need to anchor? Drop the hook into sand.

• Because the Keys are a marine sanctuary, you may not even pick up coral from the sea floor, much less take it home with you. Breaking off pieces of living coral for souvenirs is against the law and the penalties for doing so are severe.

There are sliding scales of penalties/fines for destroying habitat in the Florida Keys, and you should know what you might be in for when it comes to paying for any misdeeds for which you are responsible.

For scarring up the sea grass beds with your prop(s) or your boat's keel, there are three scales of retribution, and they are dependent on whether your transgression was an honest accident or just outright stupidity. In the leastdamaging category, fines range up to $850. The middle category of damage can take the perpetrator upward into fines of $50,000, but most average around $1,500 to $2,000. The granddaddy of them all is what is called the damage action. The amount of fine that is assessed depends on the amount of damage a vessel has done. Damage actions have reached as much as $5 million, with fines on top of that. Pleasure vessels that get into this area of serious infractions average about $100,000 per incident. This is most certainly an infringement category you want to stay far away from by exercising rigorous vigilance.

Well, wasn't that fun? Do you feel like taking your lawyer along when cruising the Florida Keys? Believe us, we have felt the same way at times. Our best advice is to practice the very best eyeball, DR, and electronic navigation possible, and do everything in your power to avoid keel meeting with bottom.

What is 'eyeball navigation'? you may ask. Well, while there are most certainly limitations, using your eyes and your head may actually be one of the best ways to stay off the bottom of the Florida Keys, at least during the fair weather. Eyeball navigation is made possible in the Keys courtesy of the crystal-clear water. On a sunny day, when you see a lightcolored patch of water, chances are that this coloration denotes shoal depths. What you are actually seeing is the sandy bottom reflecting the sunlight. On a contrary note, darker-colored water often means deeper soundings. However, there is a major caveat to this rule. Be advised that sometimes a grassy bottom can appear darker than a lighter patch, but depths over the grass are really just a few feet. It takes practice to distinguish deeper (darkercolored) water from a grassy bottom. So, eyeball navigation can be a powerful tool in the Florida Keys, but even the veterans are careful to supplement this sometimes inexact science with electronic and DR navigation.

And speaking of navigation, that brings us to the third real, on-the-water Florida Keys challenge, finding your way successfully. You won't be cruising long in the Keys before it occurs to you that, at least from the water, one key looks pretty much like the next key. While the insideICW route sports a fine collection of aids to navigation, markers are far more widely spaced along Hawk Channel, and those who explore the Florida Bay back country will find nothing but a few sticks. Wonder if these mark good water or shoals? We've asked ourselves that same question more than once.

So, what's a captain and navigator to do? We have an answer for you, though it make take a few shekels to implement.

A laptop computer preloaded with digitized versions of the NOAA charts and navigational software interfaced with a GPS or a dedicated GPS chartplotter will not only display the necessary charts but can also actually place a moving icon (representing your vessel's position) on the screen, superimposed over the chart display. Talk about really knowing where you are. It doesn't get better than this!

Another huge advantage of this sort of navigation is the ability to tell at a glance how one's vessel's position corresponds to an intended destination. No more wondering if that daybeacon on the horizon was really the outermost marker of the approach channel for one's intended marina. One look at the screen quickly answers that question.

And there is perhaps no place in the continental USA that can benefit more from GPSlaptop-computer-style or GPS chartplotter navigation than the Florida Keys. The good news is that if you already own a laptop computer and a GPS, it will only take about $600 to be up and running. This fee will buy you navigational software (we recommend The Cap'n, Nobeltec's Visual Navigation Suite, or MapTech's Chart Navigator Pro), a serial or USB cord to connect the GPS to your computer, and a CD of digitized NOAA charts. Incidentally, one CD contains ALL the charts one would ever need to cover the waters of the Florida Keys. A somewhat more expensive, but all-in-one solution is a dedicated GPS chartplotter, complete with daylight readable screen and digitized charts recorded on removable memory chips.

One word of warning before leaving this subject: Do not become so dependent on these electronic marvels that you can no longer plot a compass course or keep a good DR track. What are you going to do if (as once happened to us) a wave comes over the bow and drowns the laptop? Those who don't know how to undertake sound coastal navigation at times like this are in a world of trouble.

Since we have already discussed electronic navigation, this would seem a good time to note an ongoing feature in this guide. Approximate latitude and longitude positions of marinas, anchorages, and certain channels have been included within the body of this volume. The latitude and longitude of these locations are strictly for informational purposes; they must NOT be used as GPS or Loran way points!

Please also note that lat/lon positions for anchorages in this guide are given to help generally locate an overnight stop. With very few exceptions,