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Kayaking the Keys: 50
Great Paddling Adventures in Florida's Southernmost Archipelago
by Kathleen Patton This
field guide to the entire island chain highlights 50 paddling adventures, many
for canoeists as well as kayakers. Trips include short paddles suitable for
beginners and children, half-day trips as well as day-long and overnight
excursions.
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| Table of Contents - PDF HTML | Trips 11-13 - PDF HTML | Trips 38-40 - PDF | Purchase Now | ||||
Long Key Bight and Beach Launch
Site: MM 71 (bayside) on Fiesta Key Location:
Long Key Bight to Long Key Point Paddling
Time: 2 hours Comments:
Lovely paddle across a bay, then along a coral beach at the Atlantic Ocean’s
edge. Note:
Camping available at nearby Long Key State Park. Bring a kayaking partner to
help launch your boats over sharp coral rocks at the shoreline.
To reach the launch site, drive to the western end of the Channel 5
Bridge at MM 71. There is a small parking lot on the Gulf side of U.S. 1.
There is no boat ramp here, but you can launch from a site under the bridge.
Next to this is a section of the old Overseas Highway, now used as a fishing
pier. The shoreline here is very rocky with sharp coral “boulders.” Be
careful portaging and launching your boat.
Head south under the bridge. It will
take you about a half hour to paddle across Long Key Bight to the southeast
tip of Long Key. The bight’s shallow water and seagrass bottom provide the
perfect habitat for nearshore fishes, and you’re likely to see
flats fishermen resting on their poles here as they look for any
sign of movement beneath the sea. Healthy deep green stands of tall mangroves
line the shore ahead across the bight. Where the bight meets the ocean, the
nearshore waters grow very shallow. Ahead of you is nothing but ocean. Behind
you the new U.S. 1 bridge arches gracefully over the old Flagler bridge.
Turning west down Long Key’s
rattlesnake head, a coral beach begins to stretch out into the sea. Ocean
currents carry flotsam and jetsam up to the shoreline, littering it with
an impressive (and depressing) array of styrofoam and plastic. Still, there
are no people here and no buildings or roads. The water here is perfect for
swimming or snorkeling. (Watch out for upside-down jellyfish in some
spots near shore. Wear water shoes or flippers to protect your feet.)
Sea turtles nest on this wild beach, so respect their home. OVshore,
you’ll probably see a sailboat or two in Hawk Channel, and the low rise of
the Long Key Aqueduct stretching west down the Keys. Other than that, the view
is sky plus water plus beach.
Savor the view and the solitude. If
weather conditions are right, you can paddle far down the western shore to the
beach at Long Key State Park. The shoreline suVered
mightily here during Hurricane Georges in 1998, but new vegetation is taking
hold thanks to an enormous restoration eVort.
On the return leg of this trip
you’ll have a final look at coral and sand before heading back into
the bight. Then you’ll see a sliver of land and a huge swath of blue spanned
by old and new U.S. 1. Tiny matchstick cars and trucks coast up and down the
sleek new gray roadway, while below them the old span’s columns reiterate
their round arches like a Roman aqueduct. Nowhere else in the world does such
a view exist. Spanish sailors saw the Florida Keys for the first time just before Easter 1513. They named the archipelago Los Martires. To them these barrier islands looked like martyrs forlornly cast in the shallow seas. Their name for Long Key was Cayo Víbora—Viper Key. Visitors since the Spanish have seen the Keys in a very different, softer light. Presidents, writers, and wealthy sport fishermen followed Henry Flagler’s railroad down to Long Key at the turn of the twentieth century. Here they gathered at a prestigious gentlemen’s fishing lodge extolling this beautiful, largely undeveloped island with its long ungroomed beaches, thick mangroves, and shallow-water bight filled with wading birds and thousands of tiny green baitfish. Few kayakers frequent these waters. They should. In the winter when strong winds blow in from the north, Long Key Bight provides both shelter and beauty. Paddling farther around the southeastern end of the island and along the ocean’s shore to Long Key Point keeps kayakers in the lee of the island’s bulk, further blocking winter northerlies. The view out to sea here is amazing at any time of the year, especially at sunset. FYI: Campsites,
for tents and RVs, can be reserved up to eleven months in advance by
contacting
Long Key State Park
P.O. Box 776
Long Key, FL 33001
(800) 326-3521
www.dep.state.fl.us/parks
Trip # 12 Long Key State Park Canoe Trail Launch
Site: MM 67.5 Location:
Long Key State Park, on an inland lagoon oV
Zane Grey Creek Paddling
Time: 1 to 1G
hours Comments:
Pleasant easy paddle along an interpretive tidal-lagoon nature trail. Great
for kids. Note:
Canoe rentals and camping available. Reservations recommended. Park rangers on Long Key have nicknamed this lagoon the Cradle of the Ocean, and they’ve created a great little nature trail with signs and a brochure describing various features of this marine nursery and bird rookery. It’s a nice place to get an introduction to Keys habitat and is very child-friendly. It’s not as crowded as Pennekamp Park farther north and, because the lagoon is shallow and closed to motorboats, it’s also quiet. Calusa
Indians lived on Long Key before Spanish sailors renamed it Cayo Víbora—for
its rattlesnake shape, not its fauna—in the 1500s. Bahamian turtlers visited
it too, but Long Key didn’t take on any prominence until Henry Flagler’s
Overseas Railroad established a depot here in 1906. He also established the
Long Key Fishing Club, which attracted talented saltwater anglers and
America’s rich and famous to its fancy lodge. Among them was writer Zane
Grey, who popularized sailfishing and for whom a local waterway is
named. Unlike most game fishermen (and famous writers) of his time, he
preferred to catch and release his trophies—almost a century before it
became fashionable (and ecologically sensible) to do so. The Long Key Fishing
Club suVered
the fate of most other buildings in the Upper Keys in 1935 when it fell victim
to the Labor Day Hurricane. It was never rebuilt.
Hurricane Georges also hit Long Key
hard in 1998. The park was closed for almost a year while downed trees and
crushed structures were removed. Damage was particularly heavy on the park’s
nature-hike trail, where equipment and debris had to be carried in and out in
a staggering number of garbage bags. The storm eroded much of the park’s
beach, but within months rangers had replanted it with sea purslane and sea
oats. Today the park has a lighter tree canopy but is still rich in plant,
bird, and marine life. The shallow oVshore
waters are excellent for snorkeling and sport fishing.
Not far from the park’s entrance
is a dock from which you can launch your kayak, or rent a canoe. Unlike the
canoe trail at Pennekamp State Park, the trail here is fairly long, is very
satisfying, and comes with a free brochure that guides you along a series of
twenty stops. Each stop is marked by a clearly visible, numbered, white
channel marker with a corresponding text in the naturalist brochure. You’re
urged to look for upside-down jellyfish (of which there are hundreds),
marine worm casings, and soft corals. The lagoon is shallow but large, with
plenty of passages into side lagoons or thick mangrove stands. You can stay on
the route or wander about. And the far eastern end of the lagoon borders on
Zane Grey Creek, which accesses the ocean.
Zane Grey is best known for his
novels about cowboy life in the Old West, but he clearly loved his winter home
in the Keys. In her excellent guidebook The
Florida Keys, Joy Williams cites Zane Grey’s farewell to a tarpon he
hooked here: “Into my memory had been burned indelibly a picture of a
sunlit, cloud-mirroring, green and gold bordered cove, above the center of
which shone a glorious fish-creature in the air.” FYI: Campsites,
for tents and RVs, can be reserved up to eleven months in advance by calling
(800) 326-3521. Additional information is available from
Long Key State Park
P.O. Box 776
Long Key, FL 33001
www.dep.state.fl.us/parks
Trip # 13 Curry Hammock State Park: A Paddle off Fat Deer Key Launch
Site: MM 56.1 (oceanside) Location:
Curry Hammock State Park, just north of Marathon Paddling
Time: 1 hour Comments:
Oceanside paddling along a nice beach in protected water. Exceptional fall
hawk migration. The
Middle Keys constitute some of the most beautiful islands in the entire
archipelago. They are slender strips of land spanned by long bridges. Here the
expanse of the ocean meets the vastness of Florida Bay. Unfortunately,
kayaking opportunities in the Middle Keys are limited because there is little
public access to launch sites, currents in the broad channels here can be
quite strong, and there are few nearshore “destinations” such as mangrove
islands or patch reefs in this area. Powerboats predominate, speeding deepsea
fishermen and snorkelers to the big reef out front.
There is only one real town here,
Marathon, but houses, condos, and resorts cram the islands from tip to tip.
Almost every speck of land is privately owned.
After an easy launch from the beach,
a fifteen-minute paddle will take you to the first of two
shallow-water bays west of the picnic area. Small sharks cruise these bays,
their fins slicing through the water like silver scythes. The mangroves
here are full of birds, especially blue and white herons.
The park boundary lies just outside
the westernmost bay. Here private boat channels and luxury homes cluster over
what was, until the 1960s, a beautiful natural beach. Today it’s Marathon
Shores subdivision. Due east of this urban enclave lies Deer Key, a lovely
park-owned island with a breathtaking view of the ocean. You can easily extend
your trip by heading east out of the park’s boundaries into the shallow
waters oV
Grassy Key. On the way you will pass a resort called, appropriately, Valhalla.
Aside from leisurely kayaking, this
area is also a good destination for snorkeling or fishing, and during
the fall it is an excellent spot to observe the annual bird migration. The
Florida Keys Raptor Migration Project sets up an observation site near the
bathhouse. Peak migration occurs in mid-October. At 260 acres, Curry Hammock State Park contains the largest uninhabited land parcel between Key Largo and Big Pine Key. The state began acquiring private property here in 1992, but it wasn’t until seven years later that the park actually opened. There is no camping here, yet, but there is a beautiful beach with picnic tables and a bathhouse on the oceanside and a large upland hammock on both sides of U.S. 1. A kiosk near the park entrance contains maps of the park. These show the broad outlines of Fat Deer Key, the peninsular Little Crawl Key, and tiny Deer Key just offshore. FYI: Additional
information on Curry Hammock is available from
Long Key State Park
P.O. Box 776
Long Key, FL 33001
(305) 664-4815
www.dep.state.fl.us/parks Information
on the raptor migration is available from
Audubon of Florida
Tavernier Science Center
115 Indian Mound Trail
Tavernier, FL 33070 (Route maps not available in text format) © 2002 University Press of Florida. All Rights Reserved. < Back to the Reading Room | ||||
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