BOULEVARD

The Florida Keys is the quirkiest place I have ever been to in my life – it is just so random.

The regions are distinct in their own way, but despite this distinction, the history, culture and way of life are somehow seamlessly connected throughout The Keys.

The first obvious link is the Overseas Highway. It includes 42 bridges that cross over the Atlantic Ocean, the Straits of Florida and Gulf of Mexico to connect Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon, Big Pine Key and Key West.

The Coral Restoration Foundation

My first stop was in Key Largo for a meeting with Ken Nedimyer, president of the Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF).
The non-profit organization is the only one in the world that is solely devoted to restoring coral reefs by creating offshore nurseries for threatened coral species.

One way the CRF develops the nurseries is by collecting little bits of coral that have broken off a reef and attaching them to an underwater staghorn tree. This helps the coral bits grow and develop naturally in the water. After a year in the nursery, the corals are out planted to a degraded reef so that they can repopulate and nurture marine life.

According to Nedimyer, transplanting corrals results in an 80 per cent survival rate despite climate change, pollution and other stressors such as degraded water quality, white pox and coral bleaching. CRF’s goal is to get 10,000 staghorns planted this year – it currently has 3,000. The organization has also extended its efforts to the Caribbean and South America.

Tourists can also take part in coral reef restoration efforts. The CRF offers one and two-day programs that include an in-class lecture, a nursery dive, coral collecting and replanting fragments.

The Turtle Hospital

Similarly to CRF, the Turtle Hospital in Marathon is another non-profit organization, but its focus is on rehabilitating injured sea turtles and releasing them back into the ocean.

The Turtle Hospital houses and treats turtles with injuries such as flipper amputations caused by fishing line entanglements; shell damage caused by boat collisions; intestine problems caused by ingesting plastic bags, balloons, fishing line and hooks found in the water; and viral tumors.

There are dozens of turtles that are permanent residents in the hospital because they are too damaged and incompetent to survive on their own; however, since its opening in 1986, the hospital has helped and released 1,000 sea turtles back to their natural environment.

Ernest Hemingway

Seeing the ailing sea turtles reminded me of Ernest Hemingway’s book The Old Man and the Sea. In it, there is a quote describing Santiago, the old man, and his connection with the turtles:

“Most people are heartless about turtles because a turtle’s heart will beat for hours after he has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too and my feet and hands are like theirs.”

That wasn’t the only time Hemingway popped into my head during the Florida Keys visit – I constantly came across his influence.

In Islamorada, for example, the World Wide Sportsman store houses the replica of Hemingway’s ship Pilar which features his chair and typewriter; and in Key West, where his home is located, I got to walk up the same steps he walked on, see authentic furniture, bask in his writing studio, and chase some of the 45 cats living on the property – many of them are descendants of the original Hemingway cats.

Hemingway purchased the property in Key West in 1931 for $8,000. He lived there for ten years with his second wife Pauline Marie Pfeiffer and their sons, Patrick and Gregory. While residing there, Hemingway wrote To Have and Have Not. The book was greatly influenced by the people of The Keys and their struggle during the Great Depression – it was later adapted into a movie starring Humphrey Bogart.

The African Queen

I forgot to mention that during my time in Key Largo, I actually had the privilege of sailing back in time with Bogart onboard The African Queen – the very boat he and Katharine Hepburn used to film their movie by the same name back in 1950.

The movie won Bogart and Hepburn an Academy Award and the boat was included in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, a list of official sites, structures, monuments, etc. worthy of preservation.

The African Queen was built in 1912 in the U.K. and after its stint in the film it wandered around the world before being restored and making a permanent home in Key Largo.

Leaving The Keys

As I was driving out of The Florida Keys and heading over to my next stop, I couldn’t help but to pinpoint all the links I had learned about during my stay. I was amazed at how all the regions could somehow manage to connect together so seamlessly but still maintain their distinctions.