11 May - John Pennekamp State Park Key Largo

"Semper Gumby" here! Always flexible! As I mentioned last night, today we had the best intentions of going back on Rte 41 towards Naples a ways and visit the Valujet Flight 592 Memorial and also visit the Shark Valley Visitor Center, but there were no tickets available so we switched gears and headed down to Key Largo today and moved the Rte 41 trip to tomorrow.  

We had been to the Keys before SCUBA diving and enjoyed our visit there, so we decided to just do a day trip down there again.  The drive down US 1 was nice and not a long drive from the campground.  With all the hubub about fuel shortages in the southeast, we went ahead and loaded up the big ol' brown truck with diesel and took off for the Keys.  

We arrived at John Pennekamp State Park and headed for Cannon Beach, the one closest to where we parked.  Cannon Beach is easy to spot with two old cannons on display there!

Wow, the beach was quite a mess.  There was about 15 feet or so of seaweed  along the entire shoreline.  Some kids had tried to make a pathway through the seaweed  to open water, but they were closing up about as soon as they opened it.

    Once outside the seaweed the water was very clear, warm, and the bottom sandy.  Doreen and I both waded out there for a bit.

There is another beach at John Pennekamp park called "Far Beach" probably because it is "far" from the other one.  Not really!  We could have driven there but we enjoyed the hike.  On the way, we passed the tour and snorkeling boats, and the area where you can rent kayaks and canoes.

Far Beach was loaded with seaweed also.

There was an area on the eastern shore was clear so we waded around there a bit and enjoyed the warm water.  This area had a rocky bottom, with larger rocks on the shoreline.  These rocks had some really interesting coral formations on them.  

The pattern of brain coral.

Interesting coral formations!

See the little crab?

We headed back to the truck and then back through Homestead FL to the campground.  We enjoyed the swimming pool later this afternoon and then returned to watch the Cub and Indians baseball game,  Doreen baked some homemade pizza.  

Tomorrow we head for the Valujet Flight 592 Memorial and also visit the Shark Valley Visitor Center with a two hour tram ride to the observation tower.