Islamorada

We were done with Orlando visiting the theme parks and had two days before flying back.

Two half days is more like it because on the first day we drove from Orlando to Miami in rain and by the time we were at the Gateway to the keys area it was almost 1 in the afternoon.

The original plan was to go all the way to Key West and back but with three old people and two kids cooped up in a Van all morning it was going to be a tough sell. 

So we stopped at the visitor center in Key Largo. 

Note: There are multiple boards that say "Visitor Center" as soon as you enter Key Largo, but only the one with the Chamber of Commerce board is the official Visitor center. The rest of them are boards which lure you in and some guy representing some other activity in Key West tells you "there is nothing here really. your only option is to go all the way to Key West". Fortunately we stopped at the real visitor center also and there was a nice lady who asked us all the right questions "how many in your party?", "how much time do you have?", "what are your preferences for activities?" etc. etc., gave us free maps and pretty much planned our afternoon for us!

So off we went to Islamorada, which was 35 minutes away and visited "The Theater of the Sea"

We spent a good three hours there doing the nature walk where we got to see their conservation effort and how they save creatures deemed unfit to release back into the wild, including a turtle that was wearing a life jacket. Seriously, not kidding. This turtle has a buoyancy defect and needs a life jacket so it can float and come up for air. 

The place is apparently family owned for 65 years. So I ask the girl who is feeding the crocs, turtles and sting rays "Are you like the Sea version of We Bought a Zoo?" and she goes "Something like that!"

Here are some pictures from the walk.

 

After the walk we were treated to a Parrot show. The kids and my camera enjoyed the show.

 

This was followed by a Dolphin Show and a Sea Lion show. They really did a great job of teaching the kids about the animals, their behaviors, even asked us to sigh a petition to protect whales from being deafened by the US Navy because of some experiments they were doing on the West Coast!

 

Did I mention how Jr. got to pet the dolphins? Odds of her being picked in Sea World were 1:1000 and here it was 1:5. There were 20 kids in the audience and they picked 4 volunteers. This is my kind of place!

The people in the park were truly sincere about conservation and cared about the creatures deeply. 

Finally we went on a small boat with an open bottom (ring boat?) where the dolphins swam within the boat, rang a bell and did some tricks for us while we went for a 10 minute ride along the mangrove forest.

It was three hours well spent and off we went to a limestone beach at John Pennekamp State park.. More on that in a couple of days!

If you visit the keys in the wrong season, this place is guaranteed to be a hit with young and old...