1-21-17 Cabbage Key and The Tunnel of Love

We spent a few days in a marina after spending 17 days at anchor getting water filled, tank emptied and a serious cleaning job done on the boat and dinghy. We miss the fresh water. But the salt water life is good.

There’s a storm a brewing which means we needed to find the best anchorage we can to ride it out. We went to a small well protected anchorage thinking we would stay there. But it was so small that we were not comfortable. If our anchor dragged at all we would be in trouble. We ended up back in Pelican Bay off Caya Costa. We tucked in where we would be protected from the south and the west which is where the winds are anticipated to be from. We had a nice day to do something with before the winds get bad, so off we went in our dinghy to Cabbage Key about 2 miles away. There is a restaurant there that for years people have been taping dollar bills to the walls and ceilings. They are everywhere. They estimate there to be $70,000 dollars on the walls.

There is the last standing water tower in the area. All the others have been taken out by hurricanes. We climbed to the top. Man what a view.

Us at top of the tower. Look at the view behind us.

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We hiked a neat trail through the woods. There were many species of plants and trees that we hadn’t seen before. There have been known to be frequent alligator sightings, otters, snakes, etc. We didn’t see anything but a million Geckos. The woods are so different than at home but so beautiful.

This tree had vines of cactus like growth all the way to the top.

Spanish moss was so beautiful on this tree.

There were Gopher Turtles wandering the lawn eating grass. The resort blocked off so people didn’t fall in their holes. The turtles were named after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Michelangelo, Donatello,….then there was Myrtle. I don’t know my Ninja turtles very well but somehow Myrtle doesn’t ring a bell. At least her name is a great play on words. Myrtle the Turtle.

While we waited for lunch we looked up what to do on the island. There was this little blurb about the Tunnel of Love. You can only get through it with a kayak, canoe or dinghy. It lands you in a spot a short walk to the Gulf. We felt adventurous and squeaked through some thin water. Close to the entrance we had to start paddling. We paddled most of the way. It brought us back to our canoeing days only the dinghy doesn’t paddle as well as a canoe. The mangroves made a tunnel over the waterway. Very cool! It was so narrow that the dinghy barely fit, we couldn’t even row it we had to paddle like a canoe. When we got to the beach, we were the only people out there and it was beautiful. Lots of great shells seeing they haven’t been picked over. We didn’t bring our shell bag and that is probably a good thing.