Days 280 - 285

Key West FL

Key West week three.
Another beautiful and relaxing week in Key West. We have spent the last week alternating between doing nothing and sightseeing. We managed to stay off of Duval Street for the entire week, instead we headed up to Marathon to visit both the Dolphin Research Center and The Turtle Hospital.

The Dolphin Research Center (DRC) is home to over 30 dolphins that cannot be released back in to the wild. While some of the dolphins were born and raised there, there are also many that have been either transfer from other facilities or rescued from wild and rehabilitated. All of the dolphins at the DRC have been deemed un-releasable by the federal government, meaning that they could not survive in the wild. They will live the rest of their lives at DRC. There are currently three generations of off spring from Mitzi, the original dolphin from the TV Series Flipper at the DRC. Mitzi's granddaughter is pregnant and this summer will give birth a fourth generation off spring. In addition to hourly education programs the DRC offers several different programs, ranging from petting a dolphin and shaking flippers (hands) with them to the Trainer For A Day, where you work with a dolphin trainer all day. We did the Pet a dolphin, which was pretty cool.

We also visited the Turtle Hospital in Marathon. The Turtle Hospital both rehabs and releases turtles, as well as houses turtles that cannot be released. While the turtle hospital was very interesting it is not as exciting as the dolphins were. What is cool about the Turtle Hospital, they took over two properties for their operation. The first is a motel where the house the turtles. Some of the rooms are used for the staff, as housing in the keys is both expensive and hard to find. Offering housing helps attract staff. The actual hospital is in what use to be a strip club.

What would sightseeing be if we did not visit an old fort. Key West is no different, we toured the Fort East Martello Museum. Construction was started on Fort East Martello in 1862 and stopped in 1865 before the fort was completed. The fort was totally abandoned after WWII and sat in disrepair until 1950 when the property was turned over to the Key West Art & Historical Society to restore and operate as a Museum.

We also spent as much time relaxing on the boat and at the two pools at the resort. On Tuesday we were on our way to the grocery store when we saw a bicyclist fall over, and stop moving. We pulled over to find him unresponsive. While we were calling 911, two individuals stopped to help. It was very obvious that they had medical training, as they stabilized him while we waited for the first responders to arrive. It turned out that "Tucker" who is homeless has a history of seizures, and was still unresponsive when they put him in the ambulance. One of Tucker's acquaintances (Chef) stopped when he saw what happened. Angel & I took his bike to the shelter where he was staying and Chef locked it up for him. It was a pretty good electric bike, and I am sure if it was not secured it would have disappeared.

We have one more week in Key West, and then we start our trek north. We have our next 3 stops planned and hopefully the weather will cooperate. While it has been warm and sunny it has also been very windy with rough seas.