Key West is an island city, part of the Florida Keys archipelago. It is also America’s southern most point. Last year this time we visited Africa’s southernmost tip. It is a beautiful place with pastel-hued, conch-style houses and amazing big, old trees.
We spent the morning exploring this interesting and beautiful place, it definitely has a coastal holiday vibe and feel, the people are all so chilled.
We went on a tour of Ernest Hemingway’s house and gardens. It was fascinating hearing about the life story of this of this author, whose book ‘The old man and the sea’ we studied at school. This book was probably written in the study we visited. The house is also famous for the polydactyl (six clawed) cats that still wander around the property.
We had lunch at Bo’s, a really quirky eating shack made up of cool bits and pieces with chickens running around. I decided on the calamari rather than the chicken. It was delicious.
From there we headed to the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum. Mel was the treasure hunter who found the Atocha, a sunken Spanish vessel full of valuable treasure. It was a really fascinating visit.
After ice creams we headed down to the beach to one of the open aired, rustic harbor pubs. We listened to some old dudes playing country & western – I hope they have day jobs. We played a round of pool (the Diesel’s won) before boarding the ‘Moonshine’, an old naval vessel for a sunset cruise.
We set off at 6:30 and returned just before 9. We witnessed the most spectacular sunset, I thought we had amazing sunsets in Africa but this was brilliant. We sailed around a US Navy Seal Base and to the southern most tip – ‘0 Mile’. There were lots of boats out and people on the shore enjoying the sun go down.
Thanks Wayne and Jean for for this unforgettable experience and bringing us to this wonderful part of the world.
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Pandas in Africa 