Expansive Beauty of Florida Keys

It starts several miles south of Islamorada, about 90 minutes from Miami, when I’ve left behind the Shell Man’s roadside racks of tacky seashell ashtrays, the stubby palms and skinny pines and the busy marinas packed tight with sportfishing boats.

That’s when I really feel I’ve come back to the Florida Keys. The ugly strip of condominiums and convenience stores outside the car window melts away.

The air smells of salt spray instead of dust. The road, more often than not, is no longer even a road but a continuous chain of two-lane bridges curving over an endless expanse of azure water under acres of clear blue sky.

The Florida Keys are a string of islands stretching 120 miles southwest into the sparkling turquoise ocean from mainland Florida. They begin where the flat tomato and lettuce farms thin out into Everglades grass and mangrove shoreline.

The Overseas Highway, better known as U.S. 1, traces the route over 42 often-spectacular bridges, coming to end in front of the red brick county courthouse in the laid-back tourist resort of Key West.

A lot of people who venture south from Miami roll up their car windows, turn on the air conditioning and aim the car for Key West, not stopping until they reach their hotel four hours later and collapse with a margarita at a palm-shaded bar.

But they miss a grand opportunity. The Keys may not look like much from a speeding car, but they have their own quirky history of wreckers and railroad men as well as beautiful tropical forests, coral reefs, great fishing, relaxed bars, fresh seafood and so on.

The names of the places along the Overseas Highway evoke the eclectic history of the place.

Many of the Keys--a word taken from the Spanish cayo s for little island--are humps of coral rock. Some are made up of silt and earth collected over centuries in the twisted roots of mangroves. But they obviously meant more to the adventurers who came to settle in the 1870s, built an ill-fated railroad to Key West in the early 1900s and left their mark in the names they gave the islands and inlets.

Some hint at colorful long-lost tales: No Name Key, Fiesta Key, Snipe Point, Little Torch. Others provide vivid word-pictures: Tea Table Key, Indian Key, Fiesta Key, Sombrero Reef, Washerwoman Shoal, Mud Keys, Saddlebunch Keys. And soft lilting names evoke the Caribbean roots of many pioneers: Matecumbe, Islamorada and Sugarloaf.

The Overseas Highway is Main Street here and the mile markers along the side of the road are the address system. The markers show the number of miles to go before the highway ends--or, technically, begins--in Key West.

Two routes will get you to the Keys from the mainland, and you choose at a fork in U.S. 1 just at the tip of the state. Card Sound Road, the left fork, is a slightly longer, slower and more scenic route. The other, U.S. 1, is often called Death Alley. Huge highway signs beg you to drive carefully. Daredevil guys in pickup trucks set high on huge mag wheels will whiz by you, taunting the warnings with a vengeance.

I like Card Sound Road. You can’t drive fast because the narrow road winds and twists, but the transition from mainland to wetlands can be easily read. The gnarled mangroves give way to patches of hardwood hammock, then to clusters of slapdash houseboats docked in the canals that parallel the road.

It costs a dollar to cross the small, steep Card Sound bridge, but the view from the top is well worth the price. If you want to prolong the anticipation, the last few hundred yards before the bridge is lined with country music bars where families come to dance--usually a bone-jarring dance called clogging--and dine after a day of quiet fishing in the shallow inlets.

The route loops back to join U.S. 1 at Mile Marker 109 at the top of the Keys in Key Largo, which isn’t a real city but an unremarkable collection of tackle shops and food stores. It can be unbearably crowded on Sunday afternoons when the weekend tourists head back to Miami and points north.

Here is where the Keys start for most visitors, and it’s a shame it’s such an ugly entrance. But for all its eyesores, Key Largo stands out as the land-side home of one of Florida’s greatest attractions--John Pennekamp Coral Reef Park.

The 178-square-mile park, extending up to seven miles offshore, encompasses the only living coral reef in the continental United States.

Although rammed by negligent freighters, threatened by pollution and picked at by thoughtless divers, the fragile reef survives and remains a spectacular sight. More than a dozen dive shops line a 15-mile stretch of the highway, most offering 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. trips for certified divers and snorkelers.

In the summer, when the ocean waters are glassy and warm, it is best to reserve a place on a dive boat. Visibility often rivals dive sites in the Caribbean, especially in those parts closest to the Gulf Stream.

If you want to snorkel, make sure to ask whether there will be other snorkelers aboard. With two or three of you, you’ll have more of a say in deciding where the boat will go. Many of the reefs that are shallow enough for snorkeling are not ideal for divers, so divers, too, are advised to make sure they won’t be in the minority.

The state park service offers tours of a World War II freighter in dry-dock, well-monitored snorkeling and scuba trips and 2 1/2-hour rides in a glass-bottom boat from its shore facility at Mile Marker 102.5.

The boat goes out three times a day, but it is crucial to reserve a spot. If you have a tendency to get queasy, sit on the deck and enjoy the clear blue waters and breezes. As the boat maneuvers over the reef, its propellers kick up turbulence and the view of the sloshing water through the glass can be stomach-turning.

The other big attraction in Key Largo is the Caribbean Club, which proclaims itself the set for the classic Humphrey Bogart film “Key Largo.”

Actually, the movie was shot mostly on a Hollywood set, but that hasn’t deterred the dark and cavernous bar from several decades of braggadocio. It’s worth a stop for a photograph or two and a look at another bit of cinema lore--the boat used in the Bogart-Hepburn movie “African Queen,” which is beached out back.

As you continue south, other forms of entertainment entice you. On weekends, flea markets are set up all along U.S. 1, where you can buy T-shirts, loose fishing tackle and plants.

In addition to the ubiquitous Shell Man stores there are occasional signs of Keys creativity. One Upper Keys house features a garden of artfully arranged hubcaps. Down the road a store called Birds of Paradise features all manner and shades of pink flamingo yard ornaments.

On Sugarloaf Key, only 17 miles from Key West, is Bat Tower, a 35-foot-tall edifice built in 1929 to lure bats. The bats, in turn, were supposed to eat mosquitoes, thus attracting in their place developers and golf course architects. It didn’t work and there are no bats there, but people seem to like to stop and look at the Bat Tower all the same.

Also in the Lower Keys is Monkey Island, officially called Key Lois, where rhesus monkeys raised for laboratory research have the run of the place.

The island isn’t accessible but, again, it’s fun to stop and look across the water and speculate. For more conventional entertainment there is the Theater of the Sea at Mile Marker 84.5, which features performances by sea lions, dolphins and sharks. At Lime Tree Bay resort, Mile Marker 68.5, you can stare out onto Florida Bay from the little roadside tables, visit the tiny zoo or the wine bar or rent sailboats and windsurfers.

You may be forced to pull over at that point, anyway. The little motel is at the edge of Layton, one of the three incorporated towns of the Keys. It boasts a one-car police department and speed limit of 35 m.p.h. Layton is so small you might not have time to slow down in the time between arrival and departure. So be careful.

Farther along you can pet or swim with dolphins at the Dolphin Research Center at Grassy Key, Mile Marker 59, after paying homage to the deceased film star Flipper, who is said to be buried under a 30-foot monument near the site of the now-defunct Flipper’s Sea School.

Several Keys are also part of the state park system and rent out RV and tent campsites. At Long Key, at Mile Marker 67.5, you can walk out on the sand bars for hundreds of yards. Spear fishing is also permitted here. At Bahia Honda, which means deep bay, there is a nature trail to discover rare plants, a fine sand beach and cottages on stilts.

Lignumvitae Key park is virgin tropical forest, Florida-style, named for the rare lignum vitae tree prized by boat outfitters. The 345-acre island, empty of all signs of human habitation except an abandoned limestone house, can be reached by a state-operated ferry from Indian Key fill at Mile Marker 79. Naturalist tours are available.

The Keys, of course, are famous for fishing, and you can stop just about anywhere along the route from Miami to Key West.

To the east are the deep ocean waters where Ernest Hemingway and Zane Grey tracked marlin, tarpon and sailfish. To the west is Florida Bay and the Everglades, a calm wilderness that is home to egrets, American bald eagles and shallow water fish such as redfish, trout, mangrove snapper and snook.

Boats with captain, crew, radar, fighting chairs and lots of fancy equipment can be chartered at marinas all along the Keys. The best bet is to call the chambers of commerce in the Upper, Middle and Lower Keys; check with the big hotels or simply stop by marinas as you pass.

Prices run about $600 a day for deep-sea fishing charters. A less strenuous option is to go with a back-country fishing guide who will usher you into the sandy flats of Florida Bay poling the small boat in search of bonefish.

You can also just stop the car, pull out your pole and fish along the sides of many of the Keys bridges for snapper, grouper and snook. Pole in hand, you can wade onto the sand bars and the sandy flats. Sometimes, at night, you can cast small nets by the bridge pilings and haul in shrimp.

Many of these bridges were built on pilings sunk before World War I for Henry Flagler’s spectacular Overseas Railroad that brought tourists to his magnificent Key West Hotel (it’s now the Casa Marina Marriott resort). The great hurricane of 1935 killed 800 people, most of them railroad workers, and destroyed much of the railroad but left the pilings.

Ten years ago the state rebuilt many of the old bridges, at the same time installing a bigger fresh water pipeline that consequently spurred new development.

The new bridges aren’t nearly as pretty as the old ones, but the old ones are still there for fishing and walking. The loveliest of the old truss bridges, at Bahia Honda State Park, rises ghost-like from the water and disappears behind palm trees.

The big daddy of the bridges is Seven-Mile Bridge, which begins at Mile Marker 40. The old Seven Mile Bridge, now closed, was a drawbridge.

If you happened to arrive when the span was open there was no choice but to leave your car, wander to the guard rail, pass the time with other drivers and relax in the warm air before continuing on the road.

There’s another option for relaxation before starting the uneventful last leg of the trip. Seven Mile Grill hasn’t changed a bit in at least 10 years. The same goes for the waitresses, one of whom sports an orchid in her long black braid.

This is quintessential Florida Keys: a diner without walls, with pithy sayings on the wall, fish sandwiches, key lime pie and whimsical hours. It is just before the bridge on the right side of the road.

After slogging through Marathon just to the north, the second-biggest population center in the Keys and one strip shopping center after another, the homey diner beckons like a siren.

Once on your way again and over the bridge, you pass dive shops that can take you to Looe Key, five square miles of pretty little reef that surpasses even Pennekamp’s underwater charms.

Big Pine Key also features the Key Deer Wildlife Refuge, where the miniature deer often leap through the mangroves and scrub. The refuge also has orchids, hawks and a sinkhole called the Blue Hole, where a sluggish alligator may be sunning itself on the shore.

On the last 45 minutes to Key West the land spreads out on the sides of the highway and that sense of flying on top of the water is lost.

Key West, often called the Last Resort, beckons with its restaurants, old wooden houses and bright magenta bougainvillea vines. It’s just the right beginning after the prelude of the road.