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| Cudjoe Key to Pompano Beach |
Today was our "moving day". We left the Florida Keys after school and drove 180 miles to Pompano Beach, Florida. Although we had to check out of our vacation home at noon, we still had to figure out how to finish up distance learning for the day before starting our drive. Luckily there was community center on the property where we stayed, so my mom and dad hooked up my sister and me so that we could finish the final two hours of our school day in Cudjoe Key.
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| Finish our school day before we leave the Keys |
Heading back north, off of the Keys, we all enjoyed the scenery of our ride. Without a doubt, the best view of the drive is on the Seven Mile Bridge. To be honest, it was sort of sad to say good-bye to this bridge, but we were also looking forward to our next stay - Pompano Beach.
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| Seven Mile Bridge |
During our drive, we made a stop on Islamorada Key at a place called "Robbie's of Islamorada". Robbie's is a waterfront watersport center that has things like jet ski and kayak rentals, parasailing, an open air market and a restaurant. The reason we stopped at Robbie's was for the tarpon feeding. Tarpon are fish that can be found in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico that can grow to be 8 FEET big! At Robbie's, they have a huge deck with cut-outs in the flooring of the deck. You can purchase a small bucket of tiny (dead) fish to feed the tarpon. My mom had read that people dangle the tiny fish over the deck cut-out and the tarpon will feed off of it. Since my mom thought that was an interesting place to stop, we stopped. Let me tell you....it was a lot "crazier" than what it sounded.
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A bucket of fish for feeding tarpon
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When we arrived at Robbie's we bought two small buckets of fish. Before heading out on the dock, we were warned about the pelicans. We were reminded that pelicans are wild animals and they can and will be aggressive and bite and that by no means should we feed the pelicans. Well, when you walk onto the deck, you see pelicans EVERYWHERE and you start to question this activity choice.
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| Hungry pelicans lined up to steal a snack |
In order to limit the pelicans' access to the fish that are intended for feeding tarpon, the deck cut-outs have been covered with netting. Of course, the pelicans are smart enough to get into the water and swim under the netting to where people are dangling, in their hands, the fish to feed the tarpon. You really had to be careful that there were no pelicans nearby, otherwise they would try to snap the dangling fish from your hand! The pelicans were also smart enough to hide in the water, under the deck where you were standing, so that you wouldn't necessarily see them waiting to steal the tarpon food - yet another reason to question this activity choice.
In addition to the thought of dangling one's hand over water for a huge fish to take a little fish from our hands, one would have to try to do that while also warding off hungry, aggressive pelicans (who by the way, have a huge sharp hook at the tip of their beak!), you would also have to worry about sharks! Yes, SHARKS! Swimming around under the dock were nurse sharks. Although nurse sharks are typically docile sharks, I can only imagine what would happen if they accidentally mistook someone's finger as food. Although we have some video of the pelicans trying to get food from people and the sharks swimming around while the tarpon jump, we can't post it on this blog because there were random strangers exclaiming inappropriate words in the background (because the strangers were so shocked at the experience). It really was interesting to see, but there was no way that I was about to dangle fish bait in my hand over water with snapping pelicans and sharks! Instead, my family opted to just drop, one at a time, the tiny fish in the water for feeding.
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| Heck no! |
One video that we CAN share is that of a manatee that was also swimming below the deck. Manatees are also known as sea cows. Looking at the size of the manatee, you can see why that is their nickname - they are huge! The manatees, however, are not scary at all because they are known to be very calm and peaceful animals that pose no threat to humans. In fact, they are fairly curious creatures that enjoy human interaction. It was really fun to watch the manatees (and there was even a baby manatee too!)
Although this wasn't quite the experience we expected, it was still very interesting to see. Before leaving Robbie's, my sister and I got some shaved ice. It tasted very refreshing on a hot day!
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| Yummy shaved ice |
Finally, we arrived at our hotel in Pompano Beach, Florida. We enjoyed a poolside dinner before an late night swim in the pool.
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| Poolside dinner at our hotel |
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