We went out in the Atlantic ocean in Nonchalance today to go to a little uninhabited island, but I had misunderstood how soon we had to be back so we didn’t have enough time to do the island and get also back in time to also go to a guided tour of the keys gulf waters, so it wound up being just a ride in the ocean. However, the small boat tour was fun. We went out with a former Everglades park ranger in a small boat to Indian Key which is now a state park accessible only by boat.

Indian Key was once built up as a typical east Coast Victorian town, and was successful for many years until about 1840 when it was attacked by Indians who killed all of the inhabitants and burned all the buildings. Today, there’s nothing left but foundations, rainwater cisterns and a few streets being overtaken by the jungle-like plants. Not much to see, except the tour guide provided interesting naturalist type info on the flora and fauna.
To get onto the key we had to anchor the small boat in 3 ft. of water and walk in over sharp rocks all along the shore, so everybody was soaked from the waist down, but at least it was a warm day on the island.

Then we went to some mangrove islands, which were not islands at all. They look like islands covered with trees, but the trees are mangroves growing in about 4 ft. of salt water with channels 6 to 10 ft deep around the islands.....no land! It's somewhat like the Little Shark River on Florida's West Coast, except these are like little islands in the gulf.
The main area we visited was a rookery for water birds. There were dozens of frigate birds soaring overhead all the time and dozens of pelicans and egrets in the mangroves everywhere.
We also saw this Little Blue Heron, which is somewhat rare.

Then we spotted a pelican that had a fish hook stuck in the skin of its neck and the fishing line had wrapped around mangrove branches so the bird was caught. The guide just felt we had to help it, so we did, by tilting the motor up and pulling the boat into the trees and cutting the line holding the pelican captive. Then when it was swimming free, I scooped it up in a net from the boat and the guide held it while I got the fish hook out of its neck. We let t go and it swam off, too tired to fly, but pretty much OK.

Ann will leave for Curacao tomorrow and we’ll get ready to go on towards Key West, stopping along the way.