Wednesday, September 18, 2019

A Key West Gathering, Day 4

Otto and I said our goodbyes to Rich this morning as he returns back towards Wellington, FL to his daughter and his dogs.

We checked into the Holiday Inn hotel across the US 1 Highway which was near where we'd been lodging courtesy of Rich's brother-in-law.  We of course made sure to leave the property clean and orderly.

We checked out the African Queen boat that was featured in the Humphrey Bogart/Katherine Hepburn movie: Key Largo.

 The boat is apparently available for tours in spite of being
declared a Historical Landmark.


To kill more time before being able to check into our rooms, Otto then drove us south along US1 towards Marathon Key, where we stopped at the History of Diving Museum to check it out.


 Primitive Diving Gear

 Just a portion of a large wall display of diving helmets from 
all over the world

 The iconic Mark V Diving Helmet made for
the US Navy during WWII

 Insignia of US Navy Divers

Example of the modern diving outfits,
this one is obsolete of course, which
have allowed longer endurance and deeper dives

After the museum, which we both recommend, we drove down south towards the Stuffed Pig restaurant mentioned in Trip Advisor as a good spot to eat.

We got there too late, as they closed at 2Pm so instead went to the nearby American Legion Post and had a couple of beers to debate our next move.

My first visit to an American Legion Post since joining them
about three weeks ago.

The bartender recommended to us to check out the Island Fish Company for lunch and off we went after settling the bill.  Nice bar at this post, cool, dark and in pretty good condition.

A short stop was made at the 1935 Hurricane Memorial commemorating the devastating hurricane of that year which killed many people, some of whom were buried beneath the memorial itself:


We had a good lunch consisting mainly of Blackened Grouper Sandwiches and some oysters and conch chowder for Otto.



We could see that weather clouds have moved in on Key West to the south, making our plans to go deep sea fishing tomorrow afternoon, iffy.  We shall see.

After a delicious late lunch, we drove back towards Key Largo and our hotel.  The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing by the hotel's pool and a couple more drinks at the Tiki Bar poolside.

Tomorrow: Key West and meeting up with the third member of this adventure.  Lee S.

4 comments:

RichardM said...

The diving museum looks pretty interesting not that I’m into diving. Those oysters look fabulous but I take it, you didn’t try them...

redlegsrides said...

RichardM, there’s not enough beer in the world that’ll cause me to eat oysters! :)

SonjaM said...

Your gathering wasn't disturbed by any tropical storm, was it? The sky looks immaculate.

redlegsrides said...

The weather is holding so far SonjaM