THE SUN SETS ON OUR WEEK IN THE KEYS

Click on pictures for full screen image

Sparky's landing is in the little town of Key Colony Beach, in Marathon

We watched the Captain bring this big boy boat in like a champ

Okay, so our canal home is not quite this nice...

Key Colony Beach is definitely a hidden gem, but don't expect the buy here.

We looked at a 80x120' residential lot only....no house yet....$585,000

Sunset Beach looks toward the Atlantic Ocean

Long walk down a short pier

Some of the resident's backyards on the block where the dirt lot cost a half million before you build the house...or the dock....or buy the boat...or pay the HOA fees....just where, exactly does all this money come from?

I love shimmering water

and freshly washed sand

Rocky Point?

Outside of the incorporated limits of KCB, the building codes a slightly more relaxed.

But don't be fooled, we saw 1960 model, single wide mobile homes in Key Largo for 300,000 and the further down in the Keys you go, the higher the prices.

As our day and latest Keys adventure comes to a close, we watch the sunset in Key West at Mallory Square

In the United States, this is as far south as you can get

Unless you are lucky enough to climb aboard...

and sail away right into the setting sun

.

Key West, FL

71 at wake up, going to a high of 77

.

Each time I come down here it gets harder and harder to leave. Realizing that if I stay, I'd have no viable means of support and my boat is lying 180 nautical miles north of here, I pack my bags and head home.

.

We found a new hideaway, on the way down, in Marathon. Key Colony Beach is a little known incorporated town about mile marker 50. Like all the rest of The Keys, it seems the recession never happened there. Home prices are out of sight. I can see why the average Joe who wants to make this area his home lives on his boat, anchored down in the bay.

.

Friday night we made our way to Key West's Mallory Square, where each night the sunset is a celebration. There are street performers, art vendors and musicians to entertain you as you wait for the dusk of another day. Kathy was partial to a Golden Retriever named Cleo, who was trained to retrieve dollar bill tips as his master played a banjo, sang and made giant soap bubbles with a rope. Me, I just come to stare at the nautical wheelers who steer their ships into the setting sun and I dream of one day going "cruising" to points much further south than here.

.

.

Post A Comment by clicking below