AS OUR SPEED BOAT SKIMMED ACROSS THE ATLANTIC waves off the coast of the Florida Keys, our two passengers grew more and more excited – in fact, downright agitated – but captain Richie Moretti reassured us. “We’re almost at a place where they will be happy,” he said. “There’s an old wreck there where they may find some of their mates.”
Arriving at that point about 21 miles out to sea (to us landlubbers it looked just like any other point in the vast expanse of water), he instructed us to dump our fellow passengers overboard. Without a glance back – or even a flipper wave goodbye – the two giant sea turtles enthusiastically headed home … and one of our group, clearly moved, began to sing Born Free.
The turtle release was the culmination of our tour of Marathon Key’s remarkable Turtle Hospital and the high point of our introduction to the Wild Side of a state frequently identified solely with the action-packed Orlando theme parks, glitzy, Hispanic Miami and the golden strands of trendy, Art Deco South Beach.
“I came to the Keys,” said Moretti “to rescue people and kill fish and ended up saving turtles.” More precisely, he left his home in New Jersey for Florida in 1980 to help rescue the Mariel boatlift Cubans who were struggling to reach America, often in small and risky boats. Prohibited from doing this by the US authorities, he remained to fish professionally and run a waterfront motel. Then one day his girlfriend, a local detective, decided to adopt a tarpon she had caught and he was persuaded to convert a motel swimming pool into its new home. Other fish soon followed and the pool became a bit of a tourist attraction.
“By then,” said Moretti, “all the kids were wild about the Teenage Ninja Turtles so I decided to add some to my collection only to discover that I couldn’t do it legally unless I established a turtle sanctuary.”
FIVE TYPES OF SEA TURTLES FOUND IN FLORIDA
A team from Marathon Key’s Turtle Hospital says goodbye to a 120lb Loggerhead named Miley in honour of Miley Cyrus.
As we took the 90-minute tour of the facility’s exhibition area and the huge holding tanks accommodating its recuperating patients, we learned that five types of these amazing and ancient creatures are found in Florida. The giant Leatherback can grow up to 2,000 lbs, dive to 4,000 feet and swim up to 10,000 miles a year; the Green turtle, the only pure herbivores of the lot and weighing up to 500 lbs, was once the main ingredient of much-prized (now illegal) turtle soup; the much smaller Hawksbill, on the other hand, was prized for its handsome shell, sometimes made into ornaments; the Loggerhead, weighing up to 300 lbs, is the most common; and the Kemps Ridley, the smallest and rarest of the lot, was named after a Key West fisherman.
The world’s only state-certified hospital run for sea turtles is operated by a team of largely-volunteer veterinarians who treat and sometimes operate on as many as 70 injured and ill turtles a year; so far, about 1,200 have been treated and released back into the wild; a few badly-injured turtles remain permanent ‘nursing home’ residents. Some have become ill from spills of oil, tar or other chemicals, tumours or by ingesting fish hooks and rubbish, including floating plastic bags, which they assume are edible jellyfish, and cigarette filters, which appear to them similar to shrimp. Others are struck by boats, lobster or crab traps or ensnared by fishing nets. One of the most complicated complaints, known as bubble butt, results when a turtle’s shell is cracked, which allows air to seep underneath. As a result, the turtle becomes too buoyant to dive for food. One solution is to add weights to its shell until it can be repaired. In fact, the turtles face a struggle for survival from the outset – only one in 1,000 hatchlings makes it to adulthood. That’s primarily because as they emerge from their eggs, buried along the sandy shores, and race for the sea, they are targeted by marauding racoons and crabs, diving birds and, once in the water, large, hungry fish. And that’s not to count the hatchlings that get confused and head for parking lots and highways rather than the sea. (Waterfront residents and businesses along the nesting areas are encouraged to only have dim lights as bright ones attract the hatchlings.) And both Moretti and his girlfriend, working undercover, have discovered and reported Florida bars where turtle eggs, considered by some to be aphrodisiac, are slipped into alcoholic drinks.
Marathon, about halfway down this parade of Florida islands, is also home to Florida Keys Aquarium Encounters, which features habitats for everything from tortoises and freshwater turtles to a giant grouper and a pond of rather-endearing, cartoon-faced stingrays, which you are encouraged both to stroke – they are nearly as soft as kid gloves – and feed. Some of our group even donned scuba gear, jumped into a vast tank and fed sharks in an adjoining pool through special tubes.
Key Largo, much closer to the Florida mainland, is home to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, where we hopped on The Spirit of Pennekamp glass-bottom boat to view some of the exotic fish and plants that thrive in the waters below. Encompassing approximately 70 nautical square miles, the park is part of the even-larger Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, which was established 26 years ago and includes the world’s third-largest living coral barrier reef.
NATIONAL PARKS AND HUMAN WILD LIFE
The only wildlife found at Ernest Hemingway’s Key West home, now a museum, are the cats, said to be descendants of his pet.
As this is the centenary year of America’s National Park Service, we next headed by boat from Islamorado on Lower Matecumbe Key for Flamingo, a tiny port on the edge of the Florida mainland’s enormous, swampy Everglades National Park. In the past, I had toured it by airboat, sighting numerous exotic birds and some alligators and visiting some Seminole and Miccosukee Native Americans who have lived in this ‘Sea of Grass’ for centuries. But on this occasion the weather was not on our side, the sea was rough and we turned back to the dock at Bud N’ Mary’s Marina, home to more than 40 fishing captains and guides.
We were luckier two days later when we headed on the Yankee Freedom II ferry from Key West into the Gulf of Mexico for the Dry Tortugas National Park. Sited about 70 miles or two hours’ sail off shore, this group of tiny islands was given the name Tortugas in 1513 by Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon because of their vast number of sea turtles; ‘Dry’ was added later as none of them had fresh water. Today, they are best known for their snorkeling, birdlife and fishing – Ernest Hemingway and his group of fishing friends known as ‘the Mob’ were devotees –and, on Garden Key, massive Fort Jefferson, the largest brick structure in the Western Hemisphere. Built between 1846 and 1876 to guard the coast from pirates and other threats, it was used as a Union prison during the American Civil War.
On a fascinating walking tour led by a National Park Service ranger, we learned that its most famous inmate was Dr Samuel Mudd, imprisoned there after he treated John Wilkes Booth, who was injured as he fled from his Washington, DC, assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in April, 1865. As his knowledge of the heinous deed was in doubt and he heroically treated many Yellow Fever victims at the fort, he was later pardoned by Lincoln’s successor, President Andrew Johnson. Our ranger guide also noted that, because Cuba is only around 100 miles away, the islands still serve as a magnet for those wishing to escape the Castro regime. In fact, he had given sanctuary to 23 of them just a couple of weeks before.
The area around the islands is also an alluring hunting ground for treasure hunters searching for the wrecks of bounty-laden Spanish ships wrecked on the reefs during early 17th-century storms. The most famous of such finds, by diver Mel Fisher, is displayed in his fascinating namesake museum, one of several attractions found on or close to picturesque Key West’s lively waterfront. Nearby are the Key West Shipwreck Treasures Museum, the Key West Aquarium, the Audubon House – where you can admire the beautiful (and very valuable) paintings of American birds by famous naturalist John James Audubon (he never lived there but visited nearby) – and Florida’s only Presidential museum: the Little White House, where Harry S Truman spent 175 days of his presidency.
As for local wildlife, there are hundreds of free-flying butterflies in the Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory, a surprising number of roving chickens … they are protected by a quaint, historic law … and numerous cats sunning themselves in the entry garden of the house that Hemingway inhabited for many years (they are said to be descendants of his moggies.)
But the main Wild Life in Key West is of the human kind – you’ll find numerous creative souls, fire eaters, magicians, Tarot card readers, tightrope walkers and vendors of exotic goods lining the waterfront at Mallory Square during each evening’s ritual salute to the setting sun. Even I couldn’t resist some of their wares, indulging in a flexible flower pot that transforms into a sun hat.
Taking a Conch Tour Train past Sloppy Joe’s Bar, named for the original one nearby, which was frequented by Hemingway
And then there are the flamboyant parades and festivals (including the July Hemingway Days featuring scores of bearded lookalikes) and, of course, the multi-facetted night life … we spent our last night gyrating to a heavy rock band in what professed to be Hemingway’s favourite hangout, Sloppy Joe’s – except the real ‘Original Sloppy Joe’s’, which claimed to be the ‘oldest bar in Florida’, was actually nearby. But, then you can always expect Wild Tales as well as Wild Life in this part of Florida.
