Here are some photos taken at Curry Hammock State Park on the Marathon Key in the Florida Keys on Wednesday afternoon. My friend and I decided to make a day trip down to Key West from Miami. It is about 140 miles from Miami to the end, but it is possible to make it a day trip with many stops. One of our stops included this state park. The Florida Keys are formed by an old coral reef which has now turned into Key Largo Limestone. It is very porous and the holes are mosquito breeding grounds. Even though it is December, the water is still warm enough to snorkel in, and mosquitos are still very abundant in the forests... even in the middle of the day! I can't imagine any part of the Keys naturally being more than 15 feet above sea level, but there is still lots of exposed rock nevertheless. They are also very prone to Hurricanes. It is one of the best drives you can do in Florida on a sunny day, since you island hop over turquoise waters and eel grass beds for hours on end.
The Keys are a very narrow stretch of islands. When you are not on a bridge, there are portions where you can see the ocean feet from the road on both sides.
A few of the beaches resemble what you would see in post cards! There is actually only one natural beach in the Keys, and that is this one in Bahia Honda State Park.
Now, while we're at Bahia Honda State Park, here is their native stand of Coccothrinax argentata... or the Silver Palm! It is very abundant on this Key and also semi-present on a few of the other keys on either side. This is where you would find the tallest ones. They are extremely slow growing, so these palms, particularly the taller ones, must have withstood many hurricanes over the decades or even centuries.
There are even a few Leucothrinax morrisii mixed in with the C. argentatas. None of them are too tall. They seem to all seem at home in the sand.
