South for the winter!

10/28/21 – Midway campground. I had picked this spot for its location as it really was about “midway” for me from Sebring to my next stop in Key Largo. A small state campground of about 20 sites around a small pond. Nothing to write home about and I didn’t take a single picture the few nights I stayed here. With very little cell coverage and no 5G for my hotspot I did a lot of reading and mostly used the closeness to the Miami area to resupply and get some much needed errands completed.

One important errand that I had been wanting to do for a while was getting a spare key made for the truck. When I was changing at the Rainbow river dive site I dropped my keys and the truck key literally exploded into tiny pieces, it’s one of the modern fob style keys with the buttons on it to lock and unlock. Fortunately I was able to find all the parts and reassemble it later that night, but embarrassingly enough I did learn the painful lesson that my fancy alarm system would not be silenced without the unlock button being pushed, even starting the truck with the key would not do the trick. Thankfully I have an app on my phone that allows me to remotely turn off the alarm. This close call made me realize that I should have a spare key in case things go south again. A quick visit to a locksmith and a new key was cut and programmed (for about half the dealer price) and I can now rest easy knowing I won’t be stranded!

The days clicked by slowly as the anticipation of my month long stay in Key Largo approached. On my last evening it was a cool with a beautiful sunset and I sat outside in the Zero-G lounger and enjoyed the show, it wasn’t until the next morning that I realized I had gotten absolutely eaten alive by mosquitos! Well duh Gregg, it is the Everglades 🙄. It would be days before I stopped itching.

11/01/21 – Key Largo. I arrived and found the RV spot at Keys Ventures, I must say I’m pretty thrilled with the location, I am just about 1 mile south of the main part of Key Largo and there is a nice separate bike path that runs the entire length of town. I plan to bike as much as possible, in fact as I explored I discover you could ride almost the whole length of the keys on a bike path!

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I took a day or so to get settled in and then it was time to start diving! I signed up for an afternoon 2 tank dive with a shop just a bit south in Islamorada and we visited Alligator reef for some shallow reef dives. The boat was full as there was a crew from the local I-Care reef restoration organization on board heading out to check on their progress at the reef and conduct a photo survey. It was a fun afternoon and I took some pictures with the underwater camera, click on the baby shark below to see them all.

We saw a couple of nice sharks, a moray eel but the hightlight for me was this incredibley curious Buffalo Trunkfish, who swam right up to me and at one point right into the camera, check out the video.

The water is so warm here, averaging 82F degrees, it makes for very comfortable dives, I am only wearing swim trunks and a rash guard or long sleeve shirt, so far I have only used my wetsuit for the chilly 72f dive in the Rainbow river! Just the way I like it!

For the next few days I did learn that it does in fact rain in paradise, in fact it REALLY rains here in the the subtropical parts of Southern Florida, for a few days I even had my own private lake.

I have much more diving planned and also a trip down to Key Largo and a visit to the Dry Tortugas National Park via seaplane. Stay tuned 😎