After a wrong turn and a reroute, we made our way out of a mess of mangroves and headed for Indian Key off of Islamorada in the Florida Keys. In retrospect, navigating our kayaks into a boat channel hadn’t been one of my better ideas. But to our credit, we paddled very quickly once we discovered our mistake. And there’s nothing like a big sea-going vessel to put a little spring in your stroke.
To reach Indian Key we had to pass our launch point on Islamorada and then paddle beyond, under Highway 1 to the eastern side of the Keys. We glided by sea birds and glimpsed the occasional fish or crab below us, eventually attaining a rocky shoreline where we beached the kayaks.
The little island thrived during the early 1800′s as a wrecking port. A whole town prospered upon the disastrous encounters of passing ships with an outlying coral reef. Boat salvaging gave Florida its own version of a gold rush, and for a short time, Indian Key was the Dade County Seat.
Today, Indian Key is a state park dotted with the remains of Jacob Houseman’s boat salvaging empire, nesting ospreys and quiet beaches.
Updated from August 1, 2011.
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