A Day at Lignumvitae Key

Day 36: Monday, March 28, 2016

Lignumvitae Key anchorage is a nice place to spend a couple of days.  The winds were blowing lightly from the south east and our location in the north side of the island protected us from the wind and waves.

Sunrise over Lignumvitae Key

We started our day a bit later this morning.  We again had cheesy scrambled eggs and bacon, using our last eggs.  Bringing eggs on trips like these is a bit of a challenge.  We had read that if you get fresh eggs that have never been cooled, you can keep them for a long period of time without them spoiling.  We also heard that if you dunk eggs in boiling water for 2 seconds, they will also keep.  We did both.  We got two dozen fresh uncooled eggs from our friends, Gary and Kathy and did the dunk in boiling water process.  About a week into the trip, we noticed that some eggs were covered with a fine film of mold.  We had put them in their cartons wet and then sealed them in a tight plastic box surrounded in bubble wrap.  We washed the eggs off and dried them before putting them back into their cartons.  We ate them as fried eggs and were sure that they tasted as one would expect a fresh egg to taste. We

Lone sailor on a homemade trimaran 

enjoyed the last one five weeks after we left Ohio. 

Before breakfast, I tried again to get a star sighting but again, the sky was covered with clouds. However, at 9:00, I realized that the moon was still up and the sun was rising, so I took sightings on the two of them and got a successful sight reduction.  I located our position to be about 1.7 nautical miles from where GPS said that we were actually located.  I felt good about that. I also did a noon sighting to determine our latitude and hit it to within 5.6 miles.  Not as good but acceptable.

1919 Matheson House on Lignumvitae Key

Janine and I hopped into the Dink and headed for the Botanical Park entrance.  Along the way, we passed a guy who was paddle sailing a small trimaran. We had noticed him sailing around our area last evening and realized that he had spent the night on this tiny craft just down the shore from us.  We pulled up alongside and he told us that he had made it by cutting a wind surfer board in half and using them as outriggers on his 17 foot canoe.  He put a mast on it and got a sail from a storage facility sale.  He said that he has sailed the full length of the keys in this little craft and was on his second trip. We spent a bit of time talking with him before we headed for the

Home with huge cistern 

island dock.

The Lignumvitae Key Botanical State Park is a truly interesting place.  It consists of this beautiful island on which is located an old house with well-manicured grounds.  Upon arrival, we put our $2.50 per person entry fee into a metal box and started wandering around the grounds.  There were a number of trails that struck out through the vegetation but each one had a chain across warning of serious consequences if one were to

Hurricane shelter built by one of the overseers after a storm in the 1930

trespass onto them.  We ran across a ranger who was cleaning the restrooms and he said that the only time you could go onto the trails was on a guided tour with a park ranger and those times were twice daily on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  They are highly protective of the areas around the park because it is virgin tropical forest and except for the old homestead built in 1919, is untouched by modern man.  The ranger did offer to

open the house and spent probably an hour talking about the island, the inhabitants who were caretakers for the wealthy landowner who had built the home but never slept on it.  It was a fascinating visit.  We were disappointed that we were unable to venture out into the dense vegetation and its characteristic “hammock” structure.  The dense over-story allows very little light to penetrate onto the forest floor therefore

preventing the growth of plants in the understory.

Back in the Dink, we motored back to Second Wind where I again enjoyed a Spam sandwich sloshed in salsa.  This is a new twist in my luncheon delight that I highly recommend.

It was back to reading and a brief swim during which I encountered another group of Boy Scouts.  It turns out that there is a large gathering of about 600 of them on Islamorada.  The members on this skin diving outing were planning on capturing some lobsters.  I asked where they were to be found and they said that the jagged ledge at the edge of the island was supposed to have easy pickings.  I swam over to that area and was surprised to find more coral like structures and life than where I had been swimming.  It was really quite shallow and I swam there concerned that I might drag on the bottom.

Gumbo-limbo tree

Back at the boat, we prepared a hamburger, cheese, macaroni dinner.  Our appetizer consisted of the last of the summer sausage provided by our friends from the boat, Bumbye.  After dinner we read for a bit and finished the evening out with another game of dominoes.  And yes, bed time was 9:00.