Craine Point Nature Center

Sigh.  My glasses lens didn't pass inspection, so I'm waiting now until Wed. (hopefully) to get them.  At least final QC caught the problem before mailing them down here to the Keys. This will put us behind a few more days, waiting for a new weather window to Miami. Miami is unfortunately 90 miles, or two days, into the prevailing easterly winds. So, we need some non easterly or low winds to get back in a civilized manner.

On Sunday we spent a lot of the afternoon at the Crane Point Nature Center.  For a nice history of the center, you can click on Crane Point.

The center includes a nice trolley tour of the 1.5 mile loop through the beautiful, shaded compound.  Yes, riding the trolley was a bonus to my feet, but also, the trolley driver was wonderful - lots of stops and information about the area that we would have never known otherwise.

 It turned out that our trolley volunteer is also a fellow sailor, living on his boat here in the same marina.  He met with us (and a couple other sailors) yesterday in the marina's boater's lounge and was a real help in giving us local knowledge about the route between here and Miami.

 Boater's lounge - large, open, cool, filled with TV nooks, books for exchange, computer wifi and plug-ins, and a friendly helpful marina staff.  You often see the cruising kids doing their home-schooling homework together there.

Of course, other than socializing, we do like the Latitudes Lounge.  Look carefully and you'll see Sweet Smoke drowsing beside Luke.

Anyway, back to the park... LOTS of flowers, of course.  The beautiful Shaving Brush tree -

Crinkly black beads -

Vicious cactus, waiting innocently at the edge of the path...don't be misled, this guy is about 3 feet tall!

Sea Grapes at the water's edge -

All through the park, you will see Golden Silk Orb-Weaver spiders.  They are large - this one was about 3inches.  Very interesting spiders, though - read about them by clicking spiders

The nature center also has a bird habitat for injured birds.  Personally, I thought it was a bit of a sad site.

The Crane family bought this land in 1950 to both live here and to preserve some of Florida's natural land.  They built a home here, modern by those standards, using the natural breezes to cool the home.  Today it is impossible to enter the house.  Seems that the rebar used in the construction has rusted over the years, cracking the concrete home.

Here is the beautiful view of the FL Bay from the Crane house.

This portion of land was originally settled by a Bahamian, George Adderly, who came here in 1900. Remember the Adderly Plantation on Long Island in the Bahamas? The slaves often took the names of the British/Loyalist plantation owners. The home George built, the Adderly House, is the oldest house in the keys, outside of Key West.  It is built in the Bahamian fashion of using tabby (a mixture of oyster shells, water, and sand).  They lived here until 1949, when Mrs. Adderly died.  The land was then sold to the Cranes, who owned the land until it was sold to the FL Keys Land Trust in 1989.

George was apparently quite the entrepreneur, making a business of sponging, which he took to Key West to sell, a long 45 mile trip by boat.  When Flagler needed to bring his trans-FL railroad through George's property, an agreement was made giving Flagler his right of way in trade for a rail station on the property.  That enabled George to easily take his sponges to Key West.  Here are a few pictures of the interior of the 4 room house, as well as the detached kitchen.

It was stinkin' hot and sunny yesterday.  Last night a cold front blew through, bringing temporary high winds and rain, and now an overcast sky.  The temperature is only 73, a nice change.  No, you folks in Roanoke, please don't hate us ... we see that you're getting freezing rain today!