Around Key Largo Campground

The whole of Florida is more or less flat, and the Keys are even flatter with a highest point of 16ft above sea level. The sea is therefore accessible from almost every part of this narrow chain of islands. Building developers have used this to construct many housing estates where each house backs onto an artificial canal that then leads to the open sea. So each habitation has a boat mooring.  

Unsurprisingly, boating activities predominate throughout the Keys: fishing, scuba diving, snorkeling, canoeing and pleasure boating, for tourists and residents. And that’s not including the smugglers! On that theme, drugs are clearly a local problem, as this notice on a park near our campsite shows.

Using a perverse logic- does it mean that drugs are allowed in parks where these signs are absent?

Residents we talk to say it's Paradise here- so it is, but at a cost. Any residential or other developments have first to clear the mangrove swamp and drain the soil. Mangrove swamps appear impenetrable, as the photo shows, so clearance is expensive. 

Paradise also has mosquitoes. Without mosquito control, most of the Keys would be uninhabitable. The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District employs 75 inspectors who visit all properties four times a year looking for any stagnant water sources where mosquitoes might breed. There is also an active spraying programme. Several mornings we heard an aircraft flying back and forth in a grid pattern, spraying the whole area. The number of mosquitoes was noticeably reduced thereafter.

The next issue is hurricanes. We’ve had very little wind, but the rain is a deluge when it occurs. This is something unusual to us Brits. It’s difficult to capture on camera, but here goes. A full-on hurricane is something way beyond this of course.

It’s not all top-end, modern housing either; there are many poorer dwellings like the one for sale below.

Our daily walk takes us first to the main road, which has a wide cycle and pedestrian path, before we turn off into side roads. The main road here is busy, being the one through-road serving the Keys.

There’s an indoor/outdoor market, just off the main road, featuring quirky stalls as shown underneath. We’re thinking of buying the buffalo head as a Christmas gift for someone. You’ll have to hope that someone isn’t you.