Pigeon Key

During this past week Captain Keith continued to fish and has taken a particular interest in fishing for the Black Tipped Sharks that are in the area.  He is finding new rigs, leaders, and better ways to have fewer of them snap the line for him.  Stay tuned for updates about the shark fishing in future posts.  We did have a very nice surf and turf dinner thanks to Keith's brother Scot Mackey who sent us NJ scallops for Christmas.

Our steak and scallop dinner

Our excursion for this week was a trip to Pigeon Key.  This is a small island just southwest of Marathon.  It is only about 5 acres, but it has several historic buildings as well as one that has been made onto a museum.  This small island was one of over 80 camps for workers that built the Florida East Coast Railway in the early 1900s.  This railway was a project financed by Henry Flagler (part owner of Standard Oil).  The railway when completed allowed train traffic from the mainland of Florida and east coast to connect all the way to Key West.  Many ships coming from Cuba as well as through the newly finished Panama Canal could on/off load freight to trains in Key West to be distributed to the rest of the United States.  The 7 mile bridge is located here at Pigeon Key.  It is the longest bridge of the project. At the time this bridge was called the "8th Wonder of the World".  During the period between 1908-1912 as many as 400 men were stationed at Pigeon Key working to build the railway.  Today along with the restored buildings and museum, school groups can come for several days at a time to study marine sciences.

View of Pigeon Key from the tour boat that took us over to the Island

The original 7 mile bridge is on the right and the new bridge completed in 1989 is to the left.  The original bridge was changed to auto traffic in the 1930's and was only 22 feet wide for two lanes of traffic.

Closer view of part of the old bridge

Ramp onto the old bridge is currently closed as repairs are made.  Normally the old 7 mile bridge is open to pedestrian and bicycle traffic, however repairs will not be completed until 2021. (Bummer)

The original concrete is still present.  They have added reinforcing belts to some of the pilings.

Some of the restored buildings on Pigeon Key

Our trip to Pigeon Key was very interesting.  Like many of the islands in the keys it has quite a colorful past.

The remainder of the week was uneventful aside from a visitor in our neighbors dinghy.  Tom and Sue had this cutie show up one morning. Guess he was looking for some faster transportation than his short lizard legs.