Our week-long trip to South Florida went very well, with plenty of sunshine, an unexpected prize-winning, and some home-renovations...

It started off in Tequesta (near Jupiter) where we stayed with our lovely British friend, Sue, for three very relaxing nights. On Pie Day (actually Pi Day because in American - month first - the date was 3.14), Randall and I visited Blowing Rocks State Park before Randall had a pot-pie for lunch. We tried to get the latter on a special coupon that he had found online, only to find that it was last year's coupon but the restaurant had a similar offer this year so they kindly honored it for us.



Waves recede over the rocky ledge at Blowing Rocks State Park

The following day, Jerry had returned overnight from a business trip and Sue took a day off from work so that she and I could enjoy the beautiful, tropical blues of the ocean at MacArthur Beach State Park. It was still a little cool for swimming but we enjoyed walking along the beach.



Sue at MacArthur Beach State Park

We felt that we deserved a nice relaxed beach-walk because we had started the day with a 5K run around her neighborhood at a fairly good pace. On learning that I was still using the basic stopwatch-function on my cheap Timex watch to monitor my running, Jerry very kindly gave me his Garmin watch which not only tracks my running route, distance, and rate by GPS, but also has a heartrate monitor. Jerry had upgraded to an i-watch and saw no point in keeping the Garmin watch unused in his desk drawer. I do not wear it all the time (unlike many of my friends with Fitbits and similar devices) but it really has helped to motivate me to improve the pacing of my runs

To thank Jerry, I got him a bottle of whisky as he is a great fan of the Scottish malts. I selected a bottle from the Glenfarclas Distillery that Randall and I visited in Scotland in 2016 and in exchange for that, Jerry invited us to sample some of the whiskies from his collection of favorites. He had some very good ones in fancy bottles and it felt as though we were ending the evening in the Highlands...but much warmer.

While in the area, we also enjoyed catching-up with our friends Dan and Marilyn. They had moved back to Jupiter after living in Gainesville for a few months, which was where we had last seen them in 2016. On heading further south into the Florida Keys, we also met-up with Sue from SV Serengeti at the weekly Seven Seas Cruising Club lunch on Marathon Key. After enjoying chatting with a couple from Bermuda there (and warning them that we might actually show-up there at some point in the future), we visited the house to which Sue and Larry had returned from Tonga in September. They had needed to clean-up and renovate parts of the house that had been flooded during Hurricane Irma. Larry had just returned to New Zealand, while Sue was taking-over the daily support of Larry's ailing father.



Serengeti Sue outside the Marathon Key house where she had been staying with her father-in-law

Before arriving at our final destination of Little Torch Key, we had stopped at the head-office of Reef.org, the Reef Environmental Education Foundation. A fellow cruiser had told us about this organization and how they use "citizen science" in the form of amateur surveys of reef fish to compile a big database of fish distributions around the world. I would like to try to incorporate these surveys into our snorkeling activities as we travel through the tropics so it was very encouraging to talk to the people at the office and buy the appropriate species checklists for the areas that we will be visiting.

As we drove further south into the lower half of the Keys, the damage from Hurricane Irma became increasingly obvious. As a category 5 storm, Irma had ravaged the northern Caribbean islands, including Barbuda, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Saint Marteen, Anguilla, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, southern Bahamas, and Cuba, many of which were devastated again by Hurricane Maria just two weeks later. By September 10th, Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys as a category 4 storm. There were mandatory evacuations throughout the Keys, with about 75% of the population complying, and a total of about 6.5 million people evacuated their homes in Florida. After crossing the Keys, the now category 3 storm made another landfall at Marco Key (SW mainland peninsular) and headed north just inland of Florida's west coast. The storm directly caused 33 deaths with another 105 indirect deaths and almost $65 billion in damages.



Trashed and missing (left) houses from Dan and Kathy's neighborhood

Irma's winds peaked at 180 mph (285 kph) in the Atlantic but even by the time it reached the Keys (having diminished slightly over Cuba), sustained winds of 130 mph and gusts of 160 mph (208 and 256 kph) were recorded. In addition to this onslaught of high winds, which were estimated to last for 12 hours as they passed over Big Pine, Little Torch, and Cudjoe Keys, the storm surge submerged many islands. Our destination, Little Torch Key, had the highest recorded flooding of almost 5.5 feet (1.7 m) above ground level (several more feet above normal sea level). Thus, the ground floor of more or less every building was flooded and the advantage of the new-code stilt-design of house, with no living quarters on the ground floor was immediately obvious.

Also obvious, even six months later, was all the vegetation that had been flooded with saltwater and from which leaves and branches had been stripped. Some species had started to recover quite well but there were also long stretches of highway and whole islets where the trees and shrubs were still brown and little more than a pile of dead sticks.



A ravaged but re-budding Norfolk Island pine on Big Pine Key compared to...



A healthy Norfolk Island Pine at Waitangi, New Zealand

Incredibly, the lovely canal-side house on Little Torch Key of our hosts, Dan and Kathy, had survived the onslaught with relatively little damage. Their dock had needed some repair, the screens on the upper level porch had to be replaced, and there was plenty of cleaning to be done outside and in the ground-level storage room. They surmised that the large bay-front house that would have been upwind of the predominant winds somewhat protected their home but having made good preparations and keeping their house well-maintained must have also been important.

Many of their neighbors were not so lucky and initially, one out of three houses had been condemned as unfit to live in. Of these, some had been repaired (new roofs, siding, windows, etc.), some awaited repair (dealing with insurance claims and lack of available building contractors), and others had been abandoned or demolished. On the whole, with the removal of the debris piles, the area looked better than I had expected, but closer inspection revealed many signs of the widespread damage. Of course, if this was what a category 4 storm could do in relatively affluent communities, it was heartbreaking to think how much suffering must have been caused by Irma and Maria when they hit the Caribbean islands as category 5 storms.

Dan and Kathy had evacuated further north and by the time they returned, power had been restored and their clean-up job was manageable. People who had chosen not to evacuate, had to contend for days without power and freshwater, with blocked roads, no shops, and trying living in homes that might no longer be safe or waterproof. With the disproportionate loss of houses for lower-income residents, there are remarkably few hourly-paid workers in the area, and this adds to the delays of getting things repaired. With the prospect of many of the Keys being partly or fully submerged by 2100, the long-term viability of the islands must be in question but new condos and hotels are still being built with gusto.

Rather surprisingly, the endangered Key deer (limited to Big Pine and surrounding Keys), generally survived the hurricane quite well. There were some fatalities and their habitat is certainly damaged but overall they have recovered. Dan is manager of the Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuges Complex (which includes Crocodile Lake NWR, National Key Deer Refuge, Great White Heron NWR, and Key West NWR) so he had a detailed knowledge of how the hurricane had influenced the wildlife.

We also arrived the night before the Florida Keys NWR annual Outdoor Fest which including a 5K run. I have never entered a running race before (the weekly Parkruns are specifically not races but opportunities for personal improvement) but I had been planning to go for a run anyway, so I entered. And, much to my surprise (unlike my usual placement in the Whangarei Parkrun), I won my age-class Women 50-59! With Randall and Dan watching it was really cool, and I got to see a Key deer just off the route.



Alison (wearing her Garmin watch) with her 5K tee-shirt and "medal" for winning her age class

Kathy and Dan were in the middle of making major renovations to their kitchen and dining area (as in there was a stove, fridge, and sink but everything else was on the screened porch). Somewhat to their surprise, Randall was keen to help with taping and plastering the drywall while Kathy and I assembled the three cabinets for the new island.

Sunday was Dan's birthday so after a second round of plastering and taping, they launched their sport-fishing boat and we cruised north to the Content Keys. It was a little cool to spend much time swimming but it was beautifully sunny and the water was gloriously clear. It was great to hang-out on the boat with Kathy and Dan and to see so much of the more remote parts of the National Wildlife Refuges. There were plenty of great white herons and ospreys nesting and roosting on the smaller islands but the mangroves and other trees were still mostly stripped of their leaves. Thus, it was very strange to see these islands predominantly brown in color rather than evergreen.



Kathy and Dan as they launch their boat in the canal by their house

After bidding Kathy and Dan and the Keys farewell, we spent the night before returning to Gainesville with Michael near Groveland. It was a pleasure to catch-up with Michael's news and we were amazed at how much Wendy's cuddly little puppy Ridley had grown in 18 months. He is now a large, well-muscled pit-bull but still as energetic and keen to play as ever. Just be sure to get out of the way if he is running full-tilt.



Michael watches the rambunctious no-longer-a-puppy-Ridley with his oversized stick

Our return to Gainesville was very brief, allowing us just enough time to repack our bags (swapping beachwear for snow-clothes) and for Randall to get the stitches taken out of his nose at the dermatologist. We then started to scurry south, trying to stay ahead of some nasty thunderstorm cells that we could track on the weather radar on our phone. With reports from the previous day of torrential rain, small tornadoes, and baseball-sized hail, we were keen not to expose Katie's car to any of the cells sweeping off the Gulf of Mexico. By stopping for about 45 minutes in Wildwood, we saw the dark clouds move over I75 behind us, while we waited for the bad weather ahead of us to move to the east of the turnpike. There was a major downpour while we ate dinner in Orlando but we were thankful that we managed to avoid any damaging conditions. We were also glad that we had arranged for an overnight stay in Orlando so that we would be well-rested and ready for our early flight to Denver the next day.