9th March 2014

We departed  Key West and headed north back up to Marathon Key. In the 1970’s there were only 2 ways out of here, either by car via the old US 1 highway across the extremely narrow 7 mile bridge or take a flight out with ‘Air Sunshine’ the only airline to service Key West.

During those years the bars in town would close about 10pm and instead of calling last orders the bartenders would call “last flight out” but the airport bar “The Conch Flyer” stayed open 24/7, so the party continued along with the flight crew.  As a consequence the plane rarely took off on schedule and the passengers had to extend their stay in paradise.  The story goes that there are still people here from the 70’s waiting for their last flight out.

We arrived at Marathon Key on the last day of the Seafood Festival a major event in these parts.

Live bands & a lobster hat

Conch fritters & beer

It was country music with a redneck flavour, the beer tent was a refrigerated truck with taps in the side of it (how cool is that) and the clean up crew were supplied courtesy of Monroe County Jail on day release.

Beer tent refrigerated truck

Clean up crew

Funny thing is, everyone is so friendly round here