Chocolate for Valentine's Day

Chocolate is perfect for Valentine's Day, so we visited The World of Chocolate. On the tour, our guide gave us background information about the cacao plant. Did you know cacao is a fruit? Yep. So now you can feel good about eating chocolate...getting your fruit servings in.

He told us chocolate was for the rich back in the day. Queen Anne of France is reported to have drank 8-12 glasses of hot chocolate every day. Maybe it's how she was able to double her life span.

We saw these machines. The first looks like a giant kitchenaid mixer. The second is used to coat the candy like in I Love Lucy. The round one was used for putting chocolate coating on things like M&Ms.

Then we got to see these world landmarks made from chocolate. All of these were made in Austria. The Eiffel Tower broke when they moved buildings last year.

Finally, the best part, was tasting different kinds of chocolate bars. We also had a little hot chocolate.

Busch Wildlife Sanctuary

The Busch Wildlife Sanctuary in Jupiter, Florida is a non-profit organization working to protect Florida's wildlife. It is a nature center and a wildlife hospital. They also have education programs, such as the Jr. Naturalist program.

Here are some of the animals we saw at the sanctuary.

Outside the hospital, there were these tubs with babies in them. Each tub, the babies got a little bit bigger.

A few more animals...

And more...

This is my favorite picture of the day.

We attended the Animal Encounter program. The junior naturalists presented info on different animals and then walked around with that animal for us to see up close.  Be still my teacher heart....it was so cute.

A variety of snakes.

Opposum, skunk, American Kestrel, and Screech Owl.

I loved this little girl's reaction.

This poor guy got himself in a tough spot and had to be helped.

Bloodline

Any fans of the Netflix original series Bloodline? We are. So while in the Florida Keys we went searching for some of the filming locations.

Bloodline is the story of the Rayburn family who live in Islamorada. It stars Sissy Spacek (momma Rayburn), Sam Shepard (poppa Rayburn), Ben Mendelsohn (Danny Rayburn), Kyle Chandler (John Rayburn), Norbert Leo Butz (Kevin Rayburn) and Linda Cardellini (Meg Rayburn), along with a cast of others. Without revealing too much...Danny returns home after a long absence and secrets, lies and bad things start to happen within the Rayburn family. In other words, good people do bad things.

At Hooked on Books in Islamorada, I found this book.  A Local's Guide to Bloodline-50 Famous Film Locations in the Florida Keys (Tour book and Location Guide) by Brad Bertelli and David Sloan. Both authors are local residents.

They organized their book starting in the Upper Keys and working south, with a picture, address, information about the scene, any behind the scene info they had, how to get there and when it was first featured. Here is an example of how the pages are set up.  It was so easy to read and follow.

They also included some other trivial tidbits. This is one of my favorite tidbits.

So without revealing too much about the plot, here are some pictures from my favorite scenes in Bloodline.

 Morada Bay Beach Cafe...Danny shows up here instead of going to Key West.

 Abel's Tackle Box...not a real bus stop but this is the bus stop in the show. John was waiting here for Danny, who was a no show.

 Stoneledge Paradise Inn- This is the Red Reef Inn that is used for a hideout for both Danny and Eric O'Bannon.

 Vaughan Business Building-houses the office for John Rayburn's election headquarters.

 Pier at The Islander Hotel- the Rayburn Pier

 Tackle Center of Islamorada-Wayne Lowery's tackle shop.

Long Key State Park-location where tensions between Danny and John come to a high point.

I really wanted to see the Rayburn Hotel (Moorings Village) but it is a private secluded resort with no access.

If you haven't watched it, season 1-2 are on Netflix. We are awaiting season 3 which is rumored to be the final season.

The Turtle Hospital

Today I visited the Turtle Hospital in Marathon, Florida. The hospital opened in 1986 in an abandoned motel. They use the rooms for offices and surgery and care spaces. The motel had a saltwater pool that is still being used today. There are also many individual tanks used when turtles need to be isolated. This place is one of a few state or federal agencies that rehabilitate injured sea turtles. The hospital has up to date medical equipment and can perform surgery on different species and sizes of turtles. On average the hospital receives about 70 injured sea turtles a year. To date they have released more than 1200 sea turtles. They have their own ambulance for transporting sea turtles.

These are their four main goals outlined in their brochure.
1. Rehabilitate sick or injured sea turtles and return them to the wild.
2. Educate the public through outreach programs.
3. Conduct and assist with sea turtle research in conjunction with state universities.
4. Work with environmental legislation to make the beaches and water safe and clean for sea turtles.

There are seven species of sea turtles but only five are found in the Keys.

Loggerhead- eats shrimp, lobster, conch and can weigh more than 300 pounds; is the most common sea turtle found in Florida waters; are a threatened species

Green-eats sea grasses and can weigh up to 500 pounds; an endangered species

Hawksbill-eats sponges and can weigh up to 150 pounds, hawk like beak; an endangered species

Leatherback-eats mainly jellyfish and can weigh up to 2000 pounds; an endangered species

Kemps Ridley-eats crabs and shrimp and can weigh up to 100 pounds; named after a Key West fisherman; an endangered species

The hospital works to treat a variety of issues such as flipper amputations caused by entanglement in trap lines or fishing lines; shell damage caused by boat collisions; intestinal issues caused by ingestion of materials such as balloons or plastic bags. They also help with disoriented hatchlings. The most common surgery is to remove viral tumors called Fibropapilloma. These tumors affect over half of all juvenile green sea turtles in the Florida Keys and most green sea turtles around the world.  We saw some turtles with these tumors at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium as well.

 The turtle on top left was hit by boat and has air in his shell causing bubble butt syndrome and that causes trouble with buoyancy.That is a hatchling on top right. The flipper in the bottom picture was tangled in fishing line and will be amputated later today.

The Turtle on the right has weights attached to help with buoyancy.

The hospital staff works with schools and classes to educate kids about sea turtles and what the hospital does.  If you are a teacher, you can go to their website: www.theturtlehospital.org
You can contact the staff about doing a free skype session with your class. You can also adopt one of their permanent residents for $35 a year.

This kind of place is so interesting and I love that they are rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing sea turtles when possible.

The Florida Keys...

Immediately following our cruise we spent a week in the Florida Keys. We rented a lovely condo in Marathon in the middle of the Keys.
On our way to Marathon we stopped in Key Largo at the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. We had a little picnic lunch. While we lunched we had a visitor. This squirrel came right up on the table and got very close to our food. I believe had I held still long enough he would have stolen a potato chip. He was really not afraid at all. Unfortunately that means people have been feeding him.

After our lunch LW and I decided to try kayaking. Neither of us has done this before. We rented a double kayak and got some instructions about which trail to take and set out with a map. The map however did little to prevent us from making a few wrong turns and at one point getting stuck in a mangrove tunnel, in which we had to make a forced turn around.

But the most exciting thing (dangerous), was when we were almost run over by a yacht. I was in the front of the kayak and LW had been reminding me: use the left oar to go right, use the right oar to go left.  Ok I get it.  We were just coasting along no big problems when we saw this yacht coming towards us. I suggested we move to the left to get out of its way. LW started rowing with his LEFT oar....this was making us go to the right headed straight for the path of the yacht. By the time he realized it, and we started rowing with the right oar, we barely missed the tail end of the yacht.

On Tuesday we spent the day at Sombrero Beach in Marathon. The high temperature was around 86. Besides the weather, the water and the sun, it was a fun day people watching. I especially loved watching these three young girls from Argentina. Not sure of their ages but I overhead one say she was 19 and they were here for 3 months doing something. Here they are near the waters edge but mostly they just laid or sat on the beach talking in Spanish to each other.

I loved watching all the guys as they walked past these girls.  Some didn't even look, others glanced their way and still others couldn't tear their eyes away. This guy walked past them, staring, several times and then found this spot to sit where he continued to look at them from a distance.

This guy was braver. He walked by, waved and then came back and plopped down beside them. He immediately introduced himself. They told him their names, with heavy accents. He said something about their names sounding European. One of the girls corrected him and said they were from Argentina. He asked their ages, what they were doing here and told them they looked great. BTW, he was from Indiana, here visiting his father and much older than them. They were way out of his league. He tried hard to keep a conversation going and the girls were polite but clearly not interested. They continued to talk in Spanish amongst themselves. I almost wanted to help them by intervening with an offer like "it's time to go girls." Eventually they told him they had to leave, they gathered their things and walked off the beach.

The only bad thing about this beach was every now and then you would see a Portuguese man o war floating in the water.

Wednesday we went to Key West. Had lunch at Island Dog Bar and tried conch fritters. Not my favorite.

Then we spent a few hours on Smathers Beach in Key West. Seeing this man and his bathing suit, I tried to convince LW we should get one for him to wear but he wasn't interested.  Ha! Ha!

People are so much fun to watch!

Cruise Finale

Back to the port of Miami this morning to end our cruise. Just a few more pictures of our fun.
In the words of our cruise director, MarQ...
Ciao ciao but just for now.

 Our nightly towel animals made by our room steward.

 LW won a ship on a stick for sports trivia. Actually he won two of them. We played a lot of bingo but did not win.

I think LW and I should dress like this couple we saw on the last night of the cruise.
The second picture isn't great but some of the crew was in a meeting  being trained on emergencies. Professional development on a cruise.
Sun rising over Miami this morning.

Beautiful Grand Turk

Our last port of call was on Friday. We arrived in Grand Turk of Turks and Caicos. I had heard that the public beach was right by the pier so we decided that was our destination for the day. Sure enough it was and there were chairs with umbrellas to use. We spent several hours here in the beautiful clear water. We also tried a little snorkeling again.

After lunch at Margaritaville , we moved over to the pool area and spent the afternoon there before doing a little shopping.

There is a small outdoor museum or memorial to John Glenn here. This is the first place  they brought him after Friendship 7 reentered and landed in the Caribbean.

This port was obviously created for cruise ships but it was a gorgeous place.

Saturday we are all day at sea before arriving back in Miami on Sunday morning. Till then...