MANGROVE, HAMMOCK, SEAGRASS

Lamar Louise Curry deeded one thousand one hundred and twelve and a half acres to the state on the tenth of September, 1991. What that bought was not one landscape but three, packed tight enough that you can walk through all of them in an afternoon.

The hammock

Tropical hardwood hammock is the dry high ground, such as high ground exists in the Keys. Gumbo limbo, mahogany, thatch palm. The Hammock Nature Trail runs about one point two miles through it and is shaded most of the way, which matters more than you would think in May.

The mangroves

Red, black and white mangrove hold the edges together and act as the nursery for most of what you later see swimming over the flats. They also filter the water, which is the first half of the answer to why the colour off the beach is what it is.

The seagrass

The second half. Seagrass beds stabilise the bottom so sediment stays put instead of clouding the water column. Waist deep, clear, turquoise, for a quarter mile out. That is not an accident of light, it is a functioning ecosystem doing its job underneath you while you ride over it.