We were heading to KEY WEST! We were coming in by cruise ship this time as well. I have not been to Key West since the late 80's/early 90's (I can't remember which cruise it was but my oldest children were all little). I imagine things have probably changed a lot and actually the only thing I can remember is walking down a cute little street with shops and it subjected me to my first experience of the Del Sol products that changes colors in the sun. I thought it was so neat. Then I remember seeing a bunch of wind chimes for sale as well. Other than that, I believe that's all we did while in port and just hung out and ate until after sunset (we stayed late back then and it was dark out when you had to get back on the ship).

We took an Uber from the cruise port to Fort Zachary Taylor Beach.

We stopped to pay our admission price (which online it said that it was $2.50/pp but they only charged us $2/pp for some reason) and then I noticed they had a pop machine right beside it. WONERFUL! We had to stop and load up at $3.00 a bottle. Then we were headed down the sidewalk to the beach.

I have to say, it was quite a walk from the gates. You went by several different parking lots and trails as well. It was kinda confusing on which way we were supposed to head to get to the beach. But, eventually we would find a sign.

We finally made it out to the beach area (at least one of them).

They were doing work in some areas and bringing in loads of sand to make it soft and those areas were blocked off. There is plenty of shade to put things under and stay out of the sun as well if you wanted to. They had multiple picnic tables to sit at too. We like staying down by the water so just brought our things down with us. We could keep an eye out on our things that way as well.

Now the water is not your crystal clear Caribbean blue water. It was cloudy the day we were there and there was just no way you would be able to see anything snorkeling. Maybe it's clearer on other days? Or maybe you had to go out around the rocks to see anything? Either way, the waves were a little too rough for my comfort to attempt it. So, we just hung out on the beach and in the water most of the time.

The hubby went over to check out some of the rocky areas and Sakari went after him and said she wanted to take his picture. It's funny because she is usually the one posing for these pictures but this time she didn't want to.

The beach area down by the water is nothing but shells and rocks. We ended up finding quite a few cute shells and a few pieces of sea glass. Then there's a slope to climb up to the sandy part of the beach. I will mention that there are a lot of rocks in the water as well and you have to get out a ways to get to sand. If you have water shoes, I would suggest bringing them for this beach.

We stayed there for several hours just sifting through the shells and then swimming in the water and cooling off.

It was a beautiful day out and it would be the real first day we actually got some sun on this vacation.

There was some type of black bird that sat on this post the entire time we were there. He just watched everyone. New life guard for the area?

Yes, the water was cold...but not as cold as on our Mexican Riviera cruise. It took awhile to get Karl to come out and he would run back with each wave.

Eventually he made it out. Once you got out in the water, you got used to it and it wasn't a problem. Even after you would get out for awhile and back in, it still didn't feel as cold as it did at first. It was very refreshing.

We watched the air force jets fly over all day. I don't know if they were patrolling or practicing.

Such a beautiful day....That is until a really big wave came up, went up the hill, and decided to get our bag wet and steal some of our shoes. After that, we decided to pack up and head down the beach to see what it was like.

We found this to be the "happening" area where most people were hanging out. You could rent umbrella's down here, there were restrooms, an outdoor shower to rinse off at and a restaurant.

There were several White Ibis birds in the area walking around. Most of them were juvenile and still had the brown on them.

Although there were 4 outdoor showers, only one worked and it didn't spray out a lot to begin with.

So obviously Miami is 132 miles from Key West. Good to know.

Here's a short video of our walk there (mostly covered/tree lined) and the main area.