Other Travel Pages: 6-12-08  7-10-08  7-17-08  7-24-08  8-7-08  8-14-08  8-28-08 
                                      9-11-08  10-9-08  11-13-08  12-4-08

Tranquility Bay Beach House Resort in Marathon features 87 two and three-bedroom conch-style townhomes and lovely views of Florida Bay with sandy beach and watersports. Coral Gables Gazette Travel Editor Charles Greenfield with 8-pound Mutton Snapper caught on SeaSquared Charters with Captain Chris  Johnson in Hawk's Channel off Marathon's Key Colony Beach.

Marathon’s Tranquility Bay and other treats By Charles Greenfield  cdgpm@bellsouth.net   Marathon and its Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys symbolize the mid-point beacon for travelers on the Overseas Highway. A crucial staging hub for building Henry Flagler’s great railroad adventure to Key West in the early 1900s, the town a decade ago had fallen a bit down on its luck as trendier locales like Islamorada and certainly Key West soared ahead in popularity and construction. With its more working class commercial frontage and relative shortage of historical structures, Marathon’s appeal had somewhat languished. But a brand new airport, highway widening and beautification, and a bevy of concealed attractions off U.S. 1 are propelling the town in a positive direction. Moreover, it has attracted large-scale resort projects.             I recently spent a few days exploring Marathon and discovered a strong sense of community and some hidden gems. Compared to Key West with its wealth of lush B&Bs and fancy resorts, Marathon’s accommodations remain mostly mom-and-pop with mixed results of care and neglect. But three years ago Key West developer Pritam Singh (Truman Annex, the Key West Golf Course, and the Village at Hawk’s Cay just north of Marathon) seized an opportunity to transform the area with a major transfusion of capital and clean designs. The result was Tranquility Bay Beach House Resort, located at Mile Marker 48.5 on Florida Bay with 87 two and three-bedroom beach town homes that display distinct Key West features like tin roofs, balconies, porches, wood trim facades, decorative railings, white picket fences and shutters. Says Singh: “We’re excited about our 12-acre resort, its sandy beachfront, and think it fits in beautifully with Marathon’s new direction.”             After a fresh fruit welcome drink and check-in with a view of the adjacent Butterfly Café, I walked past the rows of tin-roofed houses to my beach home overlooking Florida Bay. Inside, I was pleased with the fully stocked gold and gray countertop kitchen (dishwasher, Kenmore double-door fridge-freezer, microwave, coffeemaker, pots & pans, and glassware). A 42-inch plasma TV highlights the adjacent sitting room while upstairs the bedrooms contain a queen and two singles with full bathrooms. In-room amenities include: washer & dryer, WI-FI high-speed Internet access, premium cable TV service and DVD/CD stereo systems. Both levels boast attractive oversize porches for pleasant sunset views. Housekeeping and porter service is provided daily; handicap accessible units are also available.             While many resorts can be stingy in terms of their outside pool surroundings, Tranquility Bay has put some flair into their environment, outdoors activities and two heated pools. The shamrock-shaped lagoon style swimming pool has a gradual slope and is perfect for families or the individual lap swimmer. With its abundant landscaping of palms, wild oats, and white sand, the site makes a fine venue for wedding receptions and dining al fresco. Outdoors water sports on Sunset Beach next to the lagoon include: kayaks, paddlewheel crafts, Hobiecats, two motorboats, and diving trips. For snacks and drinks you can enjoy great bayside views from the adjacent TJ’s Tiki Bar. Front desk can arrange personalized fishing trips, boating, parasailing, eco-tours, and excursions to Pigeon Cay by ferry on Knight Key. In fact, Tranquility Bay and the Butterfly Café (horseradish encrusted grouper) are rated the #1 resort and restaurant in the Middle Keys by the consumer-generated TripAdvisor website.             Another member of Singh Hotels and Resorts in Marathon since last year is the Coral Lagoon Resort Boat House Marina on U.S. 1 at MM 53. Like Tranquility Bay it has won praise from TripAdvisor in their Florida Keys Specialty Lodging category as #1 in the Middle Keys. A full-service marina, dry boat storage, and wet slips for boats up to 25-feet lie adjacent to 25 Conch-style cottages and marina homes with pool, marina store, and boat rentals. Both  Singh resorts have courtesy exchanges in terms of certain amenities and billing. Their new Key West property at Parrot Key Resort contains 74 spacious one, two and three bedroom Conch-style beach homes on North Roosevelt Boulevard.             To start off my short adventure I decided to go out on a half-day fishing trip on the party boat Marathon Lady at MM 53 next to the Vaca Cut Bridge. With ample free parking off U.S. 1, the U.S. Coast Guard licensed and inspected 73-foot boat has been the recipient of the People’s Choice Award as “Best Party Boat” for 13 years. Captain Craig and his two young mates motor out just offshore and fish the shallow reefs in 30 to 100 feet of water. After a quick troll for mackerel we “breach” anchored against the strong current by securing the bottom with the chain against the side of the boat rather than the usual forward bow position. After catching a few throwback grunts we chummed and drew up some keeper-size yellowtail by free-lining our spinning reels in the current. Back at the dock the mates filleted them at three fish for a dollar.             After returning to Tranquility Bay I walked next door to visit The Turtle Hospital, a rescue/rehabilitation center started in 1986 by Richie Moretti who came to Marathon to retire after owning one of the country’s largest Volkswagen repair garages. The once topless dance bar “Fanny’s” is now the only state certified veterinary hospital for sea turtles in the world. In the spotless stainless steel equipped rooms Loggerhead, Green, Hawksbill and Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles are x-rayed, receive flipper amputations due to fishing line or rope entanglements, are treated for intestinal impactions (plastic bags, e.g.) and laser operated for viral tumors or fibropapilloma. A rehabilitation center on the bayfront contains a 100,000 gallon salt water tidal pool and 19 individual tanks. Since their inception the hospital has released over 750 sea turtles. Once a food source in the Keys, the endangered animals are protected. Boaters are strongly urged to report injured species to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission. Donations to the Turtle Hospital are gratefully accepted.             After a cup of excellent Italian “Illy” coffee and a fresh cappuccino muffin next door at Cristiano’s Café & Catering, I returned to the resort and then drove to an original Henry Flagler railroad car housing the Pigeon Key Visitor Center and Gift Shop on Knight Key. From there you can take a ferry to Pigeon Key just two miles west or walk or bike over on the Old Seven Mile Bridge. In a fascinating booklet by Dan Gallagher, Marathon: Heart of the Key West Extension (sold at the Greater Marathon Chamber of Commerce, MM 53), the author describes the transformation of Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway from the mangroves of Key Vaca, Knight’s Key and Boot Key Harbor into a terminus and seaport for the first leg of the railroad. The climax of the building frenzy was the monumental Seven Mile Bridge (1908-12), an engineering miracle of 546 concrete piers, two miles of 35-foot spandrel arches, and the Moser Channel Draw Span, the great 253-foot long rotating swing bridge that I remember driving through as a teenager.             I explored Pigeon Key, one of Florida’s most fascinating historical sites. Here remain the original worker barracks and mess hall called the Old Section Gang Quarters, the Negro Quarters for the island’s cooks, the Bridge Foreman’s House, the Assistant Bridge Tender’s House and the Pigeon Key Museum with memorabilia and intriguing photos. Walk around the tiny island and imagine a miniature village of over 400 laborers struggling to build at the time the world’s longest over-water bridge. Surrounded by the astounding turquoise of Atlantic and Gulf waters, home to Florida’s great spring tarpon run, Pigeon Key radiates pure delight, even to the blue underside and track/railing of the old bridge and its original German-designed cement piers supporting the trussel.             That night it was dinner at the Castaway Waterfront Restaurant & Sushi Bar, a popular local seafood eatery located at MM 47.8 next to Pancho’s Fuel Dock on a small harbor canal that leads out to the Atlantic and Sombrero Lighthouse. Owners John and Arlene Mirabella met in California, sailed to Marathon, loved the laid-back atmosphere and decided to buy the original Castaway Restaurant, founded in 1951 and the oldest seafood restaurant on the island (famous for its “shrimp steamed in beer with seconds on the house.”) After a near-disaster in June 2007 when the original dining room floor collapsed into the water (fortunately, no one was hurt), the attractive $800,000 renovation now includes a solid new foundation and deck, two giant sports bar TVs, aquariums, Marathon’s “favorite” sushi bar, expanded kitchen, and even eponymous tee-shirts.             More important, their seafood menu is perhaps the most extensive in town - fresh oysters, clams, ceviche, shrimp, crab cake, calamari, kani su (crab and cucumber), conch, tuna tataki, chowder, lobster bisque, fried shrimp, sautéed scallops, mussels and linguini, broiled Florida lobster, and even Alligator tail and escargot. I tried some very tasty house specials like their snapper Mazatlan (white wine cream basil sauce), stuffed hogfish (panko breadcrumbs stuffed with shrimp and scallops), deepwater queen snapper with lemon and capers, and an excellent prime rib slow roasted in their Alto-Shaam’s combination oven/steamer/smoker. Besides sashimi tuna, hamashi yellowtail, nigiri or mori dinners, sushi lovers will enjoy their Big Jay Roll with crab, cream cheese, avocado, and masago topped with freshwater eel.             The next morning I left Tranquility Bay to spend a half-day fishing with Captain Chris Johnson of SeaSquared Charters one mile off U.S. 1 at MM 53.5 Oceanside in Key Colony Beach in the KCB marina next to Sparky’s Landing Fish n Cocktails (Wednesdays, all-you-can-eat fried grouper). Captain Chris’s 2003 28-foot Parker Center Console Blue Water Edition with twin Yamaha 225 4-stroke engines tops off at 35 m.p.h. and will handle up to six anglers. Since the Gulfstream was flowing unseasonably close on the outer reefs that morning, Capt. Chris said we couldn’t fish for mutton snapper on the deep wrecks since “they wouldn’t even catch up with the baits speeding past them on a two knot current.” Instead, he suggested we try patch reefs in Hawk’s Channel, the main waterway for boaters that runs up and down the Florida Keys between the deeper reefs and shoreline. For the next few hours we had a terrific time with fresh shrimp on jig heads spin tackling for small lane snapper, mangroves, yellowtail, jacks, and even a pesky barracuda who ate several of our fish.             A native of New Jersey and its ocean fishing (yellow-fin tuna, mako sharks, golden tile, stripers) since he was a teenager, Capt. Chris possesses the perfect gift for instruction and advice combined with some funny “got away” fish stories. With his wife Christy (“SeaSquared” is a pun) he also writes fishing reports for the Florida Keys version of Coastal Angler Magazine and specializes in 50-mile Gulf trips to wrecks off Marathon for 25 to 50-pound cobia, small gag grouper and goliath grouper (endangered species-release only!). At our last patch reef I had nearly given up my quest for my beloved mutton snapper until a solid bite and hefty tug soon revealed a lovely 8-pound pink specimen. I can only imagine some of Capt. Chris’s secret wreck sites on days when the current is fishable.             On my way home from Marathon I stopped just north on Grassy Key at MM 59 at the Aqua Ranch, a hidden deep-water quarry on the side of the road in a 52-acre mangrove-enclosed expanse. Here, an eco-business in aquaculture had just started a hatchery with cobia fingerlings and offers snorkeling with large cobia, mutton snapper, canoe and kayak rentals, and even delivers shark feedings. It was just a start-off enterprise with some feeding stations trying to rejuvenate an old, unused deep-water quarry. But in the unvarnished, laid-back surroundings of Marathon it exhibits just the quirky charm I have come to admire in the gradual and inevitable commercialization of the Florida Keys.   Charles Greenfield is a Miami-based travel writer who has contributed to Travel & Leisure and regional magazines. As Travel Editor of the Coral Gables Gazette, he specializes in luxury travel on Europe, Asia/Africa, the Caribbean and the U.S. He won the prestigious Cacique Award 2000 for International Consumer Travel Writing from the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism. He also is Cultural Arts Contributor to WLRN 91.3 FM, South Florida’s NPR affiliate.     If you go   ACCOMMODATIONS: Tranquility Bay Beach House Resort, 2600 Overseas Highway, Marathon, 1-866-643-5397 or 305-289-0888 (www.tranquilitybay.com), two- bedroom townhouses can sleep two couples, rates start at $450 (peak season: Feb-April), May rates start at $399, two-bedroom water view; Coral Lagoon Boat House Resort Marina, Marathon, $400 (high season); Parrot Key Resort, Key West, $529 (high season);   RESTAURANTS: Cristiano’s Café & Catering, 305-289-3333 (www.cristianocafe.com), moderate; Castaway Waterfront Restaurant & Sushi Bar, (look for old sign on Atlantic side of 15th street), 305-743-6247, moderate; Sparky’s Landing Fish n Cocktails, 305-289-7445 (www.sparkyslanding.com), moderate;   ATTRACTIONS: The Turtle Hospital, 2396 Overseas Highway, 305-743-2552 (www.theturtlehospital.org), tours @ 10am, 1pm, 4pm, $15, adults, $7.50, children (4-12), report injured sea turtles to the FWCC’s Wildlife Alert phone # 1-888-404-3922; Pigeon Key Visitor Center and Gift Shop (FEC Railroad car), Knight Key, 305-743-5999, transport by ferry boat, adults, $11, discount for children, hours: 10am 11:30am, 1pm, 2:30pm, two hrs. duration – same charge for biking or walking on original Overseas Bridge to island and museum exhibits; Aqua Ranch, Grassy Key, 305-743-6135 (www.marathonaquaranch.com), feed and snorkel with fish in an aquaculture environment;    FISHING: Marathon Lady, 305-743-5580 (www.fishfloridakeys.com/marathonlady), morning trip, 8:30am-12:30pm, afternoon, 1:30pm-5:30pm, $45, rod rental, $5, all fares include bait and temporary fishing license, special children’s rate, cold drinks available on board; SeaSquared Charters (Captain Chris Johnson), MM53.5, Key Colony Beach, KCB Marina, 305-743-5305 (www.seasquaredcharters.com), Capt. Chris specializes in family fun fishing, Gulf trips for cobia and gag grouper, reef and deep wreck fishing, rates: $600, ½ day (4 hours), $650+fuel, ¾ day (6 hrs.), $750+fuel, full day (8 hrs.), prices cover all fishing licenses, bait, tackle, rods & reels, ice and fish cleaning, and Capt. Chris will facilitate split charters when possible;   TOURISM: Greater Marathon Chamber of Commerce, 305-743-5417 (www.floridakeysmarathon.com), try their useful website for general information.