Egmont Key, Florida

Monday, August 4, 2014


The brochure for the trip to Egmont Key was full of warnings.  One of those warnings stated "This trip is for agile people without physical limitations."  Egmont Key is actually a Florida State Park and it's only accessible by boat and has no inhabitants, except the wild life and a ranger station.  There are no facilities on the Key, and if you get hurt, a helicopter may be sent to rescue you at your own expense.  This had me a little concerned because if there is any way for me to hurt myself, I will certainly find it!  One other warning you should all take notice of is "clothing must be worn on the ferry and on the island."  One can only imagine why that warning was listed!

Egmont Key is just a few miles from the mouth of Tampa Bay, and was an important defense position when the Spanish American war began in 1898.  Fort Dade was built on Egmont Key, and Fort DeSoto was built on Mullet with both forts commanding a strategic position guarding the northern entrance to Tampa Bay.

Egmont Key has many things to see.  There's a light house that is still in operation, ruins of several gun batteries of Fort Dade, beautiful beaches, lots of shells, the remains of an old mine wharf facility, turtles, and a large bird sanctuary.  It's also a great place for snorkeling around some of Fort Dade ruins that were swallowed up by the Gulf of Mexico.

It's time to board the ferry that will take us across the shipping channel and drop us on Egmont Key.

Our ferry departed from the south shores of Fort DeSoto Park.

As we approached Egmont Key, we could see the light house that was built in 1858 and is still working.  

We departed the ferry and followed this trail.

The trail led us right by the light house. It is 133 feet high and the light can be seen for 22 miles at sea.  It was built in 1858 and is still in operation. 

Our next stops was to see the Gopher Tortoise feeding on the grass.

The trail also led us by the remains of one of Fort Dade's gun batteries built in 1898.

The gun battery was about half way across the narrow island.  It was just far enough inland to block the cooling breezes from the Gulf and this was a sweltering hot day.  So, we quickly moved on hoping to find the beach on the opposite side of the key from where we departed the ferry.

We were carrying a lot of drinking water and some food because the ferry wasn't returning for more four hours.  With a heat index of 107 degrees, we needed all the water we could carry, and it seemed we would never reach the refreshing breezes on beach.  Finally, we reached it and it was beautiful!  The was only 25 people on the ferry, and we had the entire island to ourselves!

This pelican is resting after eating his fill of fish.

Some interesting drift wood.  This is the exact position it was in when I found it.

We walked up and down the beach for a couple of miles picking up many small to medium size shells to bring home.  Then we found a shady place on the beach to sit and enjoy our lunch while watching the birds and the waves.  

The time flew by, and we decided to leave plenty early to head back to where the ferry would pick us up.  We didn't want to miss our only way back and be stranded on the island all night!  The ferry captain warned all that if the weather got bad, to get back to the ferry landing immediately so we wouldn't be crossing the shipping channel in a storm.

On the way back, I stopped and took these pictures of the old mine wharf used to move mines in and out of the shipping channel during the Spanish American war.

This is one of the mines from the war.

These buildings are what's left of the mine storage and maintenance facility. Neglect and a few hurricanes took their toll here.

While we were waiting for the ferry, we talked to some of the people waiting with us and they had found some large shells and sand dollars on this side of the beach.  Naturally, we were looking for sand dollars on the wrong side of the island!

As we boarded the ferry for the return trip, the clouds were gathering and looked like a storm was brewing.  But, the weather held and we were able to spend a few minutes chaseing a couple of dolphins.  It was hard to get a good picture as they would only surface long enough to catch their breath and down they'd go again.

That's Egmont Key barely visible on the horizon.

You can see the clouds gathering and it's getting darker.

We made it back in one piece and were thankful we didn't encounter any bad weather.  Since we spent so much time on the beach today, we decided to do something interesting tomorrow, but stay off the beach.  Stay with us to find out what we did!