We flew into Miami around eleven in the morning, made it to the car rental, hopped into the convertible with the top down and immediately set out for Key West. We weren't sure how long a drive it was going to be and we still had to provision ourselves with perishable goods and get in touch with the person we were renting the kayak from. We were hoping to cover a decent amount of ground in a reasonable amount of time. We made the mistake of getting onto to route 1 instead of the Florida turnpike. Ten miles of strip mall hell and a light at every intersection. We did hit a Kmart and grabbed a quick lunch before making our way past all the humanity. The ride down to the Keys eventually became pleasant as the scenery changed. We were surrounded by miles of wetlands and marshlands and eventually had open water of the Bays and Sounds leading up to the Keys. Key Largo, Duck Key, Deer Key, Marathon, No Name Key, Ramrod Key and eventually to Key West, the southern most point in the U.S. Along those Keys, we eventually stopped in several more K-marts and a Winn-Dixie. I found it amusing that we never go into K-marts for anything, literally it's been years, but in the provisioning for this trip, we were in four different K-marts. It's just, we were not sure what we would find store wise the further down the Keys we went. We were half expecting a sleepy little island with little to support a year round population. We were surprised to find so many amenities even just across the street or next to the hotel we were staying at for the night. It was about 7:30 when we arrived in Key West, so we drove around, checking store hours so we had an idea of any time limitations. The Winn-Dixie was 24hrs. Sweet. We checked in and headed for Alice's for dinner. We made a dinner out of several appetizers and shared a piece of Key Lime pie. The person we rented the kayak from also loaned us a cooler, which we found his house easily enough and off to provision and repack and reorganize the camping gear and load up on fresh water (everything we needed had to be packed in, including enough fresh water for the two of us for four days). We needed to be at the boat by 6:30 am to load our gear onto the ferry to the Dry Tortugas and it was well after midnight by the time we had everything sorted out and ready. Note on supporting the local economy Two months prior to our visit here, Hurricane Wilma devastated these islands. We were told of stories how most of the Keys were underwater and that explained the periodic huge mounds of kitchen appliances on the sides of the road we encountered on the drive down. The restaurants were not so busy and the ferry we were using that normally would take 100-250 people to the Dry Tortugas daily, only had about 40 of us on it. A part of me is glad we were able to make this trip now, so soon after such catastrophic damage. We would soon learn that Wilma had not spared the Dry Tortugas either, and although we thought the islands were gorgeous, they vegetation is only starting to recover on what used to be green lush islands. We had actually looked into going here several years ago, in 2001, but Hurricane Charlie had caused the National Park service to close the island to visitors that year. I hope we have the opportunity to visit again when the islands have had time to recover.