Day 6 - Bahia Honda State Park, FL

After our first night's camping, we spent the morning exploring Bahia Honda State Park. We actually visited this park when we got engaged 8 years ago and we couldn’t believe how much it had changed as a result of the Hurricane last year. It was an area of thick green vegetation hiding sandy beaches and clear water, known as one of the best beaches in South Florida and had won a number of awards. Today, a lot of the vegetation has gone, the sand has been stripped from the beach and there is a lot of debris still around, including bits from the bathrooms and roadway which were completely torn up.

We took a tour of the worst hit area, Sandspur, which was still closed to the public. The tour was $5 donation per person and was run by volunteers. Wally was our guide and he took us through the no entry gate in a golf trolley to what used to be a parking lot, campsite, beach and bird nesting area.

We got out of the trolley a couple of times to walk around what used to be campsites and parking lots; all that is left are piles of sand washed up from the beach.

We were also allowed to walk down a short stretch of beach which had been made safe. There is very little human activity in the area, so there was lots of shells, coral and (Lee's new favourite head wear) sponges, washed up.


It’s going to take around 2 years to get the park back to the way it was before Hurricane Irma.

I found this image on Wikipedia which shows what the area of beach we were on looked like before Irma:


Image stolen from here

We booked our campsite before Irma hit but for some reason, Lee chose a pitch on the other side of the park. This side of the park wasn't hit as bad and we were lucky enough that the area we were camping in reopened before our trip. It is still missing a toilet block and showers which were destroyed by Irma but we made do with the temporary Rest Rooms and just smelt a bit until we reached Key West.

After the tour, we walked up the old rail road bridge which later became the first highway to Key West. Again, this used to be an area of pristine sand and clear water but is still not fully recovered after Irma.

New Highway 1 

 

Old Highway 1 (Old Bahia Honda Bridge)

 

On top of Old Bahia Honda Bridge