At about 1 a.m. on our first night at Curry Hammock, the rain fly started snapping like a flag on a pole. It wasn't raining. It was just the wind, a steady 15 to 20 miles an hour off the Atlantic with gusts above that, and it kept up for three days. Dana put in earplugs. The kids slept through it. I lay there counting how many stakes were holding us to Marathon.
Getting there, and getting the tent up
Spring break started with our baseball tournament, Monday to Wednesday. Dana had traded a shift, the bins were packed Wednesday night, and Thursday morning we left for three nights at Curry Hammock State Park, just north of Marathon in the Middle Keys, about two hours from home.
We skipped Robert Is Here on the way down, which caused a protest from the back seat. The forecast said the wind would build through the afternoon, and I wanted the tent up before it did. Nico was promised a milkshake on the next Everglades trip. Maya wrote the promise down.
Our site sat right on the water, facing the Atlantic, with almost no shade. Shade, bugs, bathroom: one palm tree, zero bugs because the wind blew them all toward the Gulf, and a clean bathhouse close by.
Putting up a dome tent in an 18-mile-an-hour wind is a four-person job. Each of us held a corner while the poles went in. We staked the upwind side first, clipped on the fly before anyone let go of anything, then guyed out every point the tent has. The pad was packed sand and crushed rock, and it bent two of our stakes, so we weighed down the rest with every loose rock we could find along the edge of the site. Nico was in charge of rocks and treated it like a promotion. We tied one guy line to the picnic table and parked the Pilot upwind as a windbreak. On Sunday, every rock went back where Nico found it.
Kayaks at sunrise, faces in the water
The wind was lightest at dawn, so that's when we did the most. On Saturday, Dana had the cafetera going by 6:30, breakfast burritos from home were warming in the skillet, and by 7:15 we were on the water in a rented tandem kayak, $30 for the morning. Maya and I went first, then Dana and Nico. We stayed close to shore, where the water was calm and clear enough to count the blades of seagrass. A stingray glided under the bow, a heron stood on one leg on a mangrove root, and a pelican dove so close to Dana's paddle that she yelled.
Afternoons were for the shallows. We waded out to about Maya's waist and put our faces in with masks. I wouldn't call it snorkeling. It's more like looking. But Maya saw hermit crabs, a little puffer that puffed at her, and a small fish striped like a referee. Nico spent most of his time standing in knee-deep water with his mask on, describing the fish to us without ever putting his face in. No sea turtle. Maya wrote "NOT YET" in her journal in capital letters.
The secondhand sleeping pads had their first real trip, and Dana and I slept well, apart from the snapping fly. Nights were around 70, with dew points in the low 60s, comfortably under the 70 rule, and the wind kept the tent cool.
What it cost, from the trip log
- Campsite, 3 nights: $134
- Gas: $58
- Groceries: $104
- Fish sandwiches in Marathon on Saturday: $46
- Kayak rental: $30
- Ice and firewood: $26
- Cat sitter (Isabela, 3 visits): $45
Total: $443, about $148 a night for the four of us. Everyone agreed the fish sandwiches were the best $46 of the trip.
What we'd do differently
Longer, heavier stakes made for sand and rock. Those get bought before our next windy trip. I'd also bring a small tarp to rig a windbreak on the cooking side of the site. The stove flame blew sideways all weekend, and Dana's Saturday coffee took 14 minutes.
On Sunday the tent came down bone dry and a little salty, and there was sand in the cooler drain that I expect to be finding until June. Nico lost a shoe somewhere between the kayak launch and the bathhouse and never found it. He rode home in one sneaker and one water shoe and was asleep before we reached the Long Key bridge.
