This is a continuation of our February trip to Marathon. If you read that post, then you know that our first trip was inhibited by clouds and rain and we never really did get the sunrise and sunset photos we wanted.

We departed Gainesville on a nice sunny September morning in the trusty Cessna 172.  It was a beautiful morning to go flying until just south of Naples, Florida where we had to start dodging rain showers.  We dodged the rain showers all the way into Marathon where of course it had just finished raining. The weather for the next two days was cloudy, rainy and windy.  It seems like we’ve seen this movie before.

We picked up our rental car and drove to our hotel and spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring.

 The hotel has a private dolphin swim area and Rob took numerous pictures of the dolphins.

As the afternoon progressed, it became apparent the clouds were not going to break and give us the sunset pictures we were hoping for. But, what the heck, we decided to drive out to the beginning of the 7 mile Bridge anyway.  Just as the sun was getting ready to set, the clouds broke and we witnessed one of the most spectacular sunsets of our lives – that picture is displayed prominently in our Key West Gallery.

Rob woke early Wednesday and proceeded to the hotel’s lagoon to take sunrise photos.  However, the cloud cover never broke and he wasn’t able to get any good shots.

The rest of Wednesday was spent scouting good locations for that evening’s sunset pictures.

We ended up at the Sunset Grille on the south side of the beginning of the 7 mile bridge.  This would be a great location at other times of the year; however, on this day the sun was setting on the north side of the bridge.  We were hoping for a replay of the previous evening’s sunset, so we set up at the same location.  But, it was too cloudy and the sun never came into view.

Rob awoke early Thursday and captured this image of the hotel’s lagoon in the moonlight.  We checked out of the hotel later that morning and began driving to Key West.

We stopped at the Bahia Honda State Park and spent about an hour and a half touring and taking pictures.

We arrived in Key West around 1:00pm and checked into our room.   We spent the rest of the afternoon touring downtown Key West and scouting for potential sunset shots.

We decided Fort Zachary Taylor state park would be an ideal location. We arrived at the state park around 5:30pm and set up.  Numerous sunset cruise boats threatened to block our shot, but they were out of the way when the actual sunset occurred.

We were hoping to capture some images after the sun totally set, however, the park closes at official sunset and a ranger told everyone to leave.

We captured this image from our hotel balcony instead.

Rob woke early on Friday and observed the Harvest Moon setting.

We checked out of the hotel around 7:30 and proceeded to drive back to Marathon where we turned the car in and flew back to Gainesville.

This was a very successful trip overall.  Although the weather was overcast and rainy for the first two days we were able to capture numerous sunset and dolphin photos.

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