Florida part one
Florida part two
Florida part three
Florida part four

Already the fifth post in this great adventure we had with our kids in Florida.
When we left the everglades we went to our hotel in Key Largo, it was the Bayside inn. When we arrived we already felt like this wasn't right. We booked a room with bayview but all we got was:

No bayview at all, all the stuff was too dirty to even touch, or to sleep in.
It was really awfull. When we got to the reception they told us that it was exactly as we had booked... Can you believe that....

I had never seen anything like this before, in any Hotel.
We booked for 3 nights but we left quickly after the first night. We did got our money back, and eventually booked a hotel in Florida City. Afterwards, stupid us, we did read terrible reviews on different travel sites....

We went out for diner in a great restaurant by the sea.

The view was just awesome.

Isn't that a great family picture :)

The sunset was beautiful, just to bad a lot of people thought the same, it was very crowded ..everybody taking pictures :)

When it got a bit dark, the lights in the trees got turned on. It was a great sight.

In the water around the restaurant there was a lot of fish.

The waitress told us there were nurse-sharks every evening. I totally understand why because they got fed every single evening by the guests. You could buy a package of special fishfood and could go and feed them.
Of course my boy's wanted to try it.

I think they won't get a chance to do so again ever :)

Later at night there came a belly dancer to enetertain the public.
It was fun to watch but not for a hour and a half..

Turtle Hospital

The next day we drove to Marathon, a small city on the keys. In Marathon the Turtle Hospital was housed. My wife had read about it in Holland and thought it would be cool to go there.

The Turtle hospital has two main functions, their most important is to rescue and cure sea turtles that are wounded and found in the ocean. The other function is educational, to educate people about the threats for Turtles caused by human behaviour.

They even got their own ambulance.

The Hospital was housed in a old Motel. The founder of the hospital had financed it with a lot of sponsors and made it a Hospital.
In the old motelrooms personel slept when they have shifts, and the old swimmingpool was mad a aquarium for turtles that can't get be put back in the ocean.

In the first bassin there were a lot of turtles into rehabilitation. They got some kind of excericises in the water to strengthen again or to learn to swim again.

All the turtles have their names on their shield written.

There was even a turtle named after our youngest :)
![wzzyops15l.png](

During the tour the hostess explained what the hospital is all about. When a boat or people find a sick or wounded turtle they can call the hospital and

then they will pick up the turtle. Injuries can be caused by polution of the water, boats that are going faster in certain area's then is allowed and then hurt turtles on the surface with the screw of the boat.

Only looking at them, they are gorgious animals.

In other bassins they housed turtles that are only getting strong again to be released in the ocean again.

When they release a turtle people can adopt him or her. NOt that you really can pet the turtle, but it is to get some extra income for the hospital. As you can imagine I cost a lot of money to get this operation going.
The great thing is that they will contact you with a video of the release when it is done. Isn't that great..

In the old swimmingpool the oldest Turtles resides, those turtles can't be released again because they would't survive. It's a kind of aldery home :)
There where quiet some turtles with serious injuries in the swimmingpool, I thought it was awful to see... But they seem to do just fine...

It was very interesting to see and very educational.
In the hospital you see the direct result of us throwing stuff into the water or just don't think about animals while using a speedboat.

Have a great day and thank you for reading !!

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