The Tarpon Belly Keys
Steven Becker
Many of my books are set in the Florida Keys. I’ve been going there for over thirty years and a lot of my stories and ideas have come from that time. I’m always on the lookout for unique places so if you have any, let me know!
During a sailing race a few months ago, my friend and owner of the boat we were on mentioned the Tarpon Belly Keys as a good anchorage in the Lower Keys. My curiosity got the best of me and I looked it up, first on Navionics to get an idea of the area, and then Google Earth.
The area was as he described it. A marked (rare for this area) channel led from the Gulf of Mexico to a deep water channel with a protected anchorage in the lee of the Tarpon Belly Keys. Surprisingly Google Earth showed two distinct channels dividing what had been one island into three. Shapes like that don’t occur in nature and I did some more research.
The Tarpon Belly Keys were bought in the seventies with the intentions of starting a shrimp farm. If viable it would have been the first in the United States. The site is abandoned now. I’m not sure the history, but have heard that although the farm worked, the owner could not compete with imports from South America.
Located about three miles from the end of Blimp Road in Cudjoe Key the island was a fairly easy paddle from the boat ramp there. It was a windy day, so I cheated a little and brought a trolling motor to assist my paddleboard and landed on the narrow beach that gave the islands its name.
A short trek inland brought me to the first canal. Clear and filled with ballyhoo, the canal looked to be about fifty feet wide with open water on each end. I hiked along the built up embankment and reached the both ends where remnants of the gates used to contain the shrimp remain.
A paddle around the island revealed some other artifacts. I paddled into the other canal and tied off my paddleboard for a hike into the larger island. The spoils from the excavation must have been used to build up the island because besides being high and dry, Australian pines had taken route. A number of smaller trees were uprooted, probably from Hurricane Irma which hit the area in 2017.
Used for more nefarious purposes, the Tarpon Belly’s turned into a central location in my book Wood’s Dilemma.