The boat from a 1951 Hollywood classic...

...abandoned in a cow pasture in Ocala. Here's how it ended up in Key Largo.

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Florida Keys Road Trip
May 12, 2026

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Florida Keys Road Trip
May 12, 2026

Hey Keys lovers! If you've ever cruised past Mile Marker 100 in Key Largo and spotted a vintage wooden boat tied up at the Holiday Inn dock, you may have done a double take. That's not a replica. That's the actual African Queen — the same boat Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn rode through the Congo in 1951. This week we're telling the full story of how it got there. Plus: tarpon season is having its best year since before Covid, a record-breaking lionfish derby just wrapped up, and we've got a trivia question that stumps almost everyone.

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❓ Keys Trivia

What is the only fish in the world that swims upright — and can be found right here in the Florida Keys?

Answer at the bottom of the newsletter.

📣 The Mile Marker Roundup

🏖️ Key West Gets Its Beach Back: After years of negotiations, the City of Key West officially took ownership of Higgs Beach on May 1, along with roughly $3.7 million in grants and insurance funds earmarked for improvements including seawall repairs, playground upgrades, and restoration of the West Martello Tower. Read more → https://keysweekly.com/42/key-west-takes-ownership-of-higgs-beach/

🦁 Record Lionfish Removal: The 17th Annual REEF Florida Keys Lionfish Derby just set an all-time record — 2,480 invasive lionfish removed in a single event, surpassing the previous record of 1,898 set in 2023. Sixteen teams and 57 hunters competed out of Key Largo, with the Badfish Slayers team alone pulling 659 fish. Read more → https://keysweekly.com/42/derby-removes-record-number-of-invasive-lionfish-from-florida-keys-waters/

🎣 Mahi Madness in Marathon: Team Dream Weaver took home $20,000 at the 20th Annual Tom Thumb Bull & Cow Dolphin Tournament after posting a combined bull-and-cow mahi weight of 68.6 pounds. Fifty-three boats competed on May 2-3, with more than $30,000 in total prizes awarded at Florida Keys Aquarium Encounters. Read more → https://keysweekly.com/42/in-pictures-mahi-madness-from-the-20th-annual-bull-and-cow-tournament/

🐠 New Artificial Reefs Coming This Summer: Monroe County has approved 21 permit applications covering 15 new reef sites on both the Gulf and Atlantic sides of the Keys. This summer, 156 concrete modules will be deployed across three Gulfside locations. The county's existing 10 Mile Gulfside reef already supports 90-plus marine species. Read more → https://www.monroecounty-fl.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1845

🌴 Partner Spotlight

Sea Turtle Season Starts Now — Here's What You Need to Know

If you're planning a trip to the Keys between now and October, you're going to be sharing the beach with some very important guests. May 1 marks the official start of sea turtle nesting season — and it runs all the way through Halloween.

Loggerhead, green, and leatherback turtles come ashore at night to lay their eggs in the sand. A single loggerhead can lay around 120 eggs per nest, and the hatchlings emerge roughly 60 days later. The Florida Keys are some of the most important nesting beaches in the entire country.

What does that mean for you as a visitor? Keep the beach dark at night — artificial lights disorient hatchlings and can send them crawling toward the road instead of the water. If you're on the beach after dark and you see a nesting turtle, give her a wide berth and absolutely no flash photography. If you spot hatchlings making their way to the water, resist the urge to help — they need that crawl to build strength for the ocean.

If you want to learn more about the turtles themselves, the Turtle Hospital in Marathon offers daily tours of their rehabilitation facility. It's one of the best things you can do in the Middle Keys and it's worth every minute.

Check out our guide to planning your next Keys road trip → https://floridakeysroadtrip.com

🧩 Deep Dive

The African Queen of Key Largo
A 113-year-old boat that refused to die.

The African Queen should not still exist.

It was built in 1912 in Lancashire, England, by the Lytham Shipbuilding and Engineering Company. For decades it worked as a supply and passenger vessel on the lakes and rivers of Uganda and the Belgian Congo — hauling cargo, ferrying missionaries, doing the unglamorous work of a colonial-era workhorse in equatorial Africa.

Then, in 1951, director John Huston showed up with a camera crew, Humphrey Bogart, and Katharine Hepburn. The film they made — The African Queen — became one of the most celebrated movies in Hollywood history. Bogart won his only Academy Award for the role of the gruff, gin-soaked riverboat captain Charlie Allnut. Hepburn played the prim missionary spinster who slowly wins him over. The chemistry between them was electric, and the boat they shared became as much a character as either of them.

After the film wrapped, the boat changed hands. Then changed hands again. It drifted through the Caribbean. And then, somehow, it ended up abandoned in a cow pasture in Ocala, Florida. Sitting in a field. Rotting.

That's usually where the story ends.

But in 1982, a man named Jim Hendricks found it. He bought it, restored it, and brought it to Key Largo — where it started giving rides to visitors out of the Holiday Inn Resort dock at Mile Marker 100.

It broke down again in 2001. Sat still for years. Then got restored again.

Because apparently this boat doesn't quit.

Today, the African Queen is fully operational and running one-hour canal cruises and private charters out of Key Largo. It is 113 years old. The engine still runs. The woodwork is still intact. And if you book a sunset cruise, you can sit on the same deck where Bogart and Hepburn once filmed one of the most iconic scenes in cinema history.

Most people drive right past it without knowing what it is. Now you know.

Have you ever taken a cruise on the African Queen, or spotted it at the dock? Hit reply and tell us — we'll share the best stories next week.

Read the full history here → https://africanqueenflkeys.com/History

🕰️ Lore & Legends

Black Caesar: The Pirate Who Made the Florida Keys His Lair
He turned the reef into a weapon — and the Keys into his empire.

Somewhere in the waters just north of Key Largo, there is a channel called Caesar's Creek. It runs between Elliott Key and Meigs Key, just inside the boundary of Biscayne National Park. Most people motor through it without a second thought.

But the name is not an accident.

According to legend, Caesar's Creek was the home base of Black Caesar — one of the most feared pirates of the early 18th century. The story goes that he was an African war chieftain of enormous size and intelligence who was tricked onto a slave ship by traders dangling the promise of treasure. When the ship was caught in a hurricane off the Florida coast, Caesar escaped in a longboat with a single white crew member, loaded with guns and supplies.

The two men spent years running a simple but ruthless con: they would pose as shipwreck survivors, hailing passing vessels for help. When a ship came close enough, they pulled their weapons and robbed it. The scheme worked for years — until the two men had a falling out over a woman that ended in a duel. Caesar won.

He eventually built a small empire from Elliott Key — a fleet of pirate vessels, a reported harem of 100 women, and a prison for men he hoped to ransom. He was said to have buried between $2 million and $6 million in treasure on the islands.

His run ended when he joined the crew of the most famous pirate in history: Blackbeard. When Blackbeard was killed in battle in 1718, Black Caesar was captured and taken to Williamsburg, Virginia, where he was hanged.

No treasure has ever been found. But the creek still carries his name.

✅ Trivia Answer

The seahorse.

Seahorses are the only fish in the world that swim in a vertical, upright position. They are also the only species where the male carries and gives birth to the young — a female deposits her eggs into the male's pouch, and he gestates them for up to 45 days before releasing hundreds of tiny, fully-formed seahorses into the water.

Florida Keys waters are home to several species, including the lined seahorse (Hippocampus erectus). They are most commonly found hiding in seagrass beds and around coral rubble throughout the island chain.

Bonus fact: A group of seahorses is called a herd.

Until next week, keep your windows down and your watch off.
— The Florida Keys Road Trip Team

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