Fort Zachary Taylor State Park

(305) 292-6713 – www.fortzacharytaylor.com/home.html

Truly a hidden treasure

It’s a bit hard to find if you haven’t been there before. It’s buried inside the Truman Annex, which in itself kept us away for a while. There’s a guard booth at the public entrance to the Annex, and it’s not very clear that it’s fully open to the public. In reality you just drive on through right past the guard. Apparently there are some local political debates raging about that guard house and the possibility that the Navy may add a gate. I guess the City approved the Navy’s plan to add a gate with the proviso that it never be closed.. haha. True Key West compromise.

Anyways, once you pass the guard booth, you are in the Truman Annex proper, and there is a very cool neighborhood there which used to be navy housing, but was sold to the City a while back. It’s beautiful.. quaint little cottages and conch houses.. it reminds me of Seaside in the panhandle or even Celebration in Orlando. Definitely worth a detour on your bikes to ride around a bit in here.

Once you ride past the neighborhood, you come across the old Navy Port where they used to house Navy submarines. The docks were decommissioned in 1974 because the newer nuclear subs were too large to fit there, and now it’s a favorite place for locals to go watch the sunset.

If you veer to the left as you get to the docks, you come across an entrance to the Naval station there and another gate leading to Fort Zach Park. It costs $2.50 per person on a bicycle or walking, and $4.50 for the first person in a car, $7.50 for two in a car, and .50 cents per person after that. Definitely worth riding your bikes in… Christina bought us a yearly pass that lets us get up to 8 people in at a time. It cost her $80.00, it’s since gone up to $120.00, but even then, when you go as often as we do, it’s a well worth it.

You follow the road a bit farther and you’ll pass The actual Fort Zachary Taylor on the right, and come to a parking area.

The Best Beach on the Island

I love, love, love this beach. I was never fond of going the beach until I visited the Virgin Islands a few years ago and experienced what a real Caribbean beach was like. I have a friend who owns a house on Water Island, right next to St Thomas, and it was on his beach – Honeymoon Beach – that I re-connected with my fantasy of island living. It was like a slap in the face, I’d been doing it wrong my whole life!

Well Fort Zach Beach is as close to that Caribbean beach paradise on Water Island as I’ve found in Florida. It’s rarely if ever anything close to crowded, the water is blue and crystal clear, there are tons of beautiful colorful fish swimming around, and the waves are minimal. The beach is rocky near the water, so you’ll probably want to wear water shoes if your feetsies are tender. There are picnic tables and BBQ grills peppered through the australian pines and palm trees running the length of the beach. The grills are clean and rust-free, and the picnic tables are in good repair.

There’s a pavilion on the beach that serves up sandwiches, ice cream, and even beer as long as you keep it on the deck area. I was surprised to find beer on the menu there as it’s a state park, and well you know.. they frown on you bringing booze in. (Not that I ever let that stop me). I haven’t had any of the food from there, so I cant comment on the quality yet, but when I do, I’ll come back and update this post.

Fort Zach Beach is on the south-westernmost tip of the island, so it’s kind of cool because you are right at the point where the Atlantic merges with the Gulf of Mexico. Around the west point, the gulf-side of the beach is lined with large boulders so you definitely won’t want to try to swim there. It’s a super-great place to watch the sunset and boat traffic. The cruise ships go right past here too, so that’s pretty neat.. they are so big it boggles the mind.

The entire park surrounds the fort, but it wasn’t always that way. The fort used to be jutting out into the ocean, but when the Navy dug the shipping channel and submarine port, the dirt was used to build the land that the park now sits on. So Fort Zach Beach is entirely man-made. Crazy.

If you go north-east up the coast a little from the point here, you’ll run into “Truman Beach”, it’s a tiny little stretch of sand abutting the sea wall for the Naval Port you passed coming into the park. The secret service had this small beach built for Henry Truman so he could enjoy the beach out of the way of the public eye. He visited it once, but returned to the public beach on the other side of the point, stating that he liked the public beach better. I’m not sure if it’s frowned upon to visit this little stretch or not, I’ve seen a couple folks hanging out there, but who knows.. I’ll have to try it myself some time.

This beach and park is so very cool, that I couldn’t see ever visiting the public beaches in Key West, I guess I should be happy that it seems not very many tourists know about it, either that or that they aren’t willing to pay to get onto a beach. I like it just the way it is, uncrowded, clean, and supremely relaxing.

I think I’ll go there now…