By Christopher Boykin

In South Florida there are millions of people, but still quite a few places to explore. These lie primarily within Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, Biscayne National Park and the backcountry of the Keys, but also in the Marquesas Keys.

The Marquesas comprise a donut-shaped island chain 25 miles west of Key West. Supposedly they were formed by a meteorite whose impact created the large two-mile wide lagoon that is perfectly surrounded by land. Technically, they are the backcountry of the Keys, but they are so much more: a lost world between Key West and the Dry Tortugas. The distant edge of nowhere, and the center of all things marine.

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As a two-year resident biologist of Dry Tortugas National Park I frequently flew over the Marquesas in seaplanes and gazed down at the eagle rays, loggerhead and green sea turtles, and occasional giant hammerhead sharks swimming nearby. I longed to explore every beach, every tidal creek, every channel and corner of the archipelago. Now, in the days and nights leading up to my first expedition of these islands, I’m so excited that I have trouble sleeping, and dream of the trip when I do sleep.

Day 1

On Friday morning I travel from Miami with my close friends, Mary Rose and Alex Montalvo— do-gooder, enviro/vegetarian 20-somethings who are great for tromping about—and we reach Key West by noon.

At the Key West Municipal Marina we launch our mother ship for the trip, a 22-foot Panga with a 17-foot canoe as a tender, and cruise west through the cut between the Sunset Key development and Wisteria Island. We enter the lakes passage that runs due west through the Key West National Wildlife Refuge and continue away from civilization, gliding over crystal-clear grass flats and passing Joe Ingraham and Barracouta keys.

Beyond Ballast Key, Woman Key and Boca Grande Key we are greeted by Boca Grande Passage. It’s not as infamous at Rebecca Shoal, which separates the Marquesas from the Dry Tortugas, but this six-mile expanse of water is usually rough enough to deter most recreational boaters. This crossing, coupled with the coral reefs on the Atlantic side and beautiful beaches on Boca Grande and Woman, often snare most boaters before they can reach the Marquesas. Mary doesn’t believe me when I say that we’re likely to see only two or three boats.

As we begin the crossing, the Marquesas are just a faint mirage on the horizon. The winds are only 11 knots and with the Panga’s deep V hull in the bow we slice through effortlessly.

We reach the Marquesas’ southeast channel then penetrate into the interior lagoon. It’s vast—almost two miles across—and much of it is nearly exposed on extreme low tides.

Immediately we notice two rafts that are sunken along the shoreline. We cruise up to them, decide they must be Cuban refugee rafts, then we marvel at the 90-mile journey their inhabitants underwent. We hope they arrived safely.

The light is getting low, as is the tide, so we motor down to the southwest cove channel. Here Mary and I take the canoe along the southern shore for a two-hour paddle up the mangrove channel in the Gull keys.

We discover a raft on an idyllic beach. And the sand is covered with fresh limes, Ciego Montero water bottles (“bottled in Havana”), dehydration packets, cans of sardines, mosquito coils, life vests from Iberia airlines and lots of discarded clothes. We are full of emotion as we think of these people and their journey and what they’ve gone through to make it here. We wonder if anyone’s still here.

As we paddle east over grass flats and three more narrow emerald-green cuts we reach the Gull keys. It’s dark now and we’re paddling by moonlight. We have headlamps but use them occasionally.

Suddenly our headlamps catch a strange object and our hearts begin to race. A blue tarp is laid out over a small mangrove island. The limbs have been cut and the tarp is covered in clothes and life vests. We quickly scan the area: the wreckage of more than a dozen Cuban rafts lies all around us. We are shrouded in darkness and petrified that the next swoop of our lights will fall upon a skeleton or corpse. We’re also a little spooked that someone might be nearby, and want our trusty canoe.

Fifteen yards beyond the mangrove island camp we enter the emerald-green channel that cuts through the easternmost Gull key. It’s beautiful and narrow and we’re moving at a nice clip, although it’s a little eerie at the same time. We vow to snorkel this before we leave.

The current deposits us in Mooney Harbor Lagoon where we turn west to return to our boat.

Three-fourths of the way there we come upon a fishing boat. Eager to have lobster for dinner, we approach. But before we reach the boat a man wearing boxers comes out and inquires, “Cubano? Cubano?”

We identify ourselves as gringo tourists looking for some langosta to go with our fresh tortellini. The cheerful captain not only gives us two big lobsters, but refuses any money and gives us pan-fried yellowtail as a treat.

Back at the mother ship, we’re preparing lobster tortellini when my big shark rod goes screaming down. Five minutes later I’ve landed a six-foot lemon shark that we then release. In the middle of dinner, Mary catches a second one that we release. What an exciting first night in the Marquesas!

Day 2

After morning tea we nose into a channel in the northeast section of the lagoon and drop anchor. We’re planning a full day of canoeing, fishing and exploring the tidal creeks and hidden lagoons.

In our canoe we glide over permit, snook, redfish, several butterball-sized goliath grouper, half a dozen loggerhead sea turtles, numerous lemon sharks and bonnetheads. The Marquesas are also considered a sawfish hot spot so the entire time I’m hoping to see one.

We pick up a hidden creek that we had found on the Internet (Google Earth rocks!), and it opens into another world: a lost world within a lost world. And in a lagoon we see our first mangrove terrapin paddling among the extensive prop roots of red mangroves. The extremely rare terrapins are another treasure of the Florida Keys. They are small turtles with blueish skin, black polka dots on their skin and a comical George Jetson smile. They are marine reptiles that have salt glands in their eyes to excrete excess sodium.

After we circumnavigate this lagoon, exploring some side creeks along the way, we head farther west to other creeks we found on Google Earth.

Surrounded by mangroves, we’re sitting in clear water with a dozen giant mangrove snappers darting between the prop roots below us. As soon as I drop my shrimp-baited hook into the water I get a bite and reel in the first of several mangrove snappers that will play the lead role in our afternoon fish tacos, evening seafood paella and morning fish omelets. Mary and Alex both reel in a few and just when I’m feeling machismo Mary belts out that even a monkey can catch fish in the Marquesas! It’s pretty amazing, almost like picking your fish at a restaurant. You just pick out the one you want, drop the line in front of it and voila!

(By the way, Mary and Alex aren’t always vegetarians.)

After a full day of exploring every creek and lagoon by canoe we return to our mother ship and decide to hit up some fishermen to supplement our mangrove snapper catch. We score instantly with the guys from the night before, and this time they take $20 for the three giant lobsters that they give us. We also pick up three yellowtail snappers for $10 from the Monica J.

Back at the southeast channel we set anchor for the night. While Mary and I prepare seafood paella Alex catches a six-foot bull shark.

Day 3

We wake to a soft breeze and the wingbeats of cormorants and pelicans overhead. The view of Mooney Harbor is much nicer than yesterday morning. There are small sharks skimming the surface all around us as we drink our tea.

Today’s adventure lies beyond the Marquesas. The destination: an iron-hulled ship that sank in the quicksands, an area of sandy bottom that extends for about 20 miles west of the Marquesas. The cool thing about the wreck is that it rests upright in 25 feet of water and the iron mast reaches into the azure sky like the Tower of Babel. The mast is adorned with magnificent frigate birds and brown boobies.

We anchor near the ship and attempt to snorkel it. Unfortunately, the current is so strong that we can barely keep from losing ground with arduous kicking. Defeated, we forego this shark-infested wreck, which no doubt harbored behemoth goliath groupers and pieces of eight; indeed, Mel Fisher found the Atocha in the Marquesas.

It’s 10 a.m. and we have one last mission in the Marquesas: to snorkel the emerald channel that runs through the east Gull key.

The channel is as beautiful and perfect as we had envisioned. We effortlessly glide over Cassiopeia jellyfish and past sponge-encrusted prop roots. We see mangrove snappers, finger-sized barracudas and yellowfin mojoras. The rays of light dance beneath the surface as the shoal grass below undulates with the current. I feel as if I can hold my breath forever while gazing at tunicates and watching the light bend around the mangrove prop roots.

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The Marquesas Keys lie within Key West National Wildlife Refuge. No camping is allowed. For more information visit www.fws.gov/southeast/KeyWest.