Key Largo

Key Largo Is the first major stop on the way from Miami to Key West. It is also where Rickie has kept the two boats he's owned. The first boat was a converted garbage skow he used as a "flats boat," a craft that draws little water and appropriate for hunting the famous Florida Bonefish. When Rickie claimed the reward for finding Rufus, the randy bull alligator, he sold the skow and bought a 44-foot Lagoon catamaran (see photo at right) off a dot-com wunderkind who moved on to more expensive toys. He docks the boat at Key Largo, next to Spike's Tradesman Bar. Spike's real name is Hubert. Nobody calls him that.

Key Largo is also the jumping-off point for many of Rickie's adventures in and around the Everglades and South Florida's "Ten Thousand Islands."