I have to reveal a dirty secret that travel blogs, books, and articles never reveal about the Keys: Someone stole the beaches.

Water, water, everywhere, but no way to swim.

A Caribbean island conjures images of warm, aquamarine water gently kissing beaches that are as soft and white as a baby’s bum. And the Florida Keys are in the Caribbean. And they are freaking islands.

Silly me.

If I had consulted Wikipedia before my trip, I would have learned that:

“The climate and environment of the Florida Keys are closer to that of the Caribbean than the rest of Florida, though unlike the Caribbean’s volcanic islands, the Keys were built by plants and animals. The Upper Keys islands are composed of sandy-type accumulations of limestone grains produced by plants and marine organisms. The Lower Keys are the remnants of large coral reefs, which became fossilized and exposed as sea level declined.”

Translation #1: While there are some beaches, there aren’t that many and they aren’t that nice.

Translation #2: Sucka!

A tiny beach here, a tiny beach there, here a beach, there a beach, but nowhere a real beach beach.

The beaches are randomly and ungenerously sprinkled throughout the islands, as if a kid grabbed a handful of sand and let some slowly trickle out of his hand, but he ran away before he could finish because a cat came and peed in the sandbox.

Yes, I know that Bahia Honda beach was named “America’s best beach” in 1992. But please remember that Boyz II Men also topped the charts that year – which is fitting, as Bahia Honda is basically a Boyz II Men concert: Parents are okay with dropping off their white teen daughters because it’s exotic enough to make you forget how suburban you are, but in reality boring and unstimulating.

Don’t get me wrong: The Keys are beautiful and a tremendous natural treasure. But that beauty is best appreciated with a boat or from a fancy resort with its own man-made beach.

Or even better: from another island chain.

But if for some reason you find yourself wandering around the Keys like Moses in the desert (both want some water, but at least he had plenty of sand), here are a few activity tips.

Get a (fake) boat

Canals are so prevalent you can mistake Key Largo for Venice…if you get really drunk, eat pizza, and pretend the loud Latin music and dock parties are part of an opera.

Those canals are also home to manatees — they live in the canals to hide from the speed boats from Miami driven by Don Johnson/Miami Vice wannabes. (Hey, the 80s were a great decade for people who loved wearing pastels).

Manatees — or sea cows, as the comedian Jim Gaffigan famously calls them — are so ugly they are beautiful. They only drink fresh water (huge design flaw when you live in the ocean), so if you’re lucky, as we were, while you’re in your kayak, one will surface near a dock and a nice man will shoot his hose into the water as she float with her mouth open, guzzling (Stop it. That only sounds dirty to you). I was about a foot from her face, which has an uncanny resemblence to a Shar Pei puppy. Apparently they’ll keep drinking for 30-40 minutes until they’re full. Or so said that nice dude with the hose, and I like that story, so I’m not fact checking him.

Then kayak over to the Florida Everglades and sneak into the tiny mangrove islands and grottoes. It’s so secluded, so prehistoric, that you’ll feel time has stopped. And then you’re skin will crawl because you realize you are the cliched first five minutes of a slasher/Deliverance-style movie: Yuppie New Yorkers wandering too far because they think everything is so damn quaint.

Pretend scuba dive

I didn’t get to go diving, as we planned, since this trip was only 5 weeks post ACL surgery (a future post) and my physical therapist told me not to jock out. He’s a buzz kill.

Don’t bother snorkeling at John Pennencamp snorkeling beach — yes, “snorkeling” is in the title, but it’s too murky, crowded, and boring.

Head to Bahia Honda — drive until you come to the end of the road (Boom! Call back!)

We snorkeled for hours among sand, grassy beds, and rocky bottoms. We paid close attention found lots of fun creatures, including a stingray buried in the sand not very far from shore. We easily could have stepped right on him, which reinforced that the “stingray shuffle” isn’t a knock-off of the Electric Slide but an important way to shuffle your feet when walking on in the ocean to scare them off before they Steve Irwin you. (What, too soon?)

We also got charged by a barracuda — it thew us mad shade when we wouldn’t take his first warning to back the F up. I pissed off a number of conchs and hermit crabs by finding their secret hideouts. We became engulfed in a school of minnows at least 50,000 strong — they were so thick that when in the middle, you couldn’t see anything but tiny, shiny, silver fish.

Then go eat some key lime pie.

Pie makes everything fun. And tell me if you ever see an actual key lime tree. They must have been stolen along with the beaches.