#florida-keys

#florida-keys

Soft breezes ripple through the sea grapes, and sunlight glints off the aquamarine shallows that surround Bahia Honda State Park. Here, at Mile Marker 37 in the Lower Keys, the pace of life slows to match the gentle rhythm of the waves. The 500-acre island, wrapped in three stunning beaches and framed by the historic Old Bahia Honda Bridge, feels worlds away from the bustle of nearby Key West.

A long day means heading out to the Gulf of Mexico at 1 a.m. and returning at 6 p.m., after hauling and resetting 500 wooden traps that weigh nearly 150 pounds (70 kilos) each when filled with lobsters. The work is an orchestrated frenzy: one man hauls up the trap, another pulls out the lobsters, measures them, and stows them, while another cleans the wooden cage and stacks it, ready to go back into the sea a choreography of orange overalls.

"Our entire island chain is surrounded by water. We have more water than we do land mass. Being uniquely situated between the two large bodies of water makes us very vulnerable."